Buying and Selling Land

...to the detriment to the far larger group of players who don't desire it, IMHO. Particularly the ones who might just like to buy the plot of land straight from LL. But of course, disagreeing with Anshe is immoral. And I'm just a jealous wannabe land baron with zero talent or anything to offer. So I would say that, now wouldn't I?

Bang on that cheap drum however long you like; blow on that tin horn as loudly as you want -- all of the rhetoric, inflammatory comparisons, and chest-beating do not change the simple facts -- it is more difficult for everyone else to buy land, the services you provide are next to worthless and largely exist to justify your price and business behavior, Second Life is an uglier and less pleasant experience for nearly all because of your actions, fewer people in Second Life fulfill their aspirations because of your tactics, less creativity and quality exists in Second Life because there's less opportunity for large-scale, individual expression, and you got caught gaming the system without regard for the ethics or public service you now wave like a stained flag.

Effective arguments have been made against your behavior dozens of times, and your responses are -- by any valuable standard -- unconvincing. Volume and quantity of rhetoric aren't going to compensate.

kris,
your jealousy is questionable but no one is accusing you of being talentless. you are the dance machine person and the master of heaven and earth. don't be so hard on yourself.

No, but you belong to small group of player who profitated from hugedifference in land price between auction land and in world land before land baron show up and that gap began to narrow more because of land traders doing ever higher volume with ever lower margin.

However, your lost priviledge is insignificant to the far larger group of players who don't desire buy 16000sqm pieces cheap at auction, but who want find nice smaller pieces of land for sale in world. They profitate from land traders doing high volume, small margin land trading. They profitate from evenened out prices on market, high competition and people who outbid you on auctions and put land on in world market for fair price.

Complaining about the devaluation of your knowledge on how to use auctions to get cheap land is selfish. Attacking land traders for their business is immoral. Bridging price gap between auctions and in world market and making land more easily accessible to the vast majority of players is a very moral undertaking though.

Anshe, what are you talking about? I honestly believe, given the various accusations you have levelled at me recently, that you have me confused with someone else. Truly.

Edited to add: I have never, ever, ever, ever sold land at a profit. I have sold at a loss. I have bought from people who have profitted from it.

When I sold my land in immaculate i sold it for the exact same price i bought it for - 2L$/m. Even at a time when it was worth far more. I told you before, I do not play SL to make money. I know you consider that immoral, but it's just not on my agenda. Sorry.

Whatever your motivations, lets assume it is mislead idealism: You are speaking up for minority of land buyers who use auction to buy land. This is one small group of people that has been priviledged in the past and that is loosing much of their priviledge now because realtor business.

Confusing this minority with vast majority of player who don't want bother with auctions is wrong. This majority provitate from us outbidding you and making land available in world for fair price.

If I look at all the land baron bashing, neg rating and pleas to Linden Labs to change system, I exclusively see this small minority of player. Calling this "the community" is vastly assuming. What count to me and to any judgement of ethics is big majority of player who enjoy clubs and malls, who want to easily find affordable land for sale in world. I will always stand up for this majority, which is true Second Life community, no matter how much you and others try to "discuss" me, or other land baron or club owners or anybody else who provide the content and service that the majority of Second Life community use and appreciate.

I don't presume to speak for anyone but myself, thanks. It was an opinion, hence my using IMHO, which, in case you're not aware, stands for 'In My Humble Opinion'. Assume whatever you wish of my motivations.

Do you not find it a little ironic, btw, when talking about the way people attack you, that the only person who has had their comments censored by the Lindens in the 24 pages of this thread for personal attacks is you (and anyone who quoted those comments)? I do

p.s. stop changing your post while I'm trying to quote you

Whoa, Anshe, lost that "business girl" style of writing over the last couple of posts, did you? Must mean you're serious, now.

Ah, and I see you've gone back and edited those posts to "derez" the grammar a little bit.



Congrats, Kris, you stripped something away, there. Hadn't seen that so clear before.

donavan,
i am very disappointed that you could make a post like that about land speculation. you gripe is not with players but with LL's unability to maintain an adequate supply or it is a personal matter with anshe. you have yet to post anything convincing about buying and selling of land yourself.

open,
if you want to pay less for land, you must demand LL to take measures to maintain a lower market price. don't take your frustration out on us. attacks made on the character of a certain group of players based on ignorance, or lack of analytic rigour, or personal motivation to acquire large swaths of land for cheap by manipulating the public opinion, is immoral and unethical.

this whole discussion blaming players for LL's shortcomings is really disgusting.

if you think barons are propping up prices by buying up all the land, you are crazy. if that was the goal it would fail, because as long as we keep buying, LL will keep adding. for all of the speculators with huge holdings, they must experience turnovers of an acceptable size to warrant their practice. doing otherwise, to borrow a cristiano-ism, would be the SL equivalent of financial suicide.

i would like to see some more intelligent posts about why land speculation is unethical, rather than shifting lazily to focusing on an individual, anshe.

if it can be shown that my parctices are unethical, i will sieze immediately.

This remark only proof to me that you have not found any better argument to continue the discussion.

And I still stand to what I posted, despite somebody at Linden editing it out: If you dishonor my dead uncle the way Donovan did, I truly wish his ghost will hunt you down.

But this is irrelevant to discussion at hand. So please return on topic.

And, sorry, Kris. I should not have mentioned your possible motivations. I consider it quite possible that you act with good intention. However, you do confuse a minority with the majority.

Guess I'm in the vast minority too then. heh. Just to give some feedback, I try to use the auctions. At first I was scared off of them because I had the impression, whether everyone else feels it was justified or not, that I wouldn't have a fair shot at anything in the auctions anyway because it was controlled by a few players. I don't think that I am the only one that has been turned off to the idea of the auction system at some point for a reason such as this. I would love it if I knew that there were even just a small handful of auctions out there that were more accessible by the average player and less accessible by the land dealers.

Yes, I have bought land in world several times. It had nothing to do with it being easier or the land was flatter or I wanted a house on it or whatever. It was either a very unique/rare plot or a plot right next to my build (which is the most likely case).

If I could avoid being forced to pay a dealer's idea of what market price is I would. The thing is when someone/some people are bidding X L$/m2 on every auction, I'm going to be paying almost the same price whether I pay in world to the dealer and pay for the markup or I outbid the dealer in the auction.

FYI, LL releases land based on population growth, not on average selling price. Phillip even made a comment in the TH tonight that he wasn't aware of what land was selling for these days or what the margin was or something.

-Meiyo

P.S. - Sorry if I'm incoherent. I'm sleep deprived again

I think it's wholly relevant, actually.

See, the argument has become totally circular. No one is saying anything new because you wont hear and understand what they are trying to say to you, and you post the same responses in return, only you get more and more personal and defensive as you do... and then you go on the offensive to the point that, as I said, you are the only one doing the attacking as far as the Lindens appear to be concerned. And, though I can't speak for anyone else, you've said stuff about me in this thread that is totally fabricated. So who is provoking who in these discussions?

I think it's very obvious that no one here is going to be able to say anything to you to make you even understand their viewpoints on the subject, let alone change your opinions, and frankly I don't know why the subject is still going on some 300-and-whatever-posts later. What I will say though, is that I enjoy that you keep responding, because although the argument is the same, the things you say and the way you say them with each and every new post speak volumes. So please, continue.

Well, I could blame you, Jauani, but you don't set up so well as a mechanical duck in the shooting gallery. Could be because you actually make reasoned arguments, generally follow an ethical line of behavior, and refrain from blatantly-transparent behavior. Face it, Anshe's just an easier target to hit. And has more symbolic value. If y'all are going to strategize your approach to your critics, you really can't hold the critics to a different standard of behavior, right?

I'll stand by my comments. If they sting, it's because they have probative value. In this case, it's a variant of "the emperor has no clothes" -- when you get beyond the flag-waving, the demagoguery, and the meaningless technicalities, there's really very little of substance behind the arguments -- yours made so well, technically.

But I fear we are of two different kinds of sight here -- You may never understand my point of view, and beyond a certain admiration for the ruthlessness and simplicity of yours, I'm convinced you're overlooking many important things that have value, but not the kind that can be easily quantified. So -- there's your "easy" argument, I'm afraid.

Still, nice to spar with someone who doesn't lie, digress, or set up straw-men.

we really need an in-game hook to the auction system. At a minimum, the find->land sales listings should be updated with the current price of the auction. This would enable real people, in game, to actually see the prices of the auctions in real time.

Currently the only way to do that is to actually go to the auction site and chances are the vast majority of people who *WANT LAND* do not. Hence why someone can buy a sim for $600 and turn it around for $800 within five minutes of posting about it. Obviouly in that case the person who spent the $800 was failed by the actual system, they could (concievably) have had it for much less and given their money right to LL rather than feeding a certian someone's wallet

An even more complete implementation would allow in world hooks for placing bids as well. Aka if you see a purple lot for auction, going for $L5000 and its worth at least that much to you, it would be great for people who don't spend all their time monitoring auctions to actually jus be able to place if we could just bid on it in-world.

I think overall this would make auctions much more open to the people in general, many many people are too new to jump right in to an auction system and *KNOW* what is a 'good' price to settle on etc... the ability to see these things from within the existing tools LL has provided us is somethin that would go a long way towards helpin people figure that kinda thing out.


A last side note, while we're actually coming up with useful, productive ideas.. would be to expose owner names in the land search field (which isn't somethin ya can really complain about since its alresady public info, jus its a pain to actually have to go an figure it out yerself), as well as 'markup' (which is somethin alot of people *would* complain about, but i think would be very useful again in helping prevent new players being ripped off.

it would simply be the ratio of the plots original sale price versus the price you are paying.

Anyone who has bought or sold real estate RL knows thats something that is used by agents. both to help determine the 'trend' of real estate values for that particular property, and to use as a final bargaining chip in negotiating the contract should the sellers profit prove to be rather sizable

Hehehehe, i love it =)



Have you actually ever tried to sell land Eltee? ^_^

Interesting how you continue trying move the discussion away from the topic to a personal level. Once again we hear Anshe is bad, Anshe is bad, Anshe is bad. Maybe repetition help with your self-sugestion, but it won't make wrong statement a true statement. So if that is all you can argue then I would rather suggest end discussion here.

LOL. Anshe, you were repeating the same old argument before I even stepped into the thread god-knows-how-many-pages-ago.

And the thread would prolly die if you'd stop responding to every piece of bait

Deklax, you know what I love about Eltee's statement that you just quote? The person who bought sim from me is realtor himself. So obviously realtor was failed by system, hmmm?

Hehehe. Kinda funny

Lookie:

I was echoing your own sentiment.





This is laughable at best. If you leave I can all but guarantee that people will sing hallelujah and that land will be snapped up in a matter of days. Don't delude yourself. I was among the people that had to sit around for two weeks waiting for you to claim that 3+ sims of land you were blatantly holding hostage. How the heck can returning the auctions to the masses slow down land purchasing and/or land rollout? Would you have even stayed in SL if not for the land game?

Nice I was just thinking about this earlier tonight and think it would help out a lot.

Along the same lines but getting further into the "wouldn't it be nice if" category, I'd suggest more features on the Land for Sale map. Maybe make it where hovering over a plot of land will show you the current owner, how big it is, and what the price is. Then again, I guess making me criss cross the map chasing one red column after another does get me out of the virtual house once in a while.

-Meiyo

um that only serves to further harm yer argument.. i mean... just a heads up on that.

Whatever it ends up goin for to someone, that someone is now going to be spending well over $800 for a sim they could have had for $600, had the current implementation of auctions having *NO* visible hook to the game's gui been improved already

Boy howdy. This is EXACTLY how we feel about you.



Well since LL doesn't educate them someone has to pick up the ball and run. Knowledge is needed because your business is alive today due to ignorance mainly. How many established players buy from you versus newbies? As far as *skill* goes *CHOKES*, I know 14 yr. olds that sell MMOG stuff on Ebay, sorry I dont buy that it takes skill. It takes a little bit of time and a PC (or MAC).




Oh really? As an SL architect i find this comparision insulting. Lett me know when you spend months on a single project. BTW, prims are NOT free. PSP is 90 bucks in most places unless you have a ripped and cracked version, Mmmmmmmmmm! Could it be?



you forgot the *gain, gain, gain* with minimal overhead or work ($) part.



Most of these things myself and probably most others are aware of, not to mention these are some of the reasons we scoff at your suggestion that you are helping LL financially and that you provide a tangible *service*



Maybe they aren't skilled in building but are in other areas? I find it really hard to swallow that your chopping up and levelling of land (which I watched you do one day and it took all of 10 minutes to do an entire sim) is somehow comparable to building a home to a player's specs. We are tallking about being able to visualize things in 3d, build it, texture it etc.



Do you really believe this? I guess auto salesmen sell cars out of the goodness of their hearts so we can all have a LOWER price? How does middlemanning ANY product lower the price?




No. What is immoral is you and your lawyer Jauani calling people immoral for stating their OPINIONS.

I don't think either myself or donovan are in the market for more land. This is and has been a matter of principle. This is about a cartel (even if an unintentional one) hogging up land for personal gain. You two can draw all the comparisions you want to clothing or buildings but the simple fact is those are not LL distributed items, (i.e. not a commodity), they are player created content which costs considerably more time and thought than dominating auctions, chopping up a sim for resale and littering the landscape with signs. As a builder you should understand this.

Secondly, I find it wholly ironic that You of all people, master of tearing down people in a negative fashion (i.e., your inability to leave snide little comments referring to people's intellect, morality or sanity out of your responses) are lamenting *attacks made on the character..* you came into this thread and started the name calling. Now you cry when others respond in turn? The best way to avoid trading insults is to not initiate. Don't make me repost the list of jabs you took at people long before myself or Donovan entered this thread.

I "deem" you blinded by your own rhetoric.

In closing, your viewpoints are in the obvious minority among established players. I find it very telling (guilty conscience?) that you two took Catherine's thread personally when neither of your names were mentioned by her until you started with the personal attacks, some of which were edited. It was you two who started tossing barbs about in this thread, I guess the truth hurts and brings out the worst in people. Sad thing is, it isn't necessary for you (Jauani) to defend yourself because NOT ONE person was referring to your business practices in particular, as a matter of fact in most land issue threads myself and others mention repeatedly that you aren't a problem speculator. I guess you're just playing Anshe's knight in shining armor, which seems to indicates you support gobbling up 10% of a new sim rollout with the intention of holding it hostage, until multiple people complain to LL to light a fire under your ass, for what nefarious reasons we can only guess.

responding with a nolanism:
who is we? do you represent all of SL?

as an sl architect, land speculator, and land owner, i will tell you one very obvious thing: prim=land. prims are not free because land is not free.
was it necessary to your arguement about buying and selling land to make an unsubstantiated and unrelated claim about the license of her software? that is a nolanism.

they are both services. providing players witha house to spec or land to spec are both services. i know i have spent an hour and a half on two seperate occasions this month parcelling and modifying land creatively and usefully for awkwardly shaped parcels that were not even a quarter sim in size. parcelling land can sometimes be easy, but sometimes very difficult because of the topography.
does it really matter which requires higher skills or not? no. they both require work.

competition creates low prices. anshe's large volume trading with low margins makes it impossible for me to draw RL$ income from sl at my lower volumes. i am simply able to pay for my tier and my broadband connection if i'm lucky.

i am not anshe's lawyer. that is another nolanism. your opinions are immoral because they are based on soft analyisis and filled with personal attacks. if you spent more time considering the land market, rather than being belligerent, you could make a real contribution to this discussion. as robin requested, this thread should be about discussing how the land market could work better, not the perpetuation of hate towards certain players.

before i head out for the day let me make some points for people still participating in this thread to consider and see if you agree or not and why so:

LL controls the land market.
Only LL can affect change in nature of the market
LL relies on players/consumers to remain operational
Players would like land to be more accessible financially
Players recognize due to infrastructure and topography and rating, all land is not equal.
Players recognize that to manage these differences, a free market is necessary.
Players in the lower tiers are bigger forces in dictating the market value of land

I submit that:
LL should maintain a higher per capita land supply to lower the price of land
OR
LL should expand the social welfare net - L$L - to be accessible to all, and increase the
L4L allotment to make it less necessary for players in the 512-2048 lot range to enter the free land market. (also resulting in the dropping of prices)

the beast is technology, be it instruments or the administration. technology is shaping our community and our practices. attacking specific players won't solve a systemic problem. that is why those who do are not being useful to finding a solution. that includes the story tellers.

Cute on the Nolanism thing and how convenient to accuse me of personal attacks when that is clearly your forte. YOU insinuated that Donovan was *crazy*. Nice try though and a true Jauaniism to boot.

I think I can pretty safely say that by *we* I meant people of the mindset like Kris, Lynn, Donovan, Cat and myself. You know, the ones you two can't resist responding to, thereby keeping this and other threads alive that you bemoan so vigourously. This thread and others like it would die out early if you weren't so self righteous about your *services*, and if you didn't have an obsession for damage control to protect your interests. I for one, and it has been echoed by others, are tired of hearing the same old crap being churned out. You know, the disinformation that you are so valuable in what you do and how it benefits us all to no end. I would venture to guess it's simply like putting gobs of steak sauce on a bad steak to cover the fact it's bad.

I see in your last couple posts you are assigning blame to LL for the land issue. How very interesting. So you admit there is a problem. I guess the only moral thing to do is to take advantage of that problem? Thanks for the rope.

As far as analysis of land goes I do watch the auctions intently. I do explore the grid and note pricing and availability. I do frequently look at the land sales list. This is very typical of you to assume things about others involvement , passive though it may be.

Now please answer my question rather than trying to marginalize my opinion, do you support intentional land grabbing to prevent others from buying when you know that you are unwilling to tier up to accomodate said land, thereby putting that land in limbo that some others have been waiting months for to come online? Or are you just a SL version of Mark Geragos?