Why Don't People Pool Tier and Govern Sims?

Grid Commune

8 players - Gridded sim - Tier donations
320 $ - 8 shares of 40 $
Equity holder is the only officer
No land priviliges to other 7 members.
10% skim off the top tier worth 19.50 $
19.50$ bonus value per month

Island Commune

8 players - island sim - paypal equity holder
195 $ - 8 shares of 25 $
All players are officers of their own parcel
Land privileges for all
no skim tier, but 15 $ savings to each player.
120 $ savings per month


winner - island commune

Tier nation
players pay LL standard tier fees to LL
players don't pay land equity
players have no control over their land
benevolent despot holds land equity
benevolent despot collects 10% skim tier for other purposes
benevolent despot chases around grid pleasing the tier nation subjects so they don't quit and move to landshe

player benefit - no equity
player loss - no land control
despot benefit - 10% skim tier (which amounts to 24% IRR*)
despot loss - chasing around the grid changing radio stations and planting trees

* 10 % skim = 19.50$ value per month (on prime land rate of 1 sim = 195 $) on 1000$ value of land = 240$/year on 1000 USD. IRR = potentially 24% (less on mature land)


Island Nation
players pay LL standard fee to landlord
player has full land control
land lord pays equity
landlord pays LL prime tier rate
landlord administers zoning and disputes

player benefit - cheap land or no equity in land, land control
player loss - not on the grid
landlord benefit - 150% IRR (low end - 78%)*
landlord loss - none that jauani can see

*
8 tenants @ 40$ each = 320 $; 320$ gross minus 195 LL fee = 125 $ net per month; 125 $/m * 12 = 1500 $ / year; 1500$ on 1000$ sim investment = 150%

4 tenants @ 75$ each = 300 $; 300$ gross minus 195 LL fee = 105 $ net per month; 105 $/m * 12 = 1500 $ / year; 1260$ on 1000$ sim investment = 126%

2 tenants @ 125$ each = 250 $; 250$ gross minus 195 LL fee = 65 $ net per month; 65 $/m * 12 = 780 $ / year; 780$ on 1000$ sim investment = 78%


winner - island nation

note, these numbers are a reflection on tier donation vs placing tier payments under one account. they are strictly a comparison of communes or rental businesses that are function on tier donation vs prime rate tier being leveraged by one player/landlord.

proks rental business uses a combination of tier donation and landlord tier leverage. this allows him to use his business in defense of tier donation at one time and then hopscoth to the other side and evade criticism maintaing very few are tier donators.

this thread is about tier donation - prokofy asks why people don't do it more. my answers and criticism is purely in that regard to communes and rental businesses.

You forgot to factor in the upfront purchase costs of land.

I don't hopskotch, Jauani, you hopskotch between blasting me for running a hobby not a business, or running it at a loss or not a a reasonable profit, then you turn around and accuse me of "skimming" -- the very word is loaded. Which is it? And I answer forthrightly, I have a business with a mixture of profit-making and non-profit making land, and a small tier donation program that helps me pays the bill, end of story. It's not a mystery, it's not a scam, it's an open book, and people benefit from it and I benefit from it. I don't propose it as a business model to make a killing, or even as a non-profit model, but propose it as one way to manage land on the main grid.

While we have a main grid with land on it created and sold by the Lindens, it's what I wish to do and others have joined me in it.

I ask why others don't do it on their own, I don't ask why don't they do it with *me*.

Robin Linden's answer to my generic questions about this show that they Lindens conceived of this idea of tier donation and the 10 percent bonus to enhance and stimulate creative projects on sims. They didn't conceive of it as a land business and a rentals business. She also said the amazing thing that few people take advantage of this ten percent bonus in land groups. That's amazing to me. Here's this wonderful, amazing, ready-made system to get 10 percent more tier, to cooperate with others safely, to put in tier especially when you are between first land and making your first bigger purchase, yet so few people do it. I've helped quite a few people just make their own land groups to do their own thing in after they've been my tenants or just come to a class or something -- I would love to see more people do this in the game, it's to their benefit and to the whole game's benefit.

Your persistence in trying to harass me and condemn me in doing this is what is strange if not suspect, especially given that we had a friendship card and you were an officer in a pinch when, as you full know, the issue was the loss of my land, not any magnificent gesture to you -- it was not "about" you.

When you receive more rent from YOUR tenants than what you pay Linden Labs, um, that's not "skimming"? LOL. You're hilarious! It's just collecting rent in a business in which you provide service, just as I do, and there is nothing wrong in what I do or you do.

You also write very emotionally-loaded phrases like "player has no control over land".
But that's silly. In my rentals or other rentals (I'm not the only one in this business, just the only publicly discussing it):

Here are the advantages of renting or donating tier in my group -- I cite this as my experience anyone can replicate, not as some "infomercial" so please back off with that:

o each member collects their share of group dwell and can use group buildings and group objects and public commons for events space -- they also get free vending -- so in fact their benefits are another dollar cost you could add up to make it seem like it's even more of a ripoff for me or a boon for them or however you see it

o you can have temp land edit to terraform and plant, something you can't do in Ansheland

o you can bring or build your own building up to two storeys and not blocking the view but I don't have the elaborate building codes of Ansheland or Nexusland, where they have formulas like 1.5 times from the border blah blah

o you can have your video and radio deeded

o you can name your lot and be in FIND PLACES (you cannot be in FIND PLACES in Anshe land on the private islands) -- that alone is worth the price of the ticket for some shops who are my tenants

o you can move your tier around the system to other lots without any loss

Jauani, let me catch you up on some game facts:

o Landlords/officers do not have to change URLs anymore if they ever did. The new radios have station channel changers working on a configuration card. I take the free radio and deed it to the tenant and they themselves change the stations when they want to by configuring the cards. If they want to buy an expensive radio, I deed it to them after they sell it to me for $0 and after the understand the risk. The problem with these radios is merely that the non-free ones often have closed scripts, of course, which is natural, but then I need them on transfer/sell so I can take possession of the object to deed it -- that's it. There's no running around after that.

o members in a group can plant after you turn on temp land edit for them -- they can pull the trees out of the library

o you've misunderstood the function of the officers on these groups that hold land in the islands -- they are not full-fledged land-holding groups and do not have the control you think

Let me suggest that to get rid of your prejudices, Jauani, you need to just go to visit, say, those tenants you know living on land I bought from you. Did they pay that price for the land? No. They put a tier donation and a cash payment on it now. Since setting their radios and setting their lot name and letting them terraform ages ago, have I even had to visit their lot? No. They just pay their rent. If they have something else they need, they call me but I never hear from them.

Most of my running around doing customer service is to serve brand-new people, and to spend time helping new people in the game who don't know what a prim is or how to count it. But once that education is complete they become part of a long-term happy customer base. Sometimes life is not about gouging out a tenant for what you can get for 2 weeks, but putting in a little effort to help them as newbies so that in 6 months they might still be a paying tenant, and maybe even on a larger lot, and maybe with a shop, too.

You've displayed your hand all too well Jauani by calling the "Tier Nation" manager a "despot" -- me -- and the 'Island Nation" manager a "landlord" -- Anshe Chung or Adam Zaius.

You know full well that the rules that they have on their private islands, and the operations they will run there with absolutely no mercy or appeal to griefers or people they may just not like will qualify them more for the term "despot" than me. I don't keep blacklists and don't bar people from my properties. (I do have a list of "users and losers" that I just remember not to get involved with in land deals, as they've either pulled tier, or posted extortionist prices on land to sale and sometimes put griefing towers on it to force a sale.)

All boxes are open to be right-clicked on and paid and rented by any one at any time. There might be a few cases of really egregious griefers that engaged in shooting, sexual harassment etc but in those cases the Lindens ban those accounts anyway. We'll be seeing how far more exclusive these gated communities get on the private islands, especially with the enhanced capacity some of them have to gather and store information on their customers.

Another area where you are "off" is the idea that when I pay tier to Anshe, this isn't a "skim". I pay her less tier than what I would pay the Lindens. But I don't pay her exact tier to the Lindens. So please, spare me your harsh judgements and save them for everyone who rents -- but then have a little awareness, as you must know as a landlord, that renting is something you have costs in, both land purchases and houses, and to justify the operation you have to cover costs if not make some profit.

What's your point, Jauani? That it is more profitable to landlords to run islands? They're doing that. Did you need to slam me or call me a "despot" when I have less rules than they in the process of making that point? Of course not, just as Gwyn didn't have to call me a "benevolent dictator" and simply feed the insane, biased, and rabid critique of me that you both absorbed from day one from Traxx Hathor, who only does this for reasons of personal baggage.

From the first time he heard of this idea, which he didn't approve of because he didn't control, he condemned of it as a "scooping up tier and using it to buy land and be lord of the sim". He's always called it a "scam" and even libeled me with the false information that I lowball newbies in buying their first land (which they are free to put on the open market) when they opt to come in my groups. I've discussed this openly, which only opens me up to fresh assaults and criticism of "scams" but I remain steadfast. The half dozen or so newbies who benefited from this type of arrangement can be consulted. I will go on offering this service which benefits both those people and me.

I've created a viable system for living on the mainland. It helps people have access to land without buying it. I've absorbed the payment of the land as a long-term investment, though quite aware that at root this is a hobby or experiment in which great losses are possible. I'd like to see group tools changed to minimize these losses and I hear the Lindens are doing this in dealing immediately at least with the officer recall problem.

I'm opening up my business and its practices for scrutiny, and encouraging others to try this or similar models (without making some silly claim that it should be replicated across the grid).

Have the others on islands openly discussed their business to this extent? Have you openly discussed your own land dealing and rentals business to this extent? No. So while I'm quite prepared to take any amount of criticism, I'll urge you from using this opportunity of someone's open discussion of their project to slam them with loaded and prejudicial terms like "despot". I honestly can't understand how Anshe or Adam get to be free of that label in your book, but I have to absorb it, when I have the following features they do not:

o rent to buy and actually fully, completely, totally own the land in the LL sense anyway and pay LL tier
o terraform and plant
o looser building codes
o more flexibility to move
o buybacks at the same price as sale


What do you wish to prove Jauani?

That I'm not a good land baron making a profit on the backs of ordinary players?
That I'm not a good socialist making a power bastion under the guise of social justice?

That I'm something in between that you can only blast as being a "despot" or "stupid"?

Try to open up your mind a little more to the possibilities we have in this world if we create something that is neither capitalism or socialism.

Your analysis was excellent! You should repost it as a new thread in the Land and Economy forum for discussion. Great work.

~Ulrika~

i've gone back to reading the first and last 10% of your posts so you might want to provide some cliff notes like gwyn does.

skimming is not intended as a bad thing. my criticism is if a project worked entirely on the 10% tier bonus from a multitude of donations, it would not be as beneficial to all participants as if the donation was made by one player. in fact it would be unbeneficial.

if you feel that i'm insinuating you are pulling a scam, that's probably your own guilty concience for something you are up to that i know nothing about. i don't think what you do is a scam. i've repeatedly said it is a great service for your clients in this thread. perhaps you should stop typing and start reading.

personally i drink skimmed milk. i have no problems with skimming. if you have a problem, go make your confessions at church. i don't feel like reading your novels. short stories only please. and make them funny like you used to like the giant gorilla story. that one put me right to sleep. yawn.

Jauani, I don't have a guilty conscience because I haven't done anything wrong in my groups, I follow the TOS and the ROC and do everything above the board. Little anti-Catholic slams about "going to confession in your church" might evade the mods here but honestly, that's pretty bigoted.

Your facts are wrong on the island communities. I own there, so I know. Let me repost the most cogent points of my last post so you can "skim them".

Tier Nation

o you can have temp land edit to terraform and plant, something you can't do in Ansheland

o you can bring or build your own building up to two storeys and not blocking the view but I don't have the elaborate building codes of Ansheland or Nexusland, where they have formulas like 1.5 times from the border blah blah

o you can have your video and radio deeded

o you can name your lot and be in FIND PLACES (you cannot be in FIND PLACES in Anshe land on the private islands) -- that alone is worth the price of the ticket for some shops who are my tenants

o you can move your tier around the system to other lots without any loss

Jauani, let me catch you up on some game facts:

o Landlords/officers do not have to change URLs anymore if they ever did. The new radios have station channel changers working on a configuration card. I take the free radio and deed it to the tenant and they themselves change the stations when they want to by configuring the cards. If they want to buy an expensive radio, I deed it to them after they sell it to me for $0 and after the understand the risk. The problem with these radios is merely that the non-free ones often have closed scripts, of course, which is natural, but then I need them on transfer/sell so I can take possession of the object to deed it -- that's it. There's no running around after that.

prok is your business leveraged or is it based on tier donation? the small part of your business that is based on tier donation is the part that is worthless. it's not evil. it's wrong. it's not cheating. it's a mutually agreed upon arrangement between you and your client that benefits neither as much as the leverage one could.

the only condition where tier donations make sense and was the only time i have ever accepted it, is in installment payments for land.

prok is your business leveraged or is it based on tier donation? the small part of your business that is based on tier donation is the part that is worthless. it's not evil. it's wrong. it's not cheating. it's a mutually agreed upon arrangement between you and your client that benefits neither as much as the leverage one could.

the only condition where tier donations make sense and was the only time i have ever accepted it, is in installment payments for land.

another lesser case is where people are grouping land for an acual group project but nobody trusts each other to paypal the money on time.

there's no place like home
there's no place like home
there's no place like home....

Yes, whether you chose Island Nation, Island Commune, or Tier Nation for your home, it will be home because you chose it.

why don't you just post "bump" or "RENT MY LAND" in really large fonts? maybe you could post a twirling back and white spiral to hypnotize people. i think i would enjoy that a lot

RENT MY LAND.

~Ulrika~

Visit Houston, TX. There are no zoning laws. Never have been. Maybe never will.

I love how you can have a mall next to a junk yard next to a church. Its great!

Before this thread gets buried or closed, let me note that it has fallen into place for me better now why these attacks were taking place (with mods believing they weren't "about me" and I shouldn't be reacting to them, but duh, they were).

I used to keep my tier for my groups spread across a number of accounts. I had alts as many owners do to keep the groups together. I also realized the value of having alts when I saw how vicious and nasty people can be on the forums when you buy a sim -- they slam you for *gasp* buying a whole sim -- I'll never forget when I asked a question as a rather new person about dwell, after buying a sim, and was slammed for not "needing" to care about dwell.

You're also slammed for "being a rapacious land baron" when you show up in the game with a sim or more.

So I kept my tier spread across accounts in order both to manage division of labor (one account handles only house placement, another handles only rental boxes, etc.) because it gets insane each time you log on with all the customer service calls. And I had some themed characters to go with some communities, made sense.

I'll mention this in case it's useful to others planning on taking up whole sims or more than one sim -- it's useful to spread tier across accounts because you have flexibility in pay dates. It's a lot to pay $195 or $204 in one smack, so it can be better to have it 1st of the month, 15th of the month etc. It also gives you more flexibility if you have only a little bit more to have say $40 on another account that you can just dump if you don't need it some months if there isn't anything you've bought and sold on the auction.

But of course, spreading tier means paying more. You don't get the best discount. You pay for the privilege of anonymity and protection of your groups from malicious officer recall 2/3 vote hijacks, but you pay something like $25-50-75 or more, depending on that extra tier level, for that privilege in a higher tier bill spread like that.

When you get above $195, as I found, the next tier up is half a tier jump, but with some savings, to $292 for another 32k or so. This isn't even visible on the land fees menu and it can take days to get an answer about this from customer service as I discovered but if you're good and docile, certain land barons will usher you into the secret chamber and tell you how to make this magic discount pop up into your menu -- you have to go buy and sell even just 16m to yourself over your full sim tier level, that will force the account to tier up, and when it's forced like that it fetches up to a screen then makes you click off $292 (yeah, even for that little 16m LOL that's how tier works). So then you're in.

Now what? Well now you've got an account in a group with all the tier on him to fill him up.

So your *cough* new officers in the group who see you have all this tier say, respectively, "My, I didn't know you had that much tier" or "My, that's awesome". And...they hustle off to the forums to blast you for a) being a benevolent dictator or b) a despot or c) a rank hobbyist who spends money poorly or d) a scampering customer service maniac or e) just somebody they think is too big for their britches?

These are the natural correctives for anyone getting too much of anything in this game -- the forums attack. In Russia, we used to call this "uravnilovka" or "leveling down" or "dumbing down everything to your level".

If my neighbour has a cow, and I don't have one, inform on my neighbour, and ask him to take that cow away from my neighbour! Now! And kill that cow so my neighbour doesn't have it!

Why doesnt linden lab provide a facility that lets players pay their tiers for group owned sims through there site. If system was in place that allowed the group leader to elect how many people can be involved in paying the group owned sim. The linden site could automaticaly calculate how much would be charged to each player and deduct that amount directly from their accounts with their usual land tiers. This in my mind would eliminate the fear of players pulling tier. it would be easy to organise and maintain.

Sorry for the numerous spelling typos

But it does do that already. Any player can pay their tier on this site, indeed, that's how you do it. Then, in the game, you put that tier into a group. You can pull it out at any time though. I don't see how the Lindens facilitating this on a site could do anything. They couldn't force people to leave their tier in a group.

The group investor or founder already invites in people and they pay the group tier. Each one is paying the regular tier level. If you're saying that a group should get discounted tier, i.e. get a sim for $195 and then have each person pay $19.50 for 10 shares, rather than the $40 they'd have to pay to be at a 6500 tier level, I think you'd find that the Lindens wouldn't give that deep a discount. Indeed, they only give a 10 percent bonus for such groups, giving them more tier to cover more land that they have to purchase, not taking anything off what they have to pay.

Possibly they could create a separate function called "group tier" which would lock in, that is, once you paid it, it would remain 30 days, just like currently, you pay tier fees on the largest amount of land you held, regardless of what you have on day 30.

But how could they force someone to keep that paid tier level in a certain group? They'd be free to move to another group. They'd have to introduce more programming and scripting I guess to force people to "lock in" -- and that's more programming than they are willing to spend time and money on -- and way more control that most people will submit to.

Tier is poorly understood, and fear and hatred around it is easily whipped up as we see. It amazes me because it's the one thing you can safely pay to the Lindens, without any players intervening, and do it all on your credit card safely. The risk is NEVER to the donor or renter, the risk is ALWAYS to the landlord. That is, if for some reason the donor puts it in the group and the landlord reneges, and doesn't supply the land or boots the prims or something, well, the renter just takes the tier and moves it intact elsewhere, to another group, or to other land.

It's amazed me since I arrived that people don't move around like that with their tier constantly, staying in different places and trying different things.

The risk is to the landlord, because a tier-puller can leave his group open to being undertier, and then the land is at risk of seizure within 3 days. That means he might have to go tier up to a huge new level and pay an unwanted cost.

I don't see how you can force people to keep in tier. I do find that out of the dozens of people who have done this in my rentals groups, only 2 have messed me up badly, one quite deliberately. So I continue to offer this and encourage others to do the same kind of thing with their own groups.