How landcutters are still hurting the mainland

I had an extortion plot in my sim that was L$1 400 000 for 512. hahahaha

The Lindens FINALLY took it back, and it up for auction.

Although newsgroups tend to be hyper-sensitive and react quickly to cut off anyone that misuses an established group. The actual volume in the definition becomes 'potential volume'. So what is called spam (almost instantaneously in the first response to spam on a usegroup) in most usenet groups are those items that will, if permitted, become a problem, but are not necessarily a problem in the first or current instance.

OTOH, most spam in usenet groups do not meet Phil's definition at all. They are misused specifically because the group would have a significant number of people that might be interested in the product or service. So a new bicycle is hyped on bicycle groups (one of the great notable failures was that 'autotransmission' bike of a few years back, as most bike usegroups are NOT interested, but different story), a new fountain pen release is hyped on the fountain pen lists. Neither are acceptable, both are spam. And they have been called spam in that context for decades. Pre-Internet as we know it.

I will also say that bulk is in relation to the target. If you use several use groups, it may not be tens of thousands, but it is sent indiscriminately to everyone in the groups. Spam may require hundreds of thousands on a national basis, but generally if an ISP sees several thousand apparent untargeted emails, it may block. Generally, legitimate mass mailers with mailing lists of 20 to 25 thousand in the same geographical area will run into problems as it will trigger spam warnings on ISPs (most extrapolate from limited traffic and 1,000 to 10,000 emails hitting one ISP in Washington, DC would appear to be a national mass mailing - our theater had that problem continually and our theater guy would spend Thursday morning after the Wednesday mailers checking and unblocking our status).

Well, as the former IT guy at a few large organizations, the most irritating spam was the well-meant (other than the originator) Ponzi spam - called false rumors in the spoken world. They are relayed ten times over by well-meaning people that don't know the web sites that track and repudiate the false rumors. Worse, for me, was if they had to do with viruses or PCs, I had to spend time checking to make sure they weren't true before lowering the boom on the offenders - unlike commercial spam, which was 90 per cent blocked and the rest obvious. And almost every one of those sending the crap, which in total rose to the level of spam, did it in good faith to warn other people. I've seen that crapola spam come across national email lists with hundreds of thousands of people on them, just because some one meant to do good. Deliberately set rumors will Ponzi up to be the same as spam.

And after reaching the completely fuming point with the tenth iteration of the same rumor coming from yet one more well-meaning source, I then get it relayed by my mother...

Yeah, I would until you can show me cases where what you seem to be pointing to can occur. No homeowners group? Where are you getting your list? Do you have a completely local ISP where every person on the ISP would consider your robbery, rape, or homicide report relevant? Once you go bulk by using lists that include significant numbers of disinterested parties, then it is wrong. If that list includes people that are willing to have emails from their kids' school, and only from the school, show up at work and you start sending relevant local information to what is a work email, you've screwed up. And you can't, in my opinion, put together a situation where either you already have a targeted list that can be used legitimately (if your local coffee house has a list of the people that you think should hear about it, then ask the coffeehouse to send it) or you are cobbling together lists that would not meet that criteria and then you are using your own judgement whether or not it is legitimate. So don't cry if someone comes after you for misusing a list of email addresses.

I'm not clear on why you're using the term 'Ponzi' here.

It's a shame to let a usefully specific term like 'Ponzi' (which means that investors are promised payments that are actually made from the buy-ins of later-recruited investors) be degraded to the generality of 'something that multiplies at an exponential rate' (which is what you seem to be talking about).

Now that we've gotten all the spam out of our systems ... some news about the actual topic of the thread, landcutting. Jack said at his office hour today that the blog post dealing with it is slated for next Wednesday, Jan 21. For some hints of how that policy might look, I posted a transcript at https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Qie_Niangao/Jack_Linden_Office_Hour_Transcript/2009-01-15 .

Thanks for posting that, Qie. I'm looking forward to finding out what they have planned.

Yes, thanks, Qie. It's great to be able to read that.

Interesting that the most concrete thing Jack said with regard to landcutting was this:

"[11:46] Jack Linden: one suggestion has been that we clamp the for sale price of any parcels 64m and under, to the market rate per meter.

"[11:46] Jack Linden: as a way to discourage cutting"



Since he really didn't mention any other specifics, it seems a safe bet that this will indeed be part of the upcoming announcement....