Changes to Landless Grants - suggestions

I'm a little concened that some of our newcomers might be getting taken advantage of, being offered low sums of money for their new land as soon as it becomes theirs. Low = $2000. I even suspect that there are some residents trolling the "Landless" forum, seeing who has posted there, and then keeping an eye out for them in-world, and depending on their innocence to buy the land off of them. "$2000 for a property I just bought for $512? Wow, PROFIT!" With this in mind, I have several suggestions:

1. Make the "landless reqests" un-readable to the public, or institute some system of requesting that offers the Landless recipients at least a bit of anonymity from the jackals.

2. Inform them of the range of prices that land can possibly sell for, even it it is not absolutely current. "For example, a 512 m2 plot in a Mature sim can easily sell for $5000 or even higher, depending on its location and if there is novelty value associated with it."

3. Put a mailbox on the property that is set to the new landowner, which they can keep on the land or delete, but which is scripted to allow anyone to put notecards/objects into, and only be retrieved by the landowner. As a START, put a few freebies in there, including a notecard or three with notes and tips for new landowners.....what to watch out for, how to maximize utility and good manners when building, etc. Get a longtime SL resident to write up the guide, if one doesn't already exist. Friends and neighbors can leave notes of greeting and welcome, or even housewarming presents.

Interesting post -

#1) - Keep it an open process - no need to protect us from ourselves.

#2) - this is public information - it's newbies job to explore Sl and learn how things work. But some type of land summary would be helpful if generated from a reliable source and was free to the public.


#3) - Support this - but LL needs to sign off on anything that is Official.

There are several Excellent! player developed newbie guides - and several SL Groups have newbie resources - practical help guides, freebies, classes, buildes & scripting help, etc.

Mentors, Instructors, Edifice Rex, University of SL, SL Public Library, Vin Fiz, Awakening Avatars, and so others that slip my mind at the moment.

Newbies just have to reach out and it's all there for them to find!

I like the idea of a mailbox or some sort of note cards. Just a note about "Seller Beware" or a simple FAQ might save someone from a huge rip off.

I was approached with a low ball RL$ offer within 20 minutes of receiving my land. I didn't fall for it or even consider it even though the guy was really slick and I was entertained by his sob story.

For me, taking a burn like that (as a newbie) would have killed any entertainment value SL has to offer, especially after paying membership dues.

I think that mailbox idea is great, although that might be better accomplished by adding in the "drag inventory item to the object and add it in nomatter who sent it" to the objects' capabilities. Then people in world could create their own type own mailboxes/dropboxes/po boxes/whatever, that would be a lot more customizeable. Heck, there might even be a way to take advantage of current glitches to accomplish this one. I guess this is already slightly accomplished by the "drop inventory item here" box on the profiles, but this method seems a bit more user friendly to newbies.

Alright, I jumped the gun, a little. I just saw the new shape that the Landless program is taking. I think it's great that Landless can go and pick out their own place, that their names aren't going to be left up on the forum anymore, and therefore it'll take (a little) more work to exploit them wholesale.

I still think the "scripted mailbox" would be a good idea, and yes Aqua, definitely I wanted it to have "drag and drop" capability for notecards and inventory.