Is There a Practical Way to "Code Out" AdFarms?

Right now I can't think of one. Most suggestions I've heard (such as limiting how small plots can be used) would simply change some of the economics of the adfarm business, forcing the owners into clumping multiple ads onto a single parcel.

Does anyone have an idea on a way that Linden Lab could "code out" adfarms in such a manner that it would not require lots of Linden time for enforcement? It would be best also if suggested solutions did not require lots of processing time from the sims, and did not depend on individual "muting" of hundreds of different adfarmers.

I'm looking for that's JIRA-able and could be actively campaigned for.

Any ideas?

Two suggestions.

1) A minimum size land that can be set for sale. Anything <64sq m, for example, can only be sold to a named avatar for L$0. Whilst, of course, many ad farmers will simply put more ads on one plot, it does at least make it a little more complicated for them to manage.

2) An upper limit of, say, L$50/sq m for any land. That stops the extortion avenue that most ad farmers go down.

The second option is probably the easier one to code and enforce. It'll also remove some of the places that use 'land for sale' as a free advertisment by putting in ridiculous prices for their land.

Actually, what's wrong with that very suggestion?

What I mean is - say Sally Spammerson owned a ton of adfarms. If I were to be able to go into my client, and make all objects owned by Sally Spammerson disappear from my client view, I'd think that'd go a long way.

It'd also have implications for neighbors with ugly builds as well. It'd be completely opt-in, so folks could choose who they wanted to parcel-mute.

Even better if this parcel-mute-list were scriptable - that would allow residents to exchange these lists with one another easily, if they so chose.

Edited to Add: Since I'm talking about a Client thing here, I wonder if this is something Nicholaz could toy with?

As I was reading your post, I was preparing to suggest muting the individual ad farmer. I think the core capability that needs implemented is *not* transmit parcel prims to certain excluded residents. For this, we could get:

* turning off ugly properties
* truly private residences where we make our homes invisible

If the problem is too many different ad farmers to "mute", perhaps muting by parcel size would work.

--Hugsy

hehe - I keep thinking of more things

To extend it a step further - what if we were able to set a mute list for all visitors on our own parcels? Similar to the way banning an avatar mutes all their chat for anyone that visits our parcels?

At the very least, that would allow us to control the experience our visitors have on our own parcels. Of course, this latter addition becomes more than just a client-side change.

That's an excellent idea. And the server side would not be too horrible (I would think) as it would just be sending a list of avatar keys of stuff not to render. I would appreciate correction from someone who understands the client side code, though

The problem with that suggestion is that there is land in SL that is legitimately worth more than 50L$/m2. Maybe a higher figure? Or a limit based on the size of the parcel?

I would love the ability to mute by parcel size. That could solve lots of the adfarm clutter problems. Especially if you combined it with the suggestion Travis had about parcel view mute for a property. In other words, you could set your land so that anything on a parcel of xxm2 or less was invisible.

Along similar lines, how about a "mute all but me". While you're on you're own land, this would:

* display stuff on your land
* not display anyone else's stuff
* provide options for displaying vegetation on other's property:

--- denisty: none at all, light, moderate, thick
--- type: ground (ferns), trees (pines, winter pines, ...)

Just throwing stuff out there.

Edit to add: The server knows you have this option so it only serves you your prims. The client takes care of auto-genning the vegetation.

--Hugsy

The Able version has/had the ability to mute objects by making them nearly transparent. It is for older version though and probably wont work now.

http://ablewhitman.org/viewer/

Ad farms exist because they work. You may have better luck by studying why they are used -- what need do they fill -- and try to find a more acceptible way to fill tha need. Writing code to block the ad farms will in result in new typse of unblocked ad farms. Giving businesses the results of ad farms without antagonising the customer base will make the person who can do this very wealthy.

There are some 16 sq m parcels set for sale at L$ 5000000... L$312500/sq m.

I tried to see what the highest 'genuine' price was for land, between the L$0/sq m non-ownership scam and L$/excessive ad plots... and the client blocked me for searching too fast.

How do the land swoopbots get away with it?

I think L$50/sq m is more than enough personally, but even if you make it L$100/sq m it will still block 90% of the 'fake' land sale ads and scams.

A 16 sqm plot could then sell for no more than L$1600, much less than the $9999 or more they go now.

I would like to see proof of any venture that has benefitting by advertising with ad farms.

While I probably wouldn't use it today, I miss MetaAdverse

MetaAdverse was an ad system created by Rathe Underthorne circa 2004-2005. Essentially, it automatically linked up Advertisers with those willing to put out Advertisements. Those that put the ads out were paid based upon how many people viewed the add, called 'impressions'. Rathe probably made money by charging some sort of small percentage of the impression fee as a commission.

If I remember right though - there were no such thing as Classified ads back then. So I suppose that in-world Classifieds have filled the void that the departure of MetaAdverse created.

My guess is only the ad farm landowners are the ones that benefit.

I cannot understand this mania by some people for having universal bans on whatever annoys them.

In this thread it is ad farms. And people - gasp! - DARING to post asking prices for parcels that are commonly regarded as ridiculously high because - GASP! - they hope to get more visibility for their parcels!!! In other threads it has been ban lines. Child avs. Bots. Campers.

For God's sake, give us all a break, will you? Fascist ukases of this sort are SOOOO 20th Century! Give up already on placing a jackboot on the necks of whoever annoys you, because everyone understands that creates a precedent for eventually placing a jackboot on their necks and, ultimately, yours. You are going to lose on this. Hitler, he daid. Stalin, he daid. Ditto Mussolini, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, and all the rest who put the jackboot theory into practice. However attractive you think the jackboot is to you now, understand that eventually it is going to be used on you.

Look, people who come into SL and who get through the steep learning curve and the newbie griefers and the operating problems on the grid and everything else - they are BRIGHT people. I can trust them to think for themselves and come up with reasonably rational decisions. I may or may not agree with their decisions, but I will much prefer to deal with that than with a jackboot grid.

If you STILL want a jackboot SL, hey, no sweat! There are BDSM palaces all over the place where Mistress Helga or Master Adolf will give you all the jackboot happiness you can stand. Go there, and leave the forums alone, ok?

Of all the many ways to advertise in-world and externally, it's hard to name a single one that's *less* effective than ad-plots. But the need they fill is very rarely advertising, it's extortion of the neighboring landowners. I'm not eager to devise a more effective way to do that.

As for the proposals for "visual muting"--I thought we'd have this by now, with LL forced to implement the basic functionality in order for Restricted Content parcels to be anything but a joke on the mainland. Once some flavor of IDV is officially official, they'll eventually have to implement it for that purpose or the press will bring the whole embarrassing mess into the open. But when they do implement it, if they don't simultaneously give landowners the ability to at least mute visibility of another parcel by all visitors to an owned parcel, that would be willfully blocking an obvious solution.

The beauty of this solution, by the way, is that it only increases the rights of the individual resident. To oppose it is to favor suppression of those rights.

Muting residents is not an LL ban. It's simply getting more control over what you see on your own machine. Others can do as they wish.

--Hugsy

It's simple the mentality of this generation I think. Debate takes too much time, Diplomacy is too much work. Stopping to think and *gasp* even seeing something from someone else's perspective, it requires one to remove oneself from the place of upmost importance one holds oneself. Don't like what someone says, mute them. Don't like how someone acts, ban them. Don't like their build, make it vanish. It's a completely immature methodology for running one's life, and yet, it's becoming the norm. LL keeps pushing it, because thats how they run their company. They only see and hear what they want to, and thus live in their own little Nirvana, where all of SL's problems will be solved with the next viewer release. One can only hope some people wake up and realize ignoring your problems doesn't truly make them go away.

QFT

JIRA Issue to mute all objects owned by a person:

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1017

You don't need to understand it.

You just have to accept that there are people here who would like to see SL improved.

In this case, muting (ignoring) the ad farmers just might make them go away.

--Hugsy

You mean, like people who want to stop people daring to raise issues that they happen to disagree with, or feel that because they don't care about it, nobody else should either?

Damn right Broccoli.

"Your World. The Central Committee For Planning and Aesthetics' Imagination"