Immense ugly griefing eyesores, a risk land-owning for residents?

I was speeding happily with my celica in the relatively lag-free eastern part of the grid (the new sims are PERFECT for car racing) when i got to Ontario, and to my utmost horror i saw something that almost immediately caused me an headache...
In front of me, right besides the road there was a BIG (125 meters tall according to my altimeter and 30 meters wide) totally solid tower with animated red and green textures animated to obtain a terribly pesky flashing effect (it wouldnt surprise me if that could cause an epylepsy attack to people liable to that).
The owner, Biff Pendragon (i have no problems publicly stating his name, since it's clearly an alt), placed it on a 512 sqm plot of land for sale for 8499.
Since the item has ABSOLUTELY no use other than annoying people passing by and living in the place, its quite evident that it has one or both of the following purposes:
1: Forcing the neightbors to buy the land over the market price (8499 is absolutely overpriced, about double the going market price) to avoid being griefed by its vision every time they look out of the windows
2: Pushing down the neightboring land value to force neightbors out to acquire their land under market price.

I am completely aware that since it0s his land there is no TOS violation, but shouldn't Linden Lab change the TOS so that they have a little of discretionality to protect us from such kind of griefing? I am pretty sure there are many ways to regulate it decently, without hindering the freedom of people that just want to build their own homes how their want.
What concern me the most is that if such griefing it's not punished now that it's at it's start, could become a general trend between griefers that want to lucrate on others hiding behind the fact that there is not any TOS violation. It could happen to anyone that has land that one of such griefers wants and in the current situation we wouldnt have anything to do other than sucking it and moving, or paying them what they want, or bearing such a vision until someone else gives in to that blackmail and pays.

Please note that this thread is not wanting to judge what is beautiful or ugly, but i think there is a limit beyond wich a building like that is ABSOLUTELY unwarranted, since it has no other purpose than griefing others... thats just my opinion though, and im willing to discuss it.
What would you do if something like this appeared near your home or maybe right in front of your shop?

Anyway here is a picture of the "thing", you can judge it's size from the size of my tiny avatar standing on it, unfortunately (or luckily) the picture can't give a clear idea of how pesky it is, due to the texture flashing, if you want a clear idea go to Ontario, you cant miss the thing, its too big.

Edit: Awww i messed up the topic.. maybe i should stop writing at 8 am after a sleepless night...

That's what Anshe was talking about .... did you read that thread?

Yeah ... it sucks. Why are there people like this??

De ja vou.

because you touch yourself at night.

Oh i muist have missed it, anyway yes, it does suck hard, and i think that it is on issue that deserves to be discussed on it's own (Anshe is not the only victim anyway, there are others with land and buildings there), because if no one takes action about it, it could become a common griefing method, since it's safe from TOS issues....

From TOS:

YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT LINDEN HAS THE RIGHT, BUT NOT THE OBLIGATION, TO REMOVE ANY CONTENT (INCLUDING YOURS) IN WHOLE OR IN PART AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE AND WITH NO LIABILITY OF ANY KIND.

Sadly, its discretional

Intentionally using sounds, particles etc to "grieve" your nieghbor is correctable by LL.

File abuse reports if you find the content to be offensive.

In my oppinion, if you buy the land, you should be able to put whatever you want there.

Anyone who looks at it will know that it's not a matter judging beauty, but a matter of a builder who's intent on land extortion -- putting up an obnoxious build in the hope that someone will be will to pay outragious prices to get rid of an extreme eyesore. It's a deliberate attack on his neighbours.

Even though many think it should be against the rules (including me), it isn't. LL can't do anything to stop this.

This is what negrating is for. Just negrate what you don't like and move on.

If everyone did it then you would soon see who the asshats really are.

Thank you. I couldn't agree more. Let the record show I'm not the only one.

Shiryu, the style of that building and the alt's name somehow sound to me like Blue Burke. He made a giant neon-yellow glowing box in Allston similar to that one, and had it on overpriced land, and it seemed as if the idea was that we had to buy that parcel to put that thing out of its misery, because otherwise we'd have to helplessly live with that piss-yellow light pouring over all of our houses and businesses for miles. He claimed it was a "test" later regarding light and FPS and the sim -- let's see if he or whoever Biff is comes forward now that there is an outcry and says it is a "test".

I think we can all sure as hell judge that this as ugly and not beautiful, and just its intentions as surely obvious to all -- to extort a land sale from people so that they can get rid of the ugliness OR to devalue land and force people to move,

And this is where all the feted inner elite, and the uncelebrated external masses, need to get it in gear and go out and negrate a build like that. That is the ONLY way to end the sense of helplessness and frustration that pervades the game. You can't expect the Lindens to do a thing about this because it isn't technically in violation of the TOS, and if you look to the older, established players, they will get your knickers in a twist with their endless yammering about how it's all "subjective" -- and subjecting us all with the tyranny of the subjective.

This picture and this situation, like Anshe's, and like the big black building with the legs in Clunn which I first raised, are all clear and present examples of ugly builds undertaken deliberately to extort and harass. They deserve a pushback. It is easy to form a consensus about this. And the tool for expressing that is the negrate. Those who keep yammering about one man's dream is another man's nightmare forget that all of us have been living far too long with what is clearly a nightmare for everybody.

And how does a negative rating change anything in this case? Old Biffy has (last I saw) nothing but negative ratings. He's an alt who exists solely to absorb these negatives while building these hideous little triggers for seizures. The owner cares not.

Build around it & disregard it to the best of your ability. DO NOT EVER GIVE IN TO EXTORTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-AP

If you fly around a little you will find at least one more of his towers in an otherwise mostly empty sim further southeast. I also learned that at least one person gave in and bought him out in past.

Since an alt is used and the person does not really use the land other than for make things miserable, there is nothing community can do. Neg rating, banning, talking on forum and so on is useless as it only hit one alt account. Only people you can and thus should do something is Linden Lab. But sadly 3 days ago I received one "abuse resolved" e-mail concerning my abuse report on this issue and as everybody can see no action has been taken. This is very sad thing and I hope Lindens finally wake up and realize that tolerating this is wrong.

Y'know, it sure would be nice to get a "This Is Our Policy, Exactly" statement from the Lindens reguarding what's considered just an annoyance build (accidentally or otherwise) and what's considered a greifing (against the TOS) build - and how wide the grey area is.

If for no other reason than to know when to shrug and move on.

We need more zoning in SL

Imagine that besides Mature and PG sims, we'd have "Aesthetically Controlled" sims So, ugly buildings - especially those created for the purpose of money extorsion - would be a violation of ToS on those sims.

Of course, this would raise the question of who would judge the artistic value of buildings... etc. and so on.

On the other hand, that's why "controlled communities" exist in SL. The Lindens have a few of their own. Prokofy Neva has Ravenglass. There is Neualtenburg. And there are a few more.

As always, the only option is - move away, forget about building a community with your neighbours, look for a new spot, start from scratch.

I'm glad I live in Uli - one "Garden & Waterfall" sim - where the neighbours exercize a degree of self-control. I've been pressed by several people to move out - "go to a faster sim", "go to a place where the cool people hang out", "get a snow sim", etc. Somehow, I fear that any move will be for the worst, since I have absolutely no trust that sooner or later someone builds something nasty just besides my place. In Uli I trust my neighbours. After 6 months there, the landscape is still beautiful, although the neighbouring sims get uglier by the minute and spoil the horizon

Actually, what bothers me more is the "empty club/casino/mall syndrome". I can understand that a popular club/casino/mall in a sim will probably scare away all sorts of quiet, residential types. But at least there is a purpose in the ugliness and/or lag - someone is providing a service, getting rich or something. What really bothers me is the type of resident who says "hey, I have an idea, let's start my own mall and rent some space and become rich over night" and doesn't have a clue on how to run a successfull business in SL. The club/casino/mall stays in all its ugliness, empty, unvisited, full of unused Rent-o-Matics or talking vendors or dance lights upon a weird dance floor with music piped in from a second-rate streaming radio - and nobody visits it. Still, the place stays "open" for months and months. That's what really bothers me.

I think I can be tolerant of ugliness for a purpose. But I'm not tolerant of ugliness for it's own sake.

Like a lot of other issues in SL, it comes down to the ungainly combination of centralized control by the Lindens and their laissez-faire philosophy. There are two obvious solutions to this kind of thing. One, LL could rent out servers for real, giving server owners total (Linden) admin powers and the ability to set themselves up as genuine virtual estate developers. In which case we would see a proliferation of mini-grids unapologetically targeted at people with different tastes and interests, along with their own rules, and the ability to enforce them. Or two, the Lindens could make clear their own general attitudes on how they want SL to be, and be heavy-handed about enforcing it, and take the heat for it. What we have now is neither.

That helpess, sick feeling in your gut when children harass you in the sandbox, or a club suddenly appears next to you and lags your land into uselessness, or the object you spent countless hours perfecting is sold around the grid by thieves? That feeling is the combination of total Linden control and the Linden hands-off approach. I've thought for a while that this will inevitably change, because I can't imagine competitors won't eventually carve out niches that LL isn't supporting. I'm not busting on LL; I happen to agree with them that giving residents freedom and the opportunity to invest capital in SL is a great engine for growth and development. But I think they've reached a point where the residents either have too little freedom, or too much, depending on how you look at it.

Well, it doesn't look so bad. What about those open air shops everywhere ? I find them no less ugly than this. It may have no purpose, but then is it mandatory ? Ugly with a purpose would be allowed to live, but not ugly without purpose?

Issarlk: "It doesn't look so bad"? Have you actually gone there to see it? Open air shops that are "ugly with a purpose" may simply be done by someone that is still learning building, my first building was ugly, one month later i learned enough and i torn it down, trying to make something less ugly, and i'm still working on it.
If you find an ugly open air shop, you can offer the one that built it to help him rebuild it better, or you can goive him some building tips. Buildings like the tower in ontario are placed there just to grieve others and no one else but the Lindens can do something about it.

Neg rating can do nothing, because that is an alt account, whose owner cares nothing about rates, so you would end up just spending 25L$ for nothing

Prokofy: Even if i admit that i strongly resent Blue's telehub wrapping, plain white cubic trap malls that are popping all around the world like mushrooms (they seem more an attempt to steal anyone else's customers more than to attract them with nice features, but this is just a personal opinion, llukyly enough the telehub near my shop is fairly protected), i would avoid finger pointing without proof. Even if there is someone that could safely discover who the griefer is. If someone already payed him to get rid of his tower like anshe said, the lindens could simply give a look to the account's transactions to see to who "biff" has given that money or by whom he has received money to buy land in the beginning, criss crossing data it should be easy to safely pinpoint the actual main account of the griefer and target it with the right punishment.

The Lindens realise that in all life there are jerks. You can't avoid it.

But once you go down the path of telling people what they can and cannot build, it's a slippery slope. The more you refine the exact laws, the more it chafes against genuinely creative people.

It's hard, very hard, to come up with a law that really does cut out griefing, but not something someone else has a genuine interest in building.

At one time I had a fascination with an Austin Powers style hollowed out mountain home. Many others hated it, but I loved it. If the Lindens came along and said, "I know it's your land, but your neighbours aren't having fun, so you can't do what you want on your land, bye bye dream house" I would have been really mad.

So you see, it's very tough to call.

The fact that it's hard doesn't mean they shouldn't do anything about it, the new economy changes were hard (and extrremely unpopular between a large part of the population) but they did them anyway.
What you said can be reversed, the more you let them place grieving buildings around as a source of income, the more they will do it if they feel they can't be punished, and it risks to become a common trend.

this will not be "dealt with." it helps prove the point that a sim is the smallest land unit we should ever buy, own or trade. people who can't afford the tier should rent, or form groups that can hold 65,536sm of land.

this will be the future of second life. one way or another.

unfortunately even controlling the whole sim people cn still grief you placing their things on the border of a nearby sim

Wouldn't it be great if land was a little bit more like puzzle peaces. So people could just move around when ever they want. Creating social structured communities.

Saving the economy from an inflation-led crash and not taking down a "griefing" building are entirely unrelated and doesn't help your argument much.



Define a griefing building. Is it filled with turrets? Does it crash your client? Does it give you redwings?

Or is it just ugly?

Being ugly isn't a crime, otherwise I'd have been locked up long ago.

If you start defining "ugly" buildings as TOS violations, you start a slippery slope that's hard to stop. One man's ugly is another man's beauty, so to speak.

There is nothing reasonable for the lindens to do. Sorry, but it's the truth.

LF

So if someone would encircle your land with them to force you out of it you would just suck it or pay?