Just my thought... To stop Land Extortion...

This is only 1 persons take on this issue. And, yes I know I haven't been in SL all that long as compaired to many. But in my short time here. I have seen a lot of things. And, have heard/read a lot of points on a whole lot more. So now I think it's time for me to at least put something here for you all to see how I think on this.

It seems that much more then 50% of the population agrees that this BIG BLUE Bush bashing signage is a disgrace. And, well I have to say I totally agree. It also seem to me that more then 50% think LL needs to give us the means to stop things like this from happening as LL doesn't want to really get involved in this issue.

I can say this. LL says this is something that we need to take care of on OUR OWN?! Well thats all fine and good. But, then we need the means to do that?! And, you know what folks? LL and US are right. We need to take care of this on OUR own. But, then WE do need the tools/means to make this work on OUR own.

So I was in world a few day ago and thought to myself. After reading some treads here in the forums. Ban the person someone said. Don't allow him to move around comfortably in world they said. And that got me to thinking even more. SO I tried a test to see if it was possable to SLOW something like this down.

HOW to do that I'm now sure you are thinking. Well LL has given us PART of the TOOLS needed. All they have to do is COMPLETE the process. So that YES we can STOP this from happening. See this was my TEST.

I had a friend. 2 friends actually. On differnt times. As they both wanted to see it for themselves. So I banned one from my property. All good so far. I step inside and they can't get in. So yeah we can stop bothersome people from coming onto our land IF we OWN it. But, then this is where it really ends.

What about if we want to move to a BIGGER or what we hope is a BETTER piece of land? We not knowing leave our Ban list active. I did that. Set the property for sale. And, the whole time stayed right inside it. My friend who was BANNED then BOUGHT IT!? Why folks is that right? Why folks is that even the slightest bit OK?

I mean I obviously didn't really want my friend to be banned but it was a test. And had he truely been someone BANNED from my property. Rest assured I SURE don't want him BUYING MY PROPERTY?! Anyone think that's odd or right?

Here is my logic in thinking it ISN'T right at all. In the real world we have what most places do when you go to make a BIG money purchase called CREDIT checks and/or REFERANCE CHECKS? Now why do they do this? To actually see if you SHOULD be allowed to have the chance to buy?!

So isn't that in fact what we are saying when we BAN someone from our land? You are not worthy to be here, so stay out, and please don't come back? Why then would it be saying when we are ready to sell it that, "OH NOW I DON'T CARE WHO BUYS IT?" That is not only silly in my book but just PLAIN WRONG!?

I mean more then 50% of us who are residents in SL think we need to do something about problems when someone puts useless signages on there propery and then comes and charges a EXTORTION rate to get rid of the eyesores. Well then to you I say, WHY do we HAVE to let the BANNED buy from us?

Obviously they come with a bad reference? We can all see who it is by going to there land and compairing the name to the signs owner/creator? So if we dont want them to be on our property or even worse BUY it why are they allowed?! That my friends is the question we SHOULD be asking LL not how can we stop anyone that we dont want doing things like this AFTER they get the property.

As LL says. It's their property to do as they want with if the signs or what have you are in the boundries of their property. The question is then. ITS MY PROPERTY before they BUY IT! And, I BANNED them so they wouldn't buy it! But, they are allowed to anyway! WHY IS THAT ALLOWED as I OWN IT STILL?!

But, then there are some that will not use this as only a way to keep those that are what I'd like to call a public nuisence. Some would just ban anyone they think they can because no one should ever buy there property then resell it. And well I can see how that could be a proplem if too many were to do this for some people. As some make there L in world by buying and selling land.

But, then I thought about that too. And it has often been said. Sometimes the cost of stoping the few. Can sometimes make those that aren't really at fault for anything have to pay a price somewhere. But, if it is OUR land we should have a RIGHT to do and use it as we want RIGHT?!

So if we BAN someone. MAKE IT really BAN them from our LAND!? Not only can they never enter it while I am the owner. KEEP THEM BANNED from BUYING IT if I choose to sell it! This folks is truely the way to end what some have come to call LAND EXTORTION! And, in my book the one way IT CAN TRUELY END IT. Because if you can't buy more land to extort. Well guess what? You have no land to make money off of by EXTORTING!

Sorry it was such a long post. And really I wanted to say more. But, if you did read the whole thing. Please do share your thoughts. As I'm always looking for opinions and thoughts on this issue as well. Lets make what we want happen OUR SECOND LIFE happen for the betterment of all. Not the what seems to be the self gratifcation of a few who get happy on others misery.

Also you can look me up in world if you like to discuss this there as well. I'm always looking to make friends. And learn new things and share ideas.

I'm not sure I understand what you did.

You banned your friend and then your friend bought the land but couldn't get in? or couldn't buy your land at all.

Now if your friend bought that land from above while being banned, couldn't he then unban himself while hovering above? I'm pretty sure that if you are high enough, u can right click on "about land" and do what need to do in that menu including unbanning yourself if the land is yours. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You can buy land without entering the parcel. The "ban" feature only keeps you from entering the parcel, that's all.

I think it's funny that the opponents of the "Sign Guy" all call the signs "Impeach Bush" but that's only one line, why don't they come out against the "Support Our Troops" part?

Just my two cents

Sounds good to me, Isaac.

coco

and it might be time to consider additional effects if more than some number or percentage of residents give an individual a negative rating.

All well designed social software includes a reputation system in order to allow the environment to regulate itself. Notice that this scumbag crops up not long after negative ratings were removed....

'WE' don't have troops in Iraq. (At least MY country doesn't have.)

I'm not saying I comprehend the starting post totally.

But one thing's right: if LL says this is OUR problem, but doesn't give us any tools to handle it, that's not really good, and of course makes people angry.

LL should either handle the problem, or make it possible for us to handle it (texture blacklisting, land parcel ignore list, etc.)

I support texture blacklist. Make it possible to just Right-click an object and choose Banned Texture or somethings. So we don't need to know the actual UUID.

What do you mean 'WE', White Man?

No, SL is overrun with pious sanctimonius ulrta-conservative neo-imperialist americans who are so blinded by their own sense of entitlement that they wouldn't know the truth if it slapped them in the face with a wet fish.

This is just like the justice system. There is a system, and there are loopholes.

The system is built to protect the people from the bad guys, and the bad guys discover loopholes in the system and take advantage of them.

We need the upcomming updates to include fixes to the system that everyday reduce those loopholes to a minimum.


Other than that, LL cannot do any of the many things people are asking them to do with regards to the "impeach bush.... ... support our troops" guy, without being autoritarian and violating it's own code.

Zonax Delorean, I banned my friend from a plot of land. Thinking well they are banned so they can't get in nor buy it. Well then true. It did stop them from getting in. But, they were right next to the ban line and BOUGHT IT? Why is that right? If I BAN someone they should NOT have a right to purchase the property? This is my feeling on it. This is the 1 way that would stop the BUSH guy from getting more property to put all the junk on?!

This could be a great solution and there's precedent for it.

We can already mute a resident's speech to us through IM and on the forums. It's a very small step indeed to mute their textures. You could mute by creator, UUID, or even mute everything on land that a particular person or group owns.

I need to think some more on this, but it's the best solution I've heard so far. I'm not sure I'm totally comfortable with it, but as I said, there's precedent. It seems silly if I can mute IM's from a bad neighbor, but can't mute other taunting expressions in their textures.

As for the suggestion about banning and land purchases, I doubt it would work. It creates confrontation without really solving the problem. It's too easy to create alts and have an alt buy the land.

The beauty of muting is that it's non-confrontational. The person who is muted isn't even aware. And they still get to present their point of view to anyone who hasn't muted them. As far as I can tell, muting has worked fairly well in the forums without abridging free speech.

Support Prop 905 - Filter Area (see sig for link)!

I do not know how viable it would be or if Lindens even care, I mean those blue signs drove me to Dreamland, and to say they ARE NOT EXTORTION IS BULL. I POLITELY asked him not not put them in front of my best window and he procedded to buy land all around me and put up even MORE. He is an extortionist pure and simple. making your point of view shown over and over and over really sux.
Funny thing, I support his viewpoint and I was in the army but his crap is pure wrong. You do not have to support his messed up signs to support our troops
muuah

LL in advertising contract negotiation with <insert advertising agency representing deep pocketed corporations here>

And so ends the quickest negotiation in the history of the ad business.

Texture mute is *never* going to happen.

Easy enough to make exceptions for big corporate paid advertisers. It shouldn't prevent us from muting the textures of individual residents.

Big blue sign.

Big blank white box.

Big fuzzy rabbit with a pancake on it's head.

IT DOESN'T MATTER!!!!!

That's what most in these discussions, and Linden Labs in particular, will NOT see.

It is NOT what the sign says, but is the object itself.

How would LL like to look out thier windows and see nothing but white, or black, or plaid or anything else but the beautiful land we have all developed?

ANY object taken to this extreme is a disgrace. Wether it is political statements, advertisements, or just a moron putting up pics of bunnies with pancakes on thier heads. The content of said object is irrelivant.

LL states that it is OUR job to do something about it. Well, since all TOOLS to do ANYTHING about it is in LL's hands, we ARE doing what WE can about it. WE are filing a complaint to LL about it so THEY DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

~Jessy

The history of the internet shows technical fixes always produce hacks to get around said fix (not to mention microsoft's product's security updates). Some of the issues involved in this solution are in this thread.

I particularly liked this comment:

Following that reasoning, if LL were to implement texture masking they'd be in violation of their own TOS:



But then we could throw more technology at it.... register certain textures as immutable. But then we'd need a LL certification that these XRay-spec proof textures are allowed only for bathrooms and clothing, not signs (unless signs paid for by out of world advertisers). And... well... see where it goes?

Better idea - LL, just enforce the TOS

Jacqueline,

You make a good point, but the mere fact that a technical solution is not perfect is not a sufficient reason to reject it.

You don't have to go to the internet to find technical solutions that aren't perfect. The lock on my RL front door is an imperfect technical solution and won't keep anyone out who really wants to come in. I had a girlfriend in college whose family never locked their doors and someone still broke the window to get into the house.

Security and privacy in general is a spectrum.

In the example about making walls disappear to invade peoples privacy. That can already be done using the Debug menu. The only truly private place in SL is a private sim.

Privacy is a very real issue that LL needs to address, but it will take a technical solution to do it. There's no way for LL to even know when someone's privacy is being invaded, so there's no TOS or governmental solution to it. Something along the lines of this is required.

How is NOT allowing a banned person to buy land from me not an option? True it could be bought with alt's. That would be an option the banned one could use. But, even that eventually will be found out and then we just ban the alt(s) as well. There will never be a 100% sure fire way to end this. There are always ways around everything. So for now and ever as far as I'm concerned. If I ban someone and don't want them on my property. I sure don't want them to be able to BUY it either! How hard is that to understand? I really don't think that is asking TOO much.

Too many holes in your idea. I buy your land. I live there for awhile. I dont know or remember who you banned. I sell it to someone else and they end up selling to the person you banned by coincidence. Or maybe I do? Anyways it too much to track or hassle over. But you'll never completely stop someone determined from buying land. Nor do I feel this bush guy should be stopped from buying land.

The solution is to have ways to filter ugly content. Then the motivation behind many people erecting ugly crap will fade. Then when selling your property people will know they can filter any problem neighbors you might have. Hell I've love to have a filter. I'd filter out stuff that isnt even close to extortion.

I understand you completely and on the surface it looks like a great idea.

But I've been in SL long enough to know how crazy things can get. My deepest concern is that it would lead to a lot of finger pointing and accusations.

Lets say that you ban Person X and that LL implements it so that Person X can't buy the land. Then, Person Y buys it and immediately sells it to Person X with no knowledge or intention of doing anything wrong.

Human nature is to immediately suspect that Person Y is an alt of Person X. There will be posts in the forum almost immediately crying foul and suggesting that Person Y is a tool of the devil. And since land transactions aren't public, there might also be confusion as to whether Person X bought it directly. And another group of people will file a bunch of bug reports and make posts in the forums about how there's a bug that let's banned people buy the land.

Other people will immediately come to Person Y's defense. Some really choice things will be said and Jeska will close the threads.

It just goes on and on.

Some people will start banning Person Y because they suspect that Y is an alt of X. Threats will be made. suspensions will follow. everyone is unhappy.

Probably, I'm wrong about this, but this is why--in a nutshell--I'm not so crazy about the idea.

There are ways to prevent some specific person to buy land. You just set it for sale to yourself, then you make the interested buyers IM you so you can screen them, then you sell to whom you see fit.

And in my country we all support our soldiers, whether we are in favour of the war or not.

I find a nice plot of land, its a bit laggy due to a couple of clubs nearby, but not a real problem for me... I set up my store, get it running and am finishing up when the person that owns a neighboring plot comes over and asks what I paid for my land. I tell him the dirt cheap price and asks why it was so low. I point out the lag and club problem and he is befuddled. He *wants* to sell the land at a high price, but knows that he isn't likely to get it any time soon, and even offers it to me, and I don't need it... so he decides to subdivide and sell it as 'prim land'.

Soon all these little pieces are selling and I start to get this lovely infestation of signs next to my shop. I asked one man to please silence his vendor as it was quite bothersome to browse with his vendor constantly telling you what it was selling, but he obviously can't connect my complaint with the landmark I sent him. Then comes the adult club sign... and then the person who buys to put up a skybox... loverly as they say... the next door lot had turned into an eyesore even worse than my store (and that is saying quite a lot for a place I tell people to 'bring aspirin to' when they visit). And beyond that the stuff was so intrusive the clubs moved, because there was just too much junk nearby. And I refuse to move just due to eyesores.

Hmmmm... lots of eyesores in one direction... and then the idea came to me...

My futzy big prim!! Developed while making my first store, this poor thing had yet to find a good use, until now! Nice *huge* prims that are very thin... of course I put in a nice client side script and gave nice rotating gold texture on the side facing my store... on the other side a nice alpha spiral so my store can be seen and they distract from the signage. Anyone who wants to go higher has to go above the cloud deck... well out of sight! The prims are phantom, so they do not obstruct flight. They are pleasant to look at... well... sort of, at least... and as they hold no text, no political position, no advertising... I claim them to be artwork, pure and simple.

I *like* them.

Enjoy!

-Diana