01-25-2005 13:45
I have a neighbor who is essentially an absentee landlord. As far as I can tell, he has not logged on in months. He has a very ugly storefront, but I knew this when I bought the land, so I have no right to complain.

However, he has set his land for unrestricted construction and scripting by others and recently someone came by and plastered it with very annoying fire scripts. I filed an abuse report, but the Lindens chose to take no action, presumably because this was not in technical violation of SL conduct rules. I may IM the owner, but I get the impression he's pretty inactive and probably doesn't care about the monthly charge on his credit card. I'm not keen to contact him, because he might be just trying to sell his land for a bunch of money by making it ugly (it's listed at an exorbinant price), and this might only encourage him. I also neg-rated the script creator (at $25L), with an explanation, and will rescind it if he removes the offending bonfires, but he didn't respond.

Has anyone else experienced this type of behavior and have recommendations for other actions?

Also, are there policy changes warranted by this type of behavior? It seems to me that if a member hasn't logged in for more than a year, SL might release or auction off his land, and possibly credit him with the proceeds. This may be too troublesome to implement given the complications posed by group-owned land and folks with multiple identities, but it seems like there should be some mechanism to deal with landowners who are non-participants, and ignore the charges on their credit cards.

Other suggestions?