Community Charter

Preamble

The intent of the East River Community is to have an open, collaborative, convivial space where we can grow our personal projects and form new relationships, friendships, partnerships, and organizations. The community encourages residents and non residents to collaborate and be involved. The community offers its resources to anyone willing to start business and cultural initiatives.

We believe in freedom, respect and solidarity.

We are a community!

Founding principles

The founding principles of the community are:

• Sponsoring arts and cultural activities.
• Establishing partnerships with relevant Second Life organizations.
• Providing a balanced, coherent and aesthetically pleasing environment.
• Improving the quality of living and aesthetics of our area.
• Sharing resources and collaborate for the benefit of all the community and each individual member and resident.

Definition of community member

For community member we mean a land-holding group or an individual land owner. Essentially, the community members are the stakeholders of the community. The community members are part of the Steering Committee, the ruling body of the community. Thus, the terms “community members” and “Steering Committee’s members” are equivalent.

For the purpose of this document, avatars who live in the community or collaborate with it are not community members. They are defined as “residents”.

Community standards

All community members must agree on the following community standards:

• Abide to this charter.
• Provide a safe and friendly environment.
• Have great care of the member’s land property and the territory where the community is located.
• Build and maintain a cohesive, pleasant environment.
• All buildings must be pleasant and cohesive to the environment and must be built in a plausible, realistic way.
• Huge buildings such as skyscrapers are not allowed. Skyboxes are not allowed below 300 m.
• Terraforming must be pleasant and have a graceful transition.
• Support and promote the community.
• Support and promote all the merchants in the community.
• Collaborate with other community members and share resources at no cost, or at the member’s cost.
• Maintain good relations with neighbors in and outside the community.
• Respect the privacy of residents.
• Provide free access to all areas of the community to residents and visitors.
• With the exception of very specific and limited cases, ban lines are to be avoided. Other means used to protect the privacy are recommended.
• Collaborate to the creation of a network of roads, pathways and tracks.

Governance

The East River Community is a federation of land holding groups. The community governance is based on a federative union of partially self-governing groups and/or land owners. As such, community governance is exerted at the following levels:

Community Governance

Community governance has effect on all community members and their land properties within the limits set in the following paragraphs.

Steering Committee

The East River Community Steering Committee is the ruling body of the community governance that oversees and provides guidance on key issues such as community policies and objectives.

Steering Committee Membership

In order to be considered for membership of the East River Community Steering Committee, the candidate must:

• Have its membership approved by the committee.
• The candidate must be a Second Life resident in good standing order for at least 6 months.
• A group must have at least one Second Life resident in good standing order for at least 6 months.
• The candidate must own land in close proximity of the community.
• The candidate must own at least 4,096 sqm of land.
• The candidate must adhere to the charter of the community and its founding principles.
• Each group may be represented in the Steering Committee only once. Honorary members do not count as group representatives.

Honorary members

Community members who have distinguished themselves for their loyalty and contribution to the community for a continuous period of time of at least 2 years can be elected to the committee upon approval of the committee itself. No more than 2 honorary members can be elected to the committee at any time. Honorary members do not count as group representatives.

Steering Committee’s rights

The Steering Committee has the following rights:

• Amend this charter.
• Define and enforce the community standards, guidelines and affiliation requirements.
• When requested, settle any controversy among community members.
• Determine the suspension of community members (groups or individual land owners) in case of violations of this charter or the community standards.
• Determine the exclusion of community members (groups or individual land owners) in case of violations of this charter, the community standards or other serious acts.
• Represent the community members in all relations with Linden Lab, other communities and organizations (foreign policies).
• Promote business activities and public events of the community and each individual member equally and without discrimination.
• Promote and oversee resource sharing, such as promotional channels, web activities, public venues, events.

Steering Committee’s limits

• The fundamental rights of the community members may not be altered by a unilateral decision of the Steering Committee.
• The Steering Committee does not interfere on any issue pertaining local governance, groups or individual land owners that are part of the community, unless explicitly asked to settle disputes by one or more involved parties.

Steering Committee’s voting process

All decisions pertaining the community governance, within the limits set by this charter, must be settled by a vote of the Steering Committee in accordance to the following paragraphs:

Vote procedure

• A call to vote can be requested by any member of the Steering Committee.
• A written communication of the vote proposition must be communicated to all the Steering Committee members in prompt time.
• The majority of the Steering Committee members should possibly agree on the voting date. When this is not possible within a reasonable amount of time (few days), the requesting member can unilaterally decide the voting date.
• A call to vote can be performed either with a public meeting or by other means, such as the group voting feature in Second Life, or other supports.
• The majority of the Steering Committee members should possibly agree on how the vote will be performed. When this is not possible within a reasonable amount of time (few days), the requesting member can unilaterally decide how to perform the vote.
• All votes must be performed within 3 days of the call to vote.
• In order to avoid that the decision process is blocked due to different contingencies (such as lack of participation or prolonged absence of community members) all calls to vote can be performed in three rounds, until one of the following conditions are met:
  1. On first call, all community members vote.
  2. On second call, the majority of the community members vote. The call to vote must be performed at least 3 days after the previous call. A written communication must be sent to all the Steering Committee members stating the vote proposition and the new voting date.
  3. On third call, at least 3 community members vote. The call to vote must be performed at least 1 week after the previous call. A written communication must be sent to all the Steering Committee members stating the vote proposition and the new voting date.
  4. When none of the above conditions are met, a voting proposal can be submitted again 1 month after the last call to vote.
     In occasion of particularly relevant issues, when the first two conditions are not met, the remaining community members at their discretion may decide to suspend the voting process in order to have a higher number of voting members.

Vote resolution

All vote resolutions are determined by the majority of voters.

The vote resolutions are binding for all the community members, including those absent to the voting process.

Local Governance

Community member are responsible of the local governance over their land properties. Local governance has effect on all land properties of a single community member within the limits set in the following paragraphs.

Community Members’ fundamental rights

A community member exerts governance over its land properties with the following fundamental rights:

• The community member can opt to leave the community at any time.
• The community member cannot be forced to deed land to the community.
• The community member remains the only owner of the land, even when the land is deeded to the community.
• All land properties must be returned when the community member opts to leave the community.
• At discretion of the community member, any object owned by the member will be returned when this opts to leave the community, even when the objects were deeded to a group.
• The community member maintains full control of the development of the property as concerning business activities and buildings’ construction, within the limits of this charter and the community standards.
• The community member is not required to share any source of revenues generated by business activities, unless the member voluntarily chooses to do so.
• In addition to this charter and the community standards, the community member may opt to have its own set of standards, guidelines, rental and business agreements, as long as these are not in conflict with this charter and the community standards.
• The community member may opt to create its own promotional channels, in the form of web resources, mailing list or social network activities, inside and outside Second Life. However, the community member must state in all its promotional activities its affiliation to the community and must share its promotional channels with the rest of the community. Some exceptions are granted when declaring the affiliation to the community is not feasible, as in the case of technical limits.

Land property

Land property is regulated by the following paragraphs:

• All land owners who wish to be affiliated to the community can opt to either deed the land to an existing group or create their own groups.
• Deeding land to a group is a recommended practice because of the benefits granted by Linden Lab.
• Deeding land to an existing group is not mandatory and members cannot be forced to deed land to a group that the member doesn’t find suitable with his own interests.
• Each member (group or individual land owner) remains the exclusive owner of the land that he chooses to join to the community, even when the land is deeded to an existing group.
• The member cannot be forced to deed all its land properties to the community.
• All land properties deeded to an existing group must be returned when the member opts to leave the community.
• The member who decides to sell his land properties has the obligation of making a first public offer restricted to other community members at a fair price. After a first offer is made, private negotiations with members are allowed. Should none of the members be interested in buying the land, the selling member can offer the land for sale to anyone.
• Land owners have full faculty of developing their properties as they better suit, within the limits set by this charter and the community standards.

Symbols and identity

All affiliated members are required to display community symbols and promote its identity. Symbols and identity are defined by the following items:

• The community name.
• The community flag and banners.
• The community coat of arms.
• The community motto: “bene nobis unitur” (together we prosper).

Only symbols officially approved by the Steering Committee can be used. Any Steering Committee member may request to remove non-compliant symbols. Failure to meet a request to remove non-compliant symbols may lead to a suspension of the member in violation.

Resource sharing

• Web activities (blog, web sites, social networks, wikis, etc).
• Promotional channels (mailing list, social networks, blogs, wikis, kiosks, commercial displays, etc).
• Public venues.
• Public events.
• Roads and tracks connections.
• Other resources, such as music streams.

Suspension of membership

Affiliated members may be suspended from the community as a consequence of minor violations and failure to comply with corrective terms as requested by the Steering Committee. Repeated violations of the suspended member may lead to the exclusion from the community.

Suspended members are excluded by all forms of promotion and resource sharing for the duration of the suspension.

The suspension is lifted by the Steering Committee once the reasons that led to the suspension are no longer in effect or are bypassed by other factors determined by the committee.

Exclusion

Affiliated members may be excluded from the community as a consequence of severe or repeated violations. When the member is excluded, all the land properties are no longer considered part of the community and are returned in full, when deeded. All references (name, flag, banners, coat of arms, etc.) to the community on the excluded property must be promptly removed.