Feedback on the Mainland

After 974 posts, the Mainland thread was locked and this was the official response to all the feedback.Jack promises an opportunity to provide more feedback soon, but I say why wait?

So what is your response to the official response?

Relief.

I don't like the way he keeps focussing on advertising rather than griefing.

yea we need to make it clear to them that advertising today has evolved into purely a greifing tool. bill bosrds are only really ment for a captive adiance ie interstate or other heavy traveled road. and then only ussually for services right near where the sign is or just off that road if a hundred miles away.

placing bill boards where somebody might see them as a real working modle for a bussiness? i don't think so,LL need to understand one thing it's highly doughtfull there are any ligitimat bill board companys in SL

.

Do you think that none of those 974 posts gave him something new to think about? If LL saw something in that thread that they hadn't seen before, I don't mind them waiting a little bit longer to digest it and see how it impacts their plans.

If the stuff they heard was news to them, the mainland is in worst shape than I thought.

Oh and 2K, that was the most intelligent response I've ever seen from you.

You're always such a ray of sunshine here, Ray.

*sighs* I'm going to say, "I'll believe it when I see it."

I don't see ad farms as useful or helpful to the SL environment or economy.

True advertisers know that they will get more bang for their buck if they rent ad space in popular places or become sponsors for events. I see these and think, "Hey, that's a good idea."

I see an adfarm and I start to want visual muting sooo badly.

I think the gray textures might be more annoying to me than the so-called advertising.

As the Late Bernie Mac said "I believe shit when shit happens".

[RESOLVED]


(sigh)

Having read every post in the thread, I find Jack's summary not entirely consistent with what I read, in some respects. It appears to mis-identify the real nature of the overwhelmingly predominant concerns, land-based harassment and extortion*, as opposed to the narrow subset thereof associated with advertising. It asserts the importance of establishing a policy that facilitates advertising, which was expressed only by a very small minority with obviously vested interests.

I am inhibited from elaborating on what I beleive are the reasons for this, what it may imply about the future of SL, and how it relates to Kapor's address, because I now undertsand, from Katt's thread, that the risk of expulsion from SL for frank discussion is substantial. Suffice it to say that the emphasis on advertising may be significant.

Following the discussion of advertsing, Jack did recognise the widespread ambivalence felt towards banlines, with strong support and strong opposition. Recognition that changes here could be beneficial is encouraging.

There were other less predominant but important issues. It was very encouraging to see the breadth of passionate concern for SL and the mainland in particular, although at the same time distressing to see how often that was frustrated by the activities of a small mercenary minority. Many were moved to post who had never posted to a forum before.

* I guess there may be problems using such explicit terms by a Linden, even if they are accurate.

Good lord. Above and beyond, surely.

2k. Your responses, while eloquent, could be more colourful.
(No No...I didn't say that!!!)

Agreed, this seems to be heading towards some sort of paid advertising channel, and I have a horrible feeling that some of the very people who have caused the problem will be rubbing their hands with glee.

Hopefully I'm wrong, I'd be just a tad annoyed if that were the case.

The vast majority of complaints revolved around people having to buy back the view, that's where the attention should be centred, not some advertising policy.

I apologize for my lack of optimism as a result of the unceremonious way the other thread concluded and for starting this thread in the first place.

I think the most Zen way to leave Resident Answers is with a hearty FUCK YOU to all ad farmers. And a polite fuck you to 2k, the pathetic but the colorful troll.

((land-based harassment and extorion) == adfarms)
Simple as that, the two go hand in hand. Well, of course there is also the 50L$ freebee boxes variety (omg! 30 stolen nickers inna box!) for those who didn't set up an adfarm system.

Anyway, as I posted in the Nanny State thread ( /327/61/275590/1.html ), such a change of strategy won't affect existing mainland sims (Jack said as much), and will probably mostly make use of setting sim permissions. Like disabling zoning. Sims will probably be pre-zoned into 512/1024/2048/4096 (plus sometime 10% for groups) plots. Part of a sim may or may not be set to Gov Linden, for terraforming, zones may be given a prim bonus, deriving some of the unused prims from the Gov's land.

But whatever happens, don't expect Lindens to have as much time to govern sims, as estate owners have time to Govern theirs. So most of the governing will be done by using the estate tools available. Don't expect many (if any) mainland sims with rules like "must be themed x, y or z", "skyboxes must be above 300 meters", or "a wall must be X meters distant from the zone border for every Y meters it is high". Such rules, while they are very effective, just aren't efficient for maintaining such an amount of sims as mainland.

There won't be many sims with real building restrictions, but the zoning will make it a lot harder for addfarms. Given the cost, size and allowance on a piece of land, they might as well put down a small mall, instead of using only 3 prims out of 117+ for advertisements.

Older mainland sims will remain the same, unzoned, and people will run away from them while there are addfarms everywhere. Basically killing the adfarm bussiness over time, since there are way more interesting places to go and live as long as a sim only consists of advertisements.

Certainly associated, but concetrating on the "ad" part is what enabled the culprits to completely circumvent the earlier attempt to deal with this. Banline obstruction and empty plots wich are filled with ads as soon as neighbours take the bait and offer less than the extortion price, are more widespread now. Even empty 16s and 32s are enough to depress owners and lower prices because of the promise of trouble to come. They need to concentrate on the acts* and the actors*, not the tools. If they take away the tools, new tools will be found.


* substituted for a more perjorative term.

SSDD

I'll believe it when I see it but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Uncontestably. I am sure it will turn out to have been a waste of time.

The thread owner has requested that this thread be closed.