Is LL protecting Impeach Bush because they're thinking of bringing in billboards?

Maybe the reason they don't want to deal with impeach bush is because they don't want to set a precedent against billboards and the advertising dollars they would generate.

As part of a bigger picture, maybe.

I don't view this as them protecting just impeach bush though, to leave room for billboards in the future.

They simply cannot open that can of worms. As much as I think the signs are retarded, I have to agree that they must allow him to do it.

If they allow a vocal contingent to dictate what he can do on land he legitimately purchased, what's next? Who's next? Chrischun's video boards? Land baron's for sale signs?

There was once a big outrage over Anshe's for sale signs - they didn't give in then, and they can't now.

Eventually, he may tire of paying the tier on all that land, or decide he's made his point.

The best thing people can do right now is not give in and buy the parcels, and not move. Moving is the most damaging thing in this whole mess. It lowers the average main grid land value a tiny bit every time someone does that.

I began pondering yesterday if that isn't Lazarus' actual goal. A person who wishes to gain tenants on private isles would be well served by this activity. I have no clue who in particular might do such a thing, so save the scoldings please folks, it's just a thought.

Oh, absolutely, your last statement to me is very sound.

Lets face it, if I had 60 SIMs that I was paying tier for to sell to people outside of the mainland, I'd probably fund lazerus myself.

His fifth paragraph is very sound.

That Anshe sign business - I remember that. I hadn't thought of that. That does muddy the waters.

coco

P.S. But thinking Anshe could be behind Lazarus - no.

Perhaps premium customers need to be able to block display of objects by parcel, owner, object name, texture name, etc. while the free customers get to look at the supposedly imminent big money billboards.

I can come up with no other sound reasoning for his actions.

There's a difference between billboards and these signs:

Billboards are ads that are strategically placed in areas that have high traffic in order to draw attention to a product, service, or location that is being advertised. Although some dislike advertising to begin with, due to the amount of spam in our e-mail boxes at times, these are not unsightly or unpleasant to look at in most cases.

The Impeach Bush signs are not billboards. They have been placed throughout the grid, even in areas that see very little to no traffic at all! They are a complete and total eyesore, and completely unwanted. Plus, unlike billboards (which usually has a positive impact on a business), these signs are creating a major negative effect for the area near where the signs are placed - residents forced to move, businesses losing customers, etc.

Free speech is a bitch, sometimes.

If we start regulating what people do on their own land, it's a very, very slippery slope.

I know I'd be one of the first to start agitating if the removal of these signs became precedent. I can fire off abuse reports for "ugly" builds faster than most people can type.

The same thought had crossed my mind too blaze. LL are always looking for new revenue generation... this has been done in other online worlds, and has been shown to work to an extent here already with Metadverse and the like... seems like from their point-of-view it's small mental leap and a logical progression - unfortunately

Free speech != being able to force others to listen.

The point of the billboards is clearly to affect other people's land. After that the coordinates are irrelevant.

I am on the side of letting them stay, as much as I detest them; however, I do have to wonder WHY they HAVE to be in clumps of 3, 4, or even 5. That really exacerbates things. Wouldn't ONE be enough? Apparently, 3 or 4 sign and cube types, some of which spin, is the answer.

This clumping is why I really am having a hard time believing it's really just a political message.

In any event, I reluctantly have to say that they must be allowed, precisely because of the slippery slope LF and others have cited.

Yumi's right. It may appear to be a tough call at first, but the crucial difference is this is clearly extortion and Anshe's for sale signs were clearly not, in fact, they were helpful.

coco

Agreed 110%. If all it was is a message then 2, maybe 3 signs a sim would suffice. But he has them clumped up all over entire sims in some cases. Also his reactions to people who voice their oposition against what he's doing also stacks onto my disbelief that this is political. In an news article he's claimed that he doubts 1 in 10 plots sell, more like 1 in 20. But what he neglects to mension that his plots sell for like 10,000 - 40,000 L$ and that he has like 200 plots. Ok lets do the math here:

current market is 264 per $1 USD at the time of this post.

10,000L = US$36.54
40,000L = US$146.20

If he sells 1 in 20 that means he sells 10 out of his 200.

10x 10k = 100k = US$365.52
10x 40k = 400k = US$1,462.11

Highest tier is US$195 + US$10 (assuming he pays monthly) = US$205 a month.

This is not including the various 512m2, 1024m2, and 2048m2 plots he owns wich are WAY more exspensive (like 200k for a 512m2). I don't think its even worth countinuing the math here.

Or, y'know, they actually believe that crap about keeping SL a mostly-free-speech zone.

Yes, I hate the signs too... but free speech means the price I pay for shooting off my own mouth is, I have to let Ann Coulter shoot hers off, too.

I can...Money

There will always be people with more money than sense who WILL buy his hideously overpriced parcels to rid themselves of the nuisance.

Witness the people who spend obscene amounts of money to buy that last 512 plot in the middle of their land (even without the signs).

Land extortion is land extorition and as long as people are willing to pay to make these signs go away the extortionist has what he wants ... a large cashflow.

Do we reallllllly have to let her shoot hers off too?

She needs to be tied up and ball gagged.

Free speech means you can turn up your soapbox in Speaker's Corner and say what you wish. It doesn't mean you can burst into Harrods and shout what you want to make sure people listen to you.

The Impeach Bush cubes are clearly designed purely to be seen from other plots. That's equivalent to his speech being forced into your house/business/whatever. Free speech could still be provided by putting his case for impeaching bush on a notecard that's handed out on click, so anyone who wants to go listen can do so.

I guess I'll post it again, though this seems like a stuck record: http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=787

Money is what I was referring to. The long term benefit of prodding people to rent/buy in a private island due to the craptastic magin grid.

I am one of those people who will spend obscene amounts of money to buy that last 512 plot and even I think these prices don't warrant the benefit provided for shelling out those $L. But I'm pig-headed and this doesn't really bother me that much other than on a very high, philosophic level.

Someone noted that the individual claimed around 1 in 10 of the plots sell. I would like to hear from that 10%. Is he really turning over that many of these plots? I have a number of these plots near my various land locations and haven't seen any of them sell.

My guess is they are taking no action because either:

1. They don't care
   
2. They have historically shown a perverse sense of priorities especially regarding customer right-to-build-whatever-the-hell-I-want
   
3. Mr. Impeach gives them a lot of direct revenue
   
4. The Linden staff are terrified of making decisions

or some combination thereof.

e. They want to skew the player base towards those who would like to see Bush impeached.


coco

The Impeach Bush signs I found disappear if you click them. They're not permanent. Annoying? yes. Ugly? You betcha. But so are half the prims rezzed on the grid right now.

You know, this issue is really going back to my first months in SL...

Back then, I used to live in Slate. Nice community, and so on. When something happened that I didn't particularly agree with, I picked up and moved out. Before I left, I bought a small piece of land bordering Slate and put a protest sign of sorts on it.

Hyperbolic responses aside, the sign remained, free of molestation by the Lindens (I invited them over to take a look at it to ensure I wasn't violating ToS).

A few months later, in Federal, I posted a sign that was protesting the overt abuse of the Sim by a certain club. Again, violent hyperbole followed (such a string of racial epithets, sexual orientation comments, and bodily threats that would make delicate ears flee from the room), but the sign wasn't really violating ToS. I took it down at a Linden's behest, though, even though it wasn't illegal.

So I guess you coudl blame me for the precedent I set a long many months ago. I still think it's important that we let people put what they want on their own land. If we start regulating it, it becomes a very slippery slope that I'd rather not have to navigate down every time I want to put a sign on my front lawn.

LF

I might point out that, in real life, while there are zoning laws and neighborhood associations and the like, in the absence of these things if I wanted to paint up some plywood and stick a big old "IMPEACH BUSH" sign in my actual real-life yard, that is protected speech in the United States.

A closer analogy might have me putting up my soapbox and shouting and you being able to hear it. So long as it's a peaceful assembly, I am generally allowed to do this no matter how much my shouting annoys you across the street.

Some countries do prohibit this sort of thing, I know, but I'm assuming Linden Lab, being a US company, is naturally biased towards the local interpretation of what "free speech" means. (Of course, the local interpretation means LL can impose as many restrictions as they like on their own property, which basically means all of the SL grid. Even private islands.)

Even in the US, political speech can be held to restricted time and venue. It's how you get the demonstraters behind the fence phenomenon. Such a thing could be in order here.

If Linden starts censoring what people are allowed to put up on their own land, we will loose alot more then floating impeach bush signs.

Yeah, and you'll note that an awful lot of Americans are of the opinion that "protesters in special free-speech zones" is a Patriot Act-style infringment of civil liberty.

It's not an example I'd care to use.