Because of the length of this post, I am seriously going to have an introduction first to summarize the point. This is both for those who read on and those who stop after I make my main point here in the first few paragraphs.
The village boards should not be the village grounds of certain clan-villages. It is not only wrong to try to push people out of the public boards (which was initially done when they didn't conform), it is outright rule breaking in SL terms, and disrupts the general public impression of SL.
Briefly I had requested that the village boards be renamed back to their country names; well, regardless of whether that gets implemented or not, I still want to present a different case that doesn't quite fit under "feature suggestions".
And that is the release of the village boards as village RP locations. Some people come here for the constant leveling in the forest so that they can get super resets. Then, with those super resets, they can Oro kill endlessly with all of the resets and feel like a boss.
Others, come here just to chat with friends and play around. They don't really feel all that inclined to leveling, and they definitely do not get the whole forum debates. They just want to hang out and RP as they please, whether it is naruto related or not.
And others are intensely naruto-related RP only, and they only want to play ninja (no pun intended... Wait, no totally intended there). As far as they are concerned, anything not canon or at least anime based on Naruto is not what they are up to and about.
And finally, there are those who don't fit into either three niches, and either bounce between them, are just a mix, or make their own niche.
The point is that the village boards should be a gathering and meeting place for all of these kinds. Little is stopping people from actually posting on these boards freely other than the villages associated with them.
Because my village, Konoha, is definitely one of the pots in this kitchenware, I'll use us as a clear example.
At some point (and even now) we have, without much holding back, seized possession of the Konoha Village board, and made it our village entirely. It's gates, it's walls, our defenses, ours ours ours. I didn't see a major issue with this, until I really looked at the situation.
After a chat, it dawned on me that, many of the non-board clans are not only still kicking and around, but they are in full swing in their own halls and stuff. Now, my own clan halls is about as lively as a graveyard on Christmas (not Halloween) and the village board doesn't fare much better.
So why do we still have a perceived control over it? It is certainly not within our limits to; they are open to the public for a reason. Capitalizing on the convenience, we made the village board ours at least in part to make it much easier to have cross-village communication. Of course, not everyone can have that kind of convenience, and in fact, we shouldn't really have it either.
So I have proposed that we stop patrolling the board like we own the location on the board. Granted, people are not going to flock to it instantly after we say "We're done here", as it would take time for people to get over their general avoidance of the board. But it's a start, and a start that can be implemented across the SL realm.
The village can, and should, exist within the halls of the clans. Making village boards the villages is outright wrong, and a wrong that should be righted, if for nothing else but the rule breaking nature of it.
"2. Be nice to each other. Harassment, stalking and other such things will not be tolerated. Your freedom ends when another players freedom is harmed, basically. There is no catalog on what exactly is covered, but a fine invention called 'commonsense' should give you a few hints on what is allowed and what not."
Shooing away people from the boards simply because they do not make an entry through the gates, if not harassment in a public form, is definitely harming the freedom of any non-village player. When we were doing this, either the moderators turned a blind eye or didn't see the issue with it. But there is an issue with it; no one should have to go through regulated gates in order to RP on the village board.
"But we're not physically stopping them!" Well, not anymore, we don't have to practically attack them to get them not to post 'out of line'. It's OOC if they really wanna play on the board and not follow the village regulations, and like sheep struck with a rod a few too many times in the past, they just avoid the mess altogether.
I will not claim to know every single feeling of everyone on SL. But what I do know is, whether they're dodging the village boards because of knowingly dodging shafters, or unwittingly out of habit or just plain preference, the dominance of the board is still wrong, and something that needs to be changed.
I vote "Free the Boards". As I come to a close, I bring back the point of this post: The village boards have been dominated by village-clans for far too long. It is not right, it is 'unlawful' on the premises of game rules, and it is disrupting the public view of SL. Anyone not in a clan would be awfully bored unless they either know someone or get into a clan right off the bat.
For the sake of the future of SL; end the monopoly, not just figuratively and RP only in the clan halls, but outright remove the gate restrictions and other things that have popped up on the boards.