Introduction
3rd Wind is a virtual community created by ex-members of 3rd Rock Grid—a retired property of Stichting Cultural Harbour. It operates as a semi-autonomous creative enclave within the Opensim community.
3rd Wind supplies private virtual land for its residents and manages public community spaces. The community hosts performing artists, speakers, art exhibitions, discussion panels and other events, and is home to the Nuna Gallery and to Starfleet Infinity, a highly organised roleplay group.
The 3rd Wind Community is embedded in ZetaWorlds. It adheres to the TOS (Terms of Service) of that entity. As such it interfaces with an extant population and shares the provided currency (Gloebits), technical admin and commerce of its host.
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Founding principles
3rd Wind supports arts and education initiatives. It is a virtual community with members from around the globe. As a virtual community it aspires to principles of kindness, empathy, inclusion and support. It tasks participating members to apply these principles in personal and public interactions.
3rd Wind is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment where members are free of discrimination and harassment, and no such behaviours will be tolerated. Any depiction of child pornography, or sexual or violent activities with Child Avatars is strictly prohibited.
Community Membership
A member is defined as a person/avatar who participates in community affairs through land ownership, asset contribution and/or active and sustained engagement with the Community.
Members who want a say in Community affairs should become registered. To become a registered member go to JOIN and add your name to the list on the form supplied. Members will be allocated an identity number for voting and fiscal activities, to protect their privacy.
All 3rd Wind Community members are encouraged to attend meetings so that they have a say in the Community’s activities, discussing and voting on such decisions as may be required. Voting on financial issues is limited to those holding a financial stake in the Community through patronage or land ownership.
Privacy
3rd Wind respects and protects the privacy of its members. It does not collect personal data other than a nominated email account. Transactional records (generated in land purchase and patronage) and voting choices will be anonymised through issuance of a unique ID number.
Steering Committee
A 3rd Wind Steering Committee runs the day-to-day tasks of managing group resources including the financial business of the Community; liaising with the host (ZetaWorlds); allocating land and other assets; arbitrating disagreements, and representing the Community according to its collective/majority wishes.
3rd Wind Community meetings are held monthly. These meetings provide a forum to discuss issues and raise concerns. Concerns can also be raised with members of the Steering Committee outside this window. The ZetaWorlds Community has its own monthly meetings and 3rd Wind Community members are encouraged to attend these as well.
The three positions on the Steering Committee will be filled by members of good standing elected by the 3rd Wind Community.* One of those members will serve in a long term capacity as Committee Overseer (CO), the other two will serve two year terms as Committee Executives (CEs). The Overseer is tasked to provide continuity through each electoral cycle, to provide advice, monitor the Committee’s performance, and break any deadlocks in its decision making. The bulk of hands-on decision making will be carried out by Committee Executives. There is no limit to the number of terms a Community member may serve in a CE role.
In the event of misconduct by a CE, the CE can be dismissed from office by the Committee Overseer. This executive power is only to be used in an emergency where failure to take this action will cause operational or reputational damage to the Community. In this circumstance the CO must explain their dismissal action to the Community. Where the CO is deemed to have overstepped their authority, the 3rd Wind Community can remove the CO by majority vote and reinstate the CE if this is deemed reasonable.
*As a one-off interim measure three non-elected persons involved in the Community launch will form an Acting Steering Committee until an election is held (in no more than six months). This interim group will set up the appropriate processes and management systems that form the basis of community affairs going forward.
Accounting Transparency
A system will be established to collect funds from income streams into a nominated community account which will be listed as the “owner” of the services purchased from ZetaWorlds. This account will be used to pay for the virtual hosting of the Community. Rental, patronage and spending transactions will be tracked by the Steering Committee. These accounts will be available for membership scrutiny on request and a general summary of fiscal activity will be reported at monthly Community meetings.
Disputes Between Community Members
The Steering Committee will settle disputes with commonsense and application of the founding principles. If no resolution is found, the dispute will be passed to ZetasWorlds’ resolution process, if this is deemed appropriate. If the dispute is not resolved through either process, the Steering Committee will make a judgement that is binding on all parties. The Steering Committee reserves the right to evict from the Community any member who refuses to comply with a judgement. Any money paid in advance for land by an evicted tenant will be refunded on eviction. An evicted member will have their assets returned to their inventories.
Disputes Between Members and Third Parties
External disputes will be handled by the hosting grid. Any persons in breach of the host’s TOS will be directed to ZetaWorlds for action.
Community Eviction
3rd Wind retains the right to evict anyone in serious breach of its principles regardless of their standing in relation to ZetaWorlds’ TOS. It will try to resolve issues of poor conduct through counselling or arbitration, where that is possible. Eviction from the Community is an extreme resort and may include banning.
Rental Arrears
3rd Wind retains the right to evict tenants from property who fall into rental arrears where no acceptable plan for restitution is offered. Rental in arrears after 14 days—without extenuating circumstances—will result in a return of property to the owner. The empty region or parcel will be made available for re-lease.
Intellectual Property (IP) Rights
3rd Wind supports the rights of creators to their Intellectual Property. Any creator who identifies their work appearing in 3rd Wind estates in ways that are an infringement of their Intellectual Property Rights should contact a member of the steering committee to have the work investigated. The steering committee will act to take down work that is a breach of IP.
Third party claims of IP infringement (claims made by those who are not the creators of the disputed content) require compelling proof, beyond personal suspicion or noted similarity between items. The steering committee will not act on rumour or supposition.
3rd Wind seeks to make its environment a safe harbour for the creative people in virtual worlds.