Land Merchant Guild

As I posted in here (Merchant Guilds) I am interested in cooperating with other merchants in SecondLife.

One of my ideas was to set up a Land Merchant Guild which would be comprised of a number of land developers and resellers who would like to collectively work towards educating new users about the benefits of working with a Land Merchant.

Specifically it would be a notecard which would detail such advantages of

Renting from a Land Merchant

+ Being in a Zoned Sim
+ Not having to pay an upfront purchase fee
+ Very low risk compared to purchasing
(only have to pay week to week, versus month to month and you can leave at anytime)
+ Often a great community spirit

Purchasing from a Land Merchant

+ Land merchants are good at buying your sim at a small discount when you want to move
+ Land merchants will often provide you after sales support, help you locate products and services you'll need to build your dream parcel
+ The land is owned by you, so in the off chance the value increases you can sell the land. Conversely, if the value of the land decreases you'll also have to pay a penalty. Also note, it does take time to sell so you may have to pay tier while waiting to sell.

We could educate new users with educational events, notecards, and create a sort of "Merchant Guild Live Help" group that people could ask questions on.

I believe the key thing of the Merchant Guild is not to specifically talk about your own products and services. By talking about them generally to new users we all stand to have a lot more credibility and 'all boats will rise'.

You could have a published "Code of Practice", maybe even agreed with LL, and expel people who broke it. A Logo, only members could use ?

I think its a fine idea, Iron, particularly with all the issues about new deals which require a higher level of trustworthiness than previously, due to Landowners taking "purchase like" up-front-fees which they can later expropriate with a click of the mouse.

The Code of Practice should also cover misleading advertising.

I would certainly prefer to go with a merchant who was working under such regulation, albeit voluntary. Who knows, if you got big enough, you could even set up a fund to compensate those defrauded by your members or damaged by their disappearance (hopefully none), and a complaints procedure. Absolutely wonderful. Start small, but go for it.

I'd be tentatively interested in this but since I already do all this on my own, I'd have to understand why I should devote more time to make it happen for someone else and enhance their business, rather than my own. It's just that simple. To enhance everybody's business and find ways for everyone to benefit from group work is really, really a tough challenge in this game.

I can see some advantages to such a guild, chief of which would be to make land buying and selling a more normal, accepted and beneficial activity in the game, and not an area where a select minority of players use it to constantly harp and condemn and try to influence newbies, and try to advance both their socialist utopian theories and vent their allergenic reactions to commerce and land ownership. I think such a guild could help create a good reputation for real estate agents so that the term "virtual estate agents" or "virtualtors" like "realtors" would acquire a positive connotation rather than the judgemental and pernicious "land baron".

Land barony is a reality, of course. And one thing the land merchants' guild has to be conscious of is the problem of having those giant merchants in any guild. They will swamp it and overwhelm it. They do just fine on their own...so why do they need you to help them? On the other hand, precisely to control the market, they might like to control such a guild. So you need to be cognizant of the pluses and minuses of their involvement.

Rather than think of the mechanics of how to make such a guild, you have to think more of its mission and objectives. What does it do for me? What can it do for buyers? etc.

I'm all for a code of best practices. I'd start with some really simple ones, like

1. Never change the price on a piece of land to a higher price after an individual has expressed interest in it (this practice is the single most often cited reason for hatred of land barons.)
2. Never parcel water by itself for sale separate from the mainland, and if you must for parceling equal parties of 512, 1024, etc. standards, then write IM ME FOR SALE on them to prevent purchase by viewblockers and griefers.

and dozens more.

I'm not for following Lindar Lehane's notions of a punitive, persnickety set of codes when it is not clear what his agenda is -- is he a land seller or a land buyer or what? His campaign against those deeding and selling islands has been indicative of the kind of overly scrupulous and punitive campaign rooted in a hatred of those dealing in land that I'd like to see dispelled in this game.

I'm also not for setting up any funds for dealing with those "defrauded by our members". That is ludicruos. The guild has to be structured as such so that it doesn't include those types of members. And I think most customers, and most "land barons" are not going to have anywhere near the chariness he has shown about the advertised private island deed land. So I'm hardly going to create a slush fund for a Lindar test-alt to come and collect on based on some overzealous, putative "fraud" LOL.

A land guild could get some ready-made good social capital and reputation raising by buying some areas and offering them as new lands to supplement Linden land. This should be land that any newbie can right-click and buy. It would just not be put on the open market to avoid flipping. SO it means screening a bit.

I am not too thrilled with the idea of policing fellow land merchants. Perhaps that would be best done by a seperate group, a SL BBB or something?

Again, I can only feel that all boats will rise if there was a better common understanding by everyone of the benefits provided by land merchants. I also think there would be a better experience for everyone as well.

It can be quite difficult to sell your own product, however selling someone elses product is fairly easy to do.

Yes, I'm all for establishing a BBB. For that, at least some players feel they need assurances from the Lindens that when this BBB begins a critical investigation into allegations of fraud, that they are freed from the nasty consequences that can happen when the target of their investigation then undertakes to Abuse-Report them for "verbal hararrasment" etc. This is the kicker. I'm not for creating an immune, feted class of people in the game who get to have the right to scrutinize other's businesses with impunity themselves -- we already see some companies up to these shenanigans.

But I'm for a respected, established group of players, going across the board to different businesses and sectors, setting this up to deal with everything from outright fraud, i.e. selling things in empty boxes, etc. or false prices, or copyright infringement.

A merchants' guild can go a long way to creating a better climate for business not by policing its members but making a list of voluntary best practices. You follow them, or you don't. IT's not a policing exercise.

To use a RL example. You can try to stop all the "blood diamonds" coming illegally out of Sierra Leone that are mined through civil war, killing, torture, gangsterism, etc., by trying to control borders. OR you can have a diamond merchants' guild that establishes good practices for companies or individuals they will buy from, whose practices they have examined and found not to be of the "blood" variety.

Instead of policing the bad, you create the good and help the good drive out the bad. When the customer gets into the habit of not buying the 'blood diamons" and gets into the habit of buying the "good diamonds" that helps put the bloods out of business.

Forget it then, Iron, as far as I'm concerned. If your only interest is furthering the merchants interest, thats another matter. Thought there was equal concern for customers. Misunderstood. Sorry.

It's in the best interest of the customers that they are made aware of these important services.

Policing, in theory, may sound like it will help out the customers, but in practice it is usually used to advance hidden agendas and alienate unpopular individuals.

Definitely some truth in that, too, Iron. No offence, I hope. Just a misunderstanding. So easy with nothing but the typed word.

Exactly. Which is why the ranting about barons offering deeded islands in fact has only alienated many people.

Much better to simply establish a positive business practice and outlook.