Is LL Subsidizing Our Exploitation?

I still find a great deal of very troubling obfuscation here, and I don't understand why it was necessary.

We asked if Neualtenberg paid for their land up front -- a purchase price as any one else would have to pay if they were getting a small land or a big land to do a project.

After may go-arounds, each one getting more shrill, we understood that no, they did not. They got a deal. The deal was that they just pay the tier. Yes, that's a deal. It is indeed a deal -- a special relationship with the company -- to get your hands on a big chunk of land to play on, and only have to pay tier, and not have to pay the up-front cost.

We're next treated to haughty indignation about our suspicions because we're told that it is NOT a deal, because they didn't pay an upfront price, but there's nothing about that arrangement that undercuts the social-democracy arguments about eat-the-land-barons because Neualtenberg *doesn't own the land*. That is, it can't dispose of the land, it can't subdivide the land and it can't sell the land.

Well, let's leave aside the issue of how we're all in the same boat of not REALLY owning this land, because if we don't pay tier, it will be taken away from us, and the company can also, under the TOS, kick us out of the game at any time.

Let's just look at the issue of how this community cannot subdivide or sell the land. You wonder why this wasn't stated up front dozens of posts ago.

But it doesn't AT ALL obviate the charges of obfuscation and dilatory evasion.

The fact is, it doesn't matter. So what? So you can't subdivide the land or sell it? You still get to play on it. We don't know if you collect dwell -- possibly not -- but you get all kinds of in-game advantages, in terms of attraction of people to your site, a public profile, extra ratings on your avatar's profiles, and other sometimes unquantifiable benefits.

You get to play the game on a big space, whereas other people have to sit on a small space of 512 or 1024 and after that initial payment, still pay tier, too.

Let me rinse and repeat: you got a big space to play in. That's what the game is about, and you got it without having to do what everyone else has to do, which is "own" it by paying a big price up front.

No amount of protestation that you "still have to pay" cuts it at all --- we all "still have to pay" tier, duh, and some of us have to pay MORE because they paid up front costs for land, and then have to try to make that amount back through gameplay that takes place on far smaller, far less visible, far less advantageous gameplay spaces than you.

It's like Animal Farm. Some animals are more equal than others, hmmm?

No one would care about your arrangement with the company -- the system of special grants to encourage player-run projects itself is not at issue here.

They wouldn't care -- unless you used such a system -- having a big game space to play in -- to mount an attack on the class of people in the game who use their hard-earned money from RL and SL to pay upfront costs to get ahold of that big game space to play in WITHOUT any special relationships. To be sure, they subdivide and sell -- something you can't do. But again, so what? Some might get a profit, some may not, but given it's a game, they don't have the advantage that you have after they subdivide and sell.

They then don't have a big game space to play in any more, do they? They are lucky if they even break even, and some of their land sits unpurchased. They have their own problems.

I must say whatever interest I had in this project and benign attitude toward it has shriveled because of the unseemly way in which those in the project have conducted themselves in showing simple public accountability about questions as to their arrangements. They couldn't answer a straight question, they couldn't do it in straightforward sentences, which should have been as follows:

1. Yes, we got a deal from the company for a player-sponsored government which gave us access to a large gameplay space, space which is not available to the ordinary player.
2.No, we didn't pay any money up front to purchase land because it's not owned land.
3. Yes, we pay tier each month at the same rate as everyone else.
4. No, we can't subdivide the land and sell it, but we have other advantages such as visibility, ratings, and other unquantifiable advantages -- the main being a large gamespace to play in.
5. Yes, we have no problems with using this platform we've obtained in the game to attack the very land-auction and land-baron system in the game which we ourselves have skipped over due to our advantageous special relationship with the company, because we think social democracy and our project is uber alles.
6. No, no one can cry foul about this arrangement because they, too, could go try to get the company to give them a big gamespace to play in with their idea of a perfect government.
7. No, we don't view this special insider relationship and special access to a large game space as exploitative in a larger sense, even though we skipped over the step that everyone else not blessed by the company has to go through, namely upfront payment of a huge amount for large land.

Are we done?

Fair enough, as I do not see it as relevant to the topic of land tier fee discounts that allow players to buy even more land to hold in their tier for sale. Whether Neualtenberg had to pay any rent or not to occupy the space they are in does not seem relevant to the discussion, so the focus on it seemed absurd and an attempt to cloud Ulrika's point by attacking her and the project directly. I disagree with Ulrika's stance on the problem - I don't think the tier discounts are the issue. It is true we could go back and forth about this, so I will stop - we both view it differently.

Concise. Accurate. Professional.

Let's say we get some capes and clean up this town?

~Ulrika~

I answered your sophmoric strawman question the first time you asked it.

But how does the presence of Neualtenburg affect you adversely? Are Ulrika and Kendra profitting from the land? I'm brand new to the project, but even I know that they're asking people to donate a portion of their land tier to the project so that the land WILL be payed for.

We can infer from that that Linden Labs are acting as venture capitalists of sorts to an experiment that could be beneficial to them without having to do any of the actual legwork or organization. Please tell me how this affects your quality of life in SL. It's such an unreasonable complaint, and waste of your time persuing it.

There is no evading or obfustication going on. As I explained in my first answer to this ridiculous piece of hegelian tripe. We don't own the land, therefore the question is not applicable.

Think of it as a quarterly version of Burning Life in which we applied for a grant, and must constantly prove our worth to the Lindens in order to keep the experiment alive.

The "binary" question was, in short, not adequate to the task of being germaine to the point.

I just went back and re-read every post you made towards me, Kendra.

You made five posts that either dismissed the question entierly or did not provide a clear answer.

In a sixth you insult me.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be hostile, here, but thats what happened. I just went back to check in case I had missed a post all along.

Furthermore, I fail to see how asking "Did you pay an initial fee for the land?" is either sophmoric or a straw man, so I'm going to assume this post has a similar goal as your last one to me.

when or if I actually insult you --you'll know it.

I am puzzled why Cristiano is taking the side of players who would like to dismantle the very system he has gained advantage from himself in the game with big projects or larger amounts of land, given that he would be taxed and penalized merely for buying and trading land.


What part of "no, we didn't pay upfront costs" was so "impossible" to answer? We asked whether tier was waived or the upfront cost was raised -- we asked what the deal was. It took, many, many indignant posts to get this answer. Why? OF course it's binary and yes/no. Did you get a deal? Yes. Did you pay upfront costs like everyone else? No. What was the nature of the deal, then? A special dispensation to waive upfront purchase prices and just pay tier to have access to a big game space for a planned community. I can see other planned communities like Abacus where the people had to pay a large upfront purchase price and still have to pay tier, and we can't be sure they've made back their costs. (Personally I wouldn't look for any special relationship with the Lindens to do a planned community, and wouldln't want upfront costs waived or tier waved, because I believe that unless we can make such planned communities work within the context of the existing game rules for everyone -- upfront purchase costs and tier costs -- then we can't expect to EVER see ANY future for planned communities free of harassment, ugly builds, undesirable businesses adjacent, etc.)



The player who used the word "weasel wording" was exactly on the money as the player who said the math was monkey-math. For some curious reason, the denizens of Neualtenberg couldn't tell us right off the bat that they didn't pay the upfront purchase price, which was HIGHLY relevant in a thread where these self-same denizens were expecting us not only to pay upfront purchase prices, but pay taxes because our work isn't viewed as "commensurate" in their Leninist scheme, and also to pay penalties for rapid land trades because this was somehow viewed as "unseemly" by their social democratic lights. Our penalties and taxes were going to benefit...errrmmmm.....social democracy communities sponsored with special deals by the company? I don't know. But we never learned the advantages to the whole game for this system of progressive taxation. Supposedly it was to look out for the little guy, and give him a leg up against the land barons. We never heard chapter and verse, however, how the little guy could really then use his new system where land barons were punished to get anything like ahead himself. In fact, we never heard how those 40 or 140 little guys were ever going to really get corralled into a group purchase-price-free or tier-free scheme such as to get the kind of game place to play in that Nberg had.



Yup. And we said that. And we didn't get straight answers from word one.



Wrong. As I've indicated, getting access to a big gamespace, getting player points, getting whatever else you get, is not insignificant, and it is duplicitous to pretend otherwise.



Huh? But it is. The group got access to a big game space for free, and only had to start paying tier. That's an advantage. It's not an advantage I'm claiming for myself, or an advantage I'm asking to be removed from the game. I'm just saying that those who obtain access to large gamespaces for free ought not to be the ones throwing stones on a system that enables others to pay for large game spaces and then resell them at a profit.
They got something for nothing. We didn't.



Huh? But look how long it took them just to admit that THEY DID NOT PAY AN UPFRONT LAND COST. They kept pretending this is just perplexity about their inability to answer a binary question, when in fact it was reluctance to face the music and the implications for a public posture that calls for taxing and penalizing the hell out of everybody else who pays for a big gamespace, when they themselves are sitting pretty on a large game-space for free -- except for tier, which the landowners have to pay TOO.

You know.. If I had the balls of Kris Ritter, I would say fuck you Prokofy. But I don't.. so, I'll just say, you sir have been answered. I don't give a flip if you like the answer. No wrong has been done here by *anyone*. Thank you for the debate. Sleep well and know that you have been heard, and you are mistaken in much, valid in some. And sorry for the dead horse head that you wake up to. Sleep well. *tips hat*

Ulrika...

In thinking about your original statement more.. I still have to say I disagree with you.

Let's apply the same sort of 'subsidizing' idea to another product, for comparisson. I build homes. I have homes I sell and I have freebies. Freebies are meant to assist the newcomer who may not be flush with cash.

Each of these types of homes took my time and effort to design, build, texture, and package. That is billable time for either type of build, yet one type of the homes costs the end user nothing. It could very easily be said that the more wealthy player is subsidizing those with less financial means in this case.

So, by your statement, applied to this example, I should stop the distribution of my free homes because one group is subsidizing another?


Edit:

I do realize that in your original statement, part of it was to try to close the loop of those who were taking advantage of the situation. We've had exactly the same issue with freebies: people reselling them. If you recall, we went around and around about this. Those individuals were not breaking any TOS rules, but the actions were not well recieved by the community.

Similar to your point about the land baron issue.



One other note: I'm not directing this at Ulrika, but your comments/ideas.

Oh please.

In my entire post, that was the only thing that you chose to take issue with?

Interesting.

In any event, the matter is closed. Once again, I thank Pendari for being a resonable person to discuss this with, as has been the case in prior threads. To the rest... I have invested all of my time I care to.

So let's return to the question Ulrika originally asked:

Is LL Subsidizing Our Exploitation?

And the answer -- one she wasn't expecting -- is YES.

They do not do so by allowing bulk purchase. Anybody could get bulk purchase discounts if they either are a) rich land barons or b) poor but organized individual players who get into a planned community or group for the sake of disposing of a large game space.

However, they *do* do so by giving some players free access to large game spaces to play in, free of upfront costs, and only insist that they pay tier, which we all pay.

We as as public could concede that cost-free access to large game spaces is a public benefit, must as we could conceive that non-profit tax exemption is a public good that will produce us communistic organizations as well as laissez-faire capitalistic organizations.

They *do* do so by enabling a player-sponsored government to use that special-access large game space as a bully pulpit to launch a campaign against those who *did* pay upfront costs for large gamespaces -- i.e. big parcels of land.

They *do* do so by tacitly encouraging those players to cast stones on the land baron class and insist that they be taxed to death and penalized for their normal business transactions which benefit the game as a whole and are permitted by the TOS and indeed encouraged by the company's CEO.

They do this either out of ignorance or unconsciousness, or out of devious malign scheming, which involves using player-incited campaigns against the land barons they purport to support in their auction scheme to squeeze those land barons that they want to make sure don't rise up themselves and rebel against the high costs of land.

They didn't mean to shoot themselves in the foot that way, but there it is, it's the kind of agonized lefty conscience that new-media venture capitalists and game devs get contorted into because of their past in the 1960s taught by Marxist professors.

No wrong here has done by anyone? Well, I wouldn't have thought this at the beginning of the post, but I do now -- because I see that like other leftist movements in history, you are prepared to lie and obfuscate about your true arrangements and goals to engage in your real purpose, which is to seize power by penalizing and prosecuting others unfairly, namely with taxes and other penalties -- and we might expect worse.

Now, why am I not surprised that these evasive social democrats who have profited from a special arrangement in the game and gotten access to large gamespaces for free are only to happy to say lefthandedly (as appropriate to them), "fuck you".

I've never said "fuck you" to people who want me to pay tax and penalize me for large land purchases and transactions, although if I were an aspiring land baron, or even just a big group leader with a project, I could well say "fuck you" for trying to cramp my style or cripple my game space in the name of your weird-assed theories.

As for the dead horse, a reference to what mafias do to people who challenge them taken out of "The Godfather," why am I not surprised that your seemingly benign social democracy and your seemingly benign rewarmed Leninsm turned into a threat to put a horsehead in my bed? Cranky leftist views always wind up turning into corrupt and criminal mafia-style movements -- no surprise there. I can only be happy that paying the scripter or spending the time to put that horsehead in my bed will probably be almost as much as it might have cost you to do what the rest of us had to do -- pay land prices up front.

Prokofy:

Ulrika and Kendra, while I may disagree with them, are not the collective N Projekt. They are just the two most vocal members currently. Nor is the N Projekt nessesarily a marxist construct, despite the views of certain members.

Do not tar innocents with your brush.

It was the only part worth commenting on.

The nature of the Nberg project and its denizens is not relevant, as we've already established. It doesn't matter if they represent the community itself -- they represent a school of thought, long discredited by bitter historical experience in many countries -- that is insidious and ought to be opposed. We don't know if they have "put one over" this community of utopianists in the usual Marxist fashion, or whether they gained a platform for their views by consensus, but we have every right to oppose their scheme.

What is relevant is that 2 players in this project DO have these controversial and objectionable views, and we're arguing with them, as is our right. We're arguing with them not because we're in a college debate club, but because they are using their freely-gained large game space -- or their participation in such a game space -- to advocate encroaching on our rights and freedoms under the current system -- not only to incite against our gameplay by invoking envy and hatred among the mass of players, but to penalize us for playing the game under the TOS, which is our right.

So pushing back against such invidious methods is not tarring innocents with a brush, that's fighting for our freedom and our rights. Please get a grip. These gals didn't lose a thing in this discussion. Is this community tarred? Well, hardly, given the support they still have. Is its reputation damanged? Well, sure, if they want to let two outspoken Marxists set the agenda in their public profile, but I'll leave them to sort it out. Maybe Neualtenberg as a whole didn't intend to incite against the land-baron class and the auction scheme by letting these two use the cachet of their name, but it happened.

They still have their free-access big game space. If they don't represent their community, and their community could potentially be concerned about their abusive posture vis-a-vis other classes of players who would be penalized and cramped by their vision of progressive tax, well, they sure as hell have remained silent through this discussion, haven't they?

Incitement of class hatred against the land-baron class, incitement of mobs to agitate the game company to squeeze this class, deserve a resolute rebuff. It's getting it. Don't worry about tar-brushing. These people still have their great insider's deal with no upfront cost and just tier fees. We don't.

You have the right to, certainly.

For myself, I don't care. The fundamental nature of Second Life has safely declawed their society as far as I'm concerned. It's like a model UN.

I'm not opposed to a school of thought in and of itself (Well, nothing so simple as marxism, at any rate.)



I agree with you here in part, but ultimatly it still doesn't bother me overmuch.

The day it looks like they will come into any actual power, that will all change. But for now, I'm content in the knowledge they are not going to be able to enforce their views on anyone.



The members of the N.Berg project are rather varried. I don't agree with all of them, but a number of them I do. It's not a collective conciousness at this point. I don't hold them accountable what one or two members say.




The thing is, this has always been Ulrika's schtick. Well, one of many. Not just land barony, but general attempts to stir up confict and chaos. She has said that such is something she enjoys.

Ordinarily I wouldn't care about her involvement with the N Projekt when she does this, except that in this one instance I felt her position was particularly suspect given the circumstances as I understood them of the N Projekt's arangement with Linden Labs.

You are conflating two seperate issues. Neaultenburg is a free zone for politics of all stripes.

While it is true that both Ulrika and I are part of the Neualtenburg Projekt, the projekt is not being used by either of us to advance any "agendas" other than the creation of a self-sufficient city. N'burg certainly is not being set up as a solution to "Land Barons"

Though Ulrika and I both agree that the current system tilts unfairly to the high-tier landowner (of which I happen to be one, BTW) we both have very different solutions to offer.

My own method being an idea to set up a corporation of low tier users under the shell of a single AV, to take advantage of what I see as a broken system --Ulrika's approach is probably more noble than my own, as she would most likely favor working to change the system. Neither approach has anything to do with our involvement in the N'burg Projekt.

N'burg is, as I've said, far from freely gained. The amount of work we must do in order to stay in contract with LL is enormous, and we consider it to be our "payment" in addition to the full land tier fees we must donate.

You certainly have the right to argue with us. What you don't have the right to do is to slander us with disinformation.

Profky ....your an asshat plain and simple

You certainly have the right to argue with us. What you don't have the right to do is to slander us with disinformation.

I see you are following the time-honored method, cherished by the Soviet system and other Marxist-inspired systems, of characterizing as "slander" or "disinformation" any criticism of your position, or any effort to see the consequence. I'm not the first one to notice this, as I know there have been other discussions, both inside your community and here on the forums, the pointed out just that same intolerance to dissent and intolerance to outside criticism.

It isn't slander of the "noble experiment" of Neualtenberg to respond to the class-hatred incitement campaign of one or two of Nberg's members. I don't know how you as a group solve the problem of public "face" when you have such inflammatory members who enjoy inciting hatred and conflict to achieve their (hitherto hidden) agenda. That's your problem.

But that you tolerate inciters in your midst is highly problematic for you and the community at large.

It means that anybody can gain free access to a large game-space and let some of their particularly rabble-rousing members serve as stalking-horses to incite hatred against other classes of game-players, and then a) not only hide behind the idea of their supposedly ideology-free noble experiment and b) charge the critic of slander and disinformation to boot.

As for being an "asshat," being a new player, I have no idea what the connotations are of that cutesie insider's lingo that no doubt developed during beta.

If you want to call me an asshole, please do so, and list the reasons why I am one, don't hide behind some silly lingo.

Ulrika gains her stature and her attention on these boards in no small part due to her affiliation with Nberg.

I'd like to hear from members of Nberg who are proponents of laissez-faire capitalism who did not incite hatred of the land baron class. Then we can here how "free" Nberg is.



I see you are following the time-honored method, cherished by the Soviet system and other Marxist-inspired systems, of characterizing as "slander" or "disinformation" any criticism of your position, or any effort to get you to see the consequence of your incitement. I'm not the first one to notice this, as I know there have been other discussions, both inside your community and here on the forums, that pointed out just that same intolerance to dissent and intolerance to outside criticism.

It isn't slander of the "noble experiment" of Neualtenberg to respond to the class-hatred incitement campaign of one or two of Nberg's members. I don't know how you as a group solve the problem of public "face" when you have such inflammatory members who enjoy inciting hatred and conflict to achieve their (hitherto hidden) agenda. That's your problem.

But that you tolerate inciters in your midst is highly problematic for you and the community at large.

It means that anybody can gain free access to a large game-space and let some of their particularly rabble-rousing members serve as stalking-horses to incite hatred against other classes of game-players, and then a) not only hide behind the idea of their supposedly ideology-free noble experiment and b) charge the critic of slander and disinformation to boot.

As for being an "asshat," being a new player, I have no idea what the connotations are of that cutesie insider's lingo that no doubt developed during beta.

If you want to call me an asshole, please do so, and list the reasons why I am one, don't hide behind some silly lingo.

Prokofy Neva just negative rated me. What an asshat.

~Ulrika~

/hijack

how many tickets do 128 players with 512m2 each open per week?
how many tickets does one player with 65km2 open per week?

if the land purchase price is equal, it can be deduced that a single player owning an entire sim will require much less service from LL in the way of bandwidth, dispute resolution, bug reports, etc etc than 128 players occupying similar hardware resources.

i contend that lower tier players are not subsidizing anything but instead paying their rightful share in respect to the service/resource allocation ratio.

community is a metaphor. we are not citizens of sl. you are not my neighbour.
(but that doesn't mean we can't play together)

p.s.: prokoky- you have an interesting interpretation of history.

Apparently he Prokofy doesn't like you and is within ToS bounds in rating you as such. Those are the the breaks. Remember, you empower negs when you lament them, hence their purpose.