Small plot blackmail builds

There are small plots set to sale all over SL which are obviously of no other purpose except to blackmail people around them into purchasing them at exorbinant L$/M2 prices.

Are you in favor of SL doing something about this, for example, warning them that they are at risk of losing their land?

These builds ruin the value of the services that LL is trying to provide. It seems only obvious that they need to make an example of someone.

Do you mean the 'Impeach Bush' plots specifically? I had a brief conversation with the owner of these. He told me if anyone buys the plots he uses the money to buy more. I just released some plots I was trying to sell as he set up his blight of posters next to them and made them unsaleable.

How very enterprising of them. I love to see how people use their creativity and skills to make money in SL. I think in this kind of environment and with the free enterprise/pro-capitalism atmosphere that permeates the place that this is just as legitimate as anything else that goes on. I don't see how you can use the term blackmail when it comes to creating a market for your product. They're just making their product more desirable surely? I don't see how they ruin anything any more than the already hideous crap that blights the majority of our landscape.

In fact, I think I'll give it a go! Sounds like a high profit low input business. I shall henceforth be known as a 'single-square land baron'!

Yes, interestingly enough a particular user has made a habit of buying up the land which goes at a firesale next these plots.

Why not get people twice? Once on the blackmail plot and once on all the people who firesale their stuff to get the hell out of there.

Might as well just put public land scanner scripts in them, while you're at it.

I had bought some of the little one teeny plots at one time and put political propaganda messages on them. I wasn't trying to increase their value for resale, I am just a political fanatic and saw this as an opportunity to promote my cause. I had some notion of using them to be able to set home spots in different places. Turns out that anything with political words, no matter how hard I tried to make it look nice and be small looked like crap. I sold mine, maybe gave a few away. sold them at a loss. This was several months ago.

So, moral of this is don't assume in the absence of evidence that every small build that looks horrible was done on purpose by a bad person with bad motives. And for those who think these small plots automatically mean high profits don't asuume that either. Some folks aren't going to buy you out from principle, others are tiered up and cant' buy you out.

Since we have no right to privacy in any of our actions, including business deals, it would be ok to list the names of people engaged in the small blockmail plot business I suppose, in an attempt to shame them out of it. That might just be free advertising, fhough.

Well, I guess another way of looking at it, the tier payment you make is much smaller than the impact you make on a sim.

I think the rule should be that if you own 16 m2 in a sim, that counts as at least 64 or 128.

These small plots consume more visual space then they deserve, giving the miniscule monthly payments. (512/16 * 9.99 = 9.99 / 32 = 33 cents per month per plot.

Ooh! Thanks for the tips, blaze

The public land scanner one especially. A single square plot could be really useful in the short term to people who want somewhere to conduct testing/scanning/launching of replicating objects etc.

Oh, and anyone who wants to sell me a single square of land, lemme know

Yeah, it's a nightmare out there.

But of course, as per usual, I suspect LL is completely unaware or simply doesn't care.

Without zoning tools of some kind we're rather helpless to fix this mess.

Do you think shame would work when somebody doing this in most cases has none and cares not what others think? If adjacent plots are purchased and the land is set for sale, do you think someone looking for land is going to notice the name and associate the seller with the method used to obtain the land? Should that occur, an alt's name could be used.

Report abuse - I buy small plots for SLBoutique billboards, but I do try to make it by road sides and such, and have had a professional graphic designer put together our look and feel... you won't see particles shooting out of them, and they're not bright orange and pink.

I've been abuse reported a few times for my billboards, sometimes correctly (accidentally being over the border, etc), and have always tried to work with the residents to make the situation work. Pissing people off is bad business. I've kept track of how much I've paid for the miniplots, and if a neighbor asks me to remove the billboard, I'll offer to sell them the miniplot to attach to theirs for the cost I bought it at.

However, in the past, I've seen people (you might, by a Small Chance, remember one in particular) buy 16 meters plots and ruin entire sim's performance with land scanning devices set to constantly run on a timer, thus hogging resources and causing the entire sim to run slower. These were eventually set for sale for L$1600, or L$100 per meter - and people had no choice to buy them. In blatant cases of land abuse like this, I think the Lindens should step in, because that's what it is...ABUSE.

Regards,

-Flip

I need about 200 tiny squares. Must get my message out.

Look for my signs soon "DOWN WITH ZONING!"

The irony is, by doing this in SL, you're pretty much solidifying public opnion against you and whatever cause you have emblazoned all over your sign.

The Impeach Bush guy is just an extortionist. And anyone who buys his plots is encouraging him to continue on his merry little way. It was fun seeing Jack Linden whisk away his massive sign and spinning cube in Brown. Zoned sims don't allow billboards and signs. The guy immediately dropped the price of his land from 3000L to 500L (for a 64m plot). Tee hee!

I wish there was a solution to land extortion. This has always seemed like a bit of a griefer loop hole to me.

If you're serious, I will gladly let you have a piece of my land for free.

I bought one of the political moron plots, just to smooth it up and push it under the water in Tan, where it belonged. The best part? Deleting the sign instead of returning it. Speak your views, but don't be an ass about it. Undermines the message.

Tan looks much improved without it.

Yay! I shall rent it out for L$100 per prim for a month to people who want to try out their replicating virii and stuff, then I shall build a neon pink light casting tower with particle emitters on it with a spinning for sale sign and set it for sale to L$1600.

Anyone else wishing to donate to my cause is most welcome

Kritter for president!

If you own land all around such a thing, you can just put up walls to blot them out completely. Screenshot walls that make it look like there's nothing there at all are even better, and there's various invisible wall tricks that work, too. Don't bother buying their land, just make them totally useless.

People using particle spammers, OTOH, need to be abuse-reported.

huh what I call those billboard plots

Hey! I got one of those next to my satellite shop! I just made my own poster real big on that shop.

coco

Last summer I had several plots I owned bordered by huge spinning grinning portraits of Bush. When the guy (a notorious curmudgeon and money trader at the time) added particles to them, I reported it since they were going onto my land. The items were removed when he didn't respond to the Linden request to stop crossing the border.

I used to own a bunch of 16sm plots that I used legitimately for "micro stores" and billboards, but stopped when I was afraid of being lumped in with the griefers who profiteer from extortion. It was fun looking at my land list and seeing I had plots in 30 or 40 sims. I miss that.

For a while I bought 32-128sm roadside plots and put up "Roadside Table" rest areas, but those didn't catch on with the general public.

I only have one 16sm plot now, in Newman. It is a very dignified shrine to my favorite NASCAR driver, Ryan Newman.

As an aside, Blaze, do you actually go into SL, or just play the forums? I feel that you would not have to ask so many questions if you spent more time in world.

There is a plot like this next to my land in Roxy. I asked Cyn if anything could be done about it, and she said she would look into it.

I guess time will tell.

I actually have to deal with this BS right now and its far worse than any pathetic political bs, this is strait up advertising right in front of my land aimed at my club for the perpose of avoiding to pay for vendor space or take business away from my club (wich those plots are still for sale for a ridiculas price). One of my neighbors over heard me talking outside of my club about a 512m2 plot by my land for sale and that I was gonna buy it the next day when I got paid at work. Low and behold that person bought it and sectioned it off into 64m2 plots labeled "Extra Prims for Sale." When from being a 2500L plot to a 4000L plot and people already bought them, raised the price, and put up ads & a video rental right next to my club. Now I got these eye sores in the water ruining the view that are basicly there to force me to buy the plots to be rid of them while in the mean time trying to get my customers' attention. Now this is blackmail, but ya know what? F*ck them, I'm putting up a wall that'll most likely be more vendor spaces. Hey the view is already ruined so now if they want to advertise to my customers they will pay me to do so or lower the prices of their plots and leave. Choice is theirs and either way I win.

I do believe, though this is unconfirmed, that blaze has been spotted inworld.

Earlier I was planning on creating a wheat field with crop circles, but now i'm just going to do a huge field of swaying political billboards. I figure to do "Vote Marey Cary for President of California" signs, that way I can use pics of porn too.