How landcutters are still hurting the mainland

I'm not saying anything even remotely similar. You quoted what I'm saying:-

"All I'm saying is that a 16m parcel with nothing on it, and no banlines round it, isn't detrimental to anything."

I think it's pretty clear what I'm saying.

Maybe so. I haven't seen it but it wouldn't change anything about what I'm saying.

I think that people ought to judge what they see, and not judge on the basis of history. I.e. if they see what you described, and I haven't even suggested that it doesn't exist, then *that* set of microparcels is bad. If they see microparcels that you can't tell are microparcels until you have Property Lines turned on, then *those* microparcels are as good as any other parcel of land, whether they are for sale at high prices or not. If an isolated microparcel is raised to maximum height, then it's not the best piece of land for its neighbours, but it's not something that can't be easily handled by them.

Ugh this is a mess. I'm still in the wait and see category on this. I have 16M parcels near some of my plots, set for sale for ridiculously high prices. There are also a couple of plots with adverts on, one is within the guidelines, but I wonder what sort of value the advertiser gets from the plot as it's not in a busy location, the other isn't within guidelines if you ask me but it's not just an advert, you can buy from it. The G-Team have taken no action so I'll assume that's ok but then again I've been trying to get some effing trees that encroach my parcel moved since Wednesday, so my faith in the G-Team isn't exactly high.

I did have more 16M parcels around, I got some that were abandoned and set for sale to me for very reasonable rates by LL (for which I'm grateful) and a couple of others were 5 or 6L$/M so I purchased them. One of those went for the terraforming trick and sunk the parcel, no idea why he did that but that's the sort of thing I'd like to see considered abuse.

The empty ones that are left I'll wait out, they are empty, have no banlines and aren't causing me any harm but they do have nuisance value and if I wasn't just using these spaces for prims on a larger nearby parcel they would impede growth in that sim. However if they were bigger they could impede growth too so it's a fine balance to try and find a policy that will suit everyone without causing other problems further down the line.

It is rational - 16m parcels DO have an unusual power.

In short.. larger parcels DEFINE what is in the sim; but smaller parcels CHANGE what is already there.

A large parcel can be a building on its own; a smaller parcel is "next to" or "beside" or "between" or "on the corner of" (or in the worst case "in the middle of" that building, not another building in its own right.

If there's a line of 5 houses, what lets you set the character of that neighbourhood more? Being able to build one of those houses yourself however you like.. or not owning any of the houses, but having unlimited access to build what is BETWEEN the houses?

But people DON'T have unlimited access to build what is between the houses.

As has been mentioned, LL has been enforcing the 'no extortion' rules.

Again...there seems to be an unwarranted attribution of power to owners of small parcels.

Even so, they (the extortionist communist (haha) microparcel owners still find ways to annoy the neighbors, especially with doughnut holes - simply disallow scripts and object entry, and then, all the sudden, when I am moving around my land, those things stop working if I happen to cross over the said microparcels! Ban lines have been banned, but no matter what LL does, without a CLEAR POLICY, they still find ways to attempt extortion...

Have I been missing out? I have a 32sqm neighbor who has listed their parcel for sale for 5000 L$ since summer and another with a 96sqm "4 - Corner" former ad farm + extra 16's for sale for 16999 L$ since about the same time. There are no ban lines, they have tried and been AR'ed for that a couple times, and other than the annoying Object Entry and Scripts being turned off, they do not do much else.

I think those prices are extortion, especially since I own the surrounding 1/2 sim.

Put simply, that is exactly what the result of the problem is.

Despite owning 2/3 of a sim there was no place I could create a 128m-square (1/4 sim) build. Someone who controls 0.02% of the land gets to decide what I can't build with 66% of it? And not because he's doing anything at all with his 0.02%, but because he just wants to be an expensive nuisance?

On a standalone 16M parcel that wasn't sunk when it was purchased it's done to annoy in my view. I could understand it a bit more if it was a 512 and they were making it flat or something but what sort of terraforming does a 16m parcel require

Doughnut holes that were created intentionally are bad - nobody is saying anything different. But doughnit holes that were created by the buyer of the land around them are different - that's the buyer's doing.

High prices aren't against any rules, and they don;t affect the neighbors. You may want those parcels, but that doesn't mean they are doing anything bad.

I own 3/4 of the main sim that I'm in and there are two 16m plots cut into my land that are not for sale, and two 256m plots that have been for sale at high prices since adfarms were banned. I can't complain though. They are not hurting anything. I've no idea if they have scripts etc on or not. It isn't my business and it wouldn't make any difference. All four plots are empty of anything visible and don;t have banlines. They are perfectly good plots.

I am the largest landholder of any of the sims I am in and I keep object entry off to stop griefers. Bitching about no object entry is just grasping for straws. An empty plot, however highly priced, without banlines is only bothering the most controlling of people. They are no longer allowed to extort via objects, and now it appears banlines are subject to that rule too. So long as the plot stays clean, we should spend our energy worrying about more productive things.

You bought the land with those microplots there, didn't you? If you didn't then perhaps you should have bought the parcels before they were bought and cut. Either way, I don't see that you have any reason for complaint. Like me, you have no right to be able to build a 128m building if you don't own the land, and it doesn't matter how big or small the land you don't own is. If you really need a 128m building, perhaps the best solution is to sell your 1/2 sim and buy where you can build it. You can't blame microplots for getting in your way when you yourself chose to buy your land when the micros already existed, or you chose not to buy when an ordinary parcel came up for sale.

Honestly, Phil, that is part of their backup business plan. They often buy into an ad farm in the middle of the sim, especially a NEW sim, well knowing eventually, those little parcels are going to be surrounded. It is a sit-and-wait game with them.

Now that's different if the land height is bad each time. If that's happening you should record it with pics and AR it. Alternatively, you could just build something to block the view of it, which is what I would do.

But if that's all they do - just sit and wait - then the micros are not doing anything bad. High prices are not bad. It just means they don;t get sold.

Regardless of what everybody has already said, in a short time, Jack Linden is *supposed* to outline new policy directed towards land cutting. I tend to think this as Phase 2 of a 3 Phase Policy. The first being Ad Farms and the last, unaddressed issue being towards whatever is to be defined as "Extortion".

It is all coming around and I think it is obvious that LL intends to make Mainland a better place and they have also (finally) started listening to the majority.

Will this all happen towards the benefit of the majority? I hope so! Will the complacent simply sit back and take it up the netherlands? Probably. But, I will continue to oppose that which I think is wrong. Call me an extremist if you wish, but I think mine, and many others who have posted here, and even more lurkers who simply read these posts, and even more that have not read these posts and any other posts about this subject, *AND* the majority of SL residents have an opinion that they flat out do not like the remaining methods left that are inside the TOS these people may use to screw the well intended.

I don't know which method of Sit And Wait to take.

Bob doesn't want to Wait In Vain, the vulture said to the other - "Patience My Ass! I'm going to Kill something now!"

Of course, I could just (ahem) Sit and Knit !

I think you're right. There are still people saying 'LL sees no profit in maintaining the Mainland, they don't care' and the like, but I think these recent attempts at dealing with those problems seen as most common, is evidence that LL does intend to make Mainland attractive.

Personally, I'm tremendously curious about what Jack will say.

I don't think he CAN say 'no 16m parcels may be created' UNLESS a) LL offers for Auction only parcels evenly divisible by 512, or b) LL radically changes the tier levels. As it stands, parcels of non-tier size are usually sold at a loss, and most people don't care to invest US$900 for a big parcel that will contain unsaleable portions.

I suppose he COULD say 'only one 4 x 4m parcel may be cut within a radius of 32m from the center of the parcel' or some such thing. That would prevent the checkerboard configuration.

I just came across about 13 ugly little parcels of rock on the mainland, ranging from 512 - 1024 at linden village. Is that land cutting, I guess it is?

(1) That's not true, it can still be hostilely terraformed. It can still be a grid of glowing red lines that shine through everything.
(2) You're leaving out the entire context of that statement. That context is this discussion. That context is the use of microparcels for extortion. You're like a guy standing next to a shooting victim chanting NRA slogans.
PEOPLE ARE. This thread is about a specific example where the microparcels are clearly and deliberately used for extortion.
If you don't turn property lines on, you can't tell where sim boundaries are, and you have to know where sim boundaries are, so that's totally bloody irrelevant.

Those rules are inadequate. They still allow adfarms. They still allow hostile terraforming. They still allow "negotiation" extortion, where you don't set the extortion parcel for sale.

There's a guy in the sim next to me who's been trying to clean up an extortion maze for a year. It's still got two ad blocks and a bunch of terrain towers.

And there's people still setting these things up.

And the G-team has proven completely oblivious to the real villains, and they've sanctioned people for hiding ad blocks.

Let's see what the next set of rules are, but don't pretend they're not needed.

Christ, Phil, you really are bloody heartless.

I've been buying land to keep any potential land griefers out of draw distance of our group land, but I consider myself lucky to be able to do that, and I can NOT blame someone else for not jumping to the next tier level to try and prevent extortion.

If you're just going to sit there and blame the victim, you shouldn't be posting.