Large scale subdividing of land

So has anybody said that LL will be entertaining ARs about this stuff, or is it all going to be left to work itself out after the "discussions" with the big obvious violators they seem to have their eyes on? And is a single 16 still for sale at L$16999 in a given sim a violation in and of itself, or do we just hope that the owner of such also owns a bunch of similar stuff and/or is already on the "watch list" and/or is stupid enough to continue actively cutting up parcels and gets caught at it?

If I split 16 sqm off my 512 sqm to fiddle with a parcel setting the Second Life Linden Lab police are going to come and put me in Second Life Linden Lab jail. I just know it.

And then a Second Life Linden Lab Public Defender would come visit you and accompany you to Second Life Linden Lab Court, where a Second Life Linden Lab Judge would sentence you to Second Life Linden Lab Prison, where your friends and relations could come visit you in your 16m (of course) cell with a cake with a Second Life Linden Lab file baked into it.

In that case, prepare yourself by buying my jailbreak package. It contains a rock hammer with name-carving anim and a big g-damned poster of Rita Hayworth.

That's better than mine. ( ). However, I would remind you that the posters changed with the era.

Today, a pic of that chick with the tripleK boobs would probably be the excavation-cover of choice. It would certainly be large enough.

As a landowner I probably not be entitled to a Public Defender and will have to pay for my own barrister to defend me. And if I end up in Linden Prison then I will have to pay my barrister in corncobs I think =)

Well, I guess corncobs are not entirely without value. In some circles, anyway.

Cake is good.

Chocolate?

What else!?

Advertising was often being used for extortion of Micro Parcels, When the limit for numbers of advertisments was tightened, The extortion plots remained carving up large areas of the mainland.

Then after 4 months or so, eventually LL decide to try and prevent further cutting, but still do nothing to prevent the continued practice of extortion using existing 16sqm plots.

Now I have seen new 16sqm plots being sold at around 3.7L/sqm.

These seem to change hands very quickly, meaning the new owners only bought land they didn't cut it so are now free from the Lindens new rule again.

I wonder what price these newly purchased plots will appear on the market at?

I am sorry to say that I see no real improvement, to the fragmentation problems of the mainland coming from this policy change.

Yes, it does appear that a few people are still happily cutting - the ones I've seen listed appear to be lots that were originally under 512 sq.m. in size, but still large enough to cut into multiple 16s, and listed near the bottom of the market so they get snapped up very quickly by individual buyers, who proceed to mark them up. These buyers are exempt from the rule since they weren't the original cutters. Heck, for all I know they could be their alts.

It was said in the original blog post that there would be no need for residents to file abuse reports since LL would be monitoring this issue - I hope they are picking up these stragglers that are still cutting and trying to fly under the radar. If not, I hope they reconsider accepting abuse reports, since I know that there are a number of residents who would be happy to help out.

My experience was that a land seller had cut up a large plot into 5 or 6 512's, 2 x 256's 2 x 128's 2x 64's and 8 x 16's in one sim over the weekend, all plots were being sold at low cost around 3.7L/sqm.
So direct extortion was not evident initially, however some of the smaller plots had already exchanged hands to known small plot sellers although at the time they had not been placed on sale.



If the Lindens true intent is to prevent further carving up of the mainland then surely this practice should have been acted upon.

The land in question was right next to a well layed out park, open for all residents enjoyment.

This land has nearly all exchanged hands now.

I personally purchased two 512sqm plots and a 16sqm cut out of one plot to rejoin them before prices were hiked up to prevent cost effective repair.

Interestingly the 16sqm had already changed hands to advertise island rental and doubled in price by the time I purchased it.

Is this the future of land scamming?

Have the Lindens spotted this practice yet and wouldn't it be better if they were taking abuse reports, so residents could keep them informed of these and future developments?

So long as Linden Labs is acting as the "bagman" for these extortion tactics, this kind of shenanigans will continue.

Of course it would be better.

It would also necessitate the hiring of dozens of new full-time employees.

So: it isn't going to happen. They will continue to say 'don't AR this.'


Clearly this loophole (log in as a disposable alt, cut dozens of 16m parcels, and sell them at a low price to your main, who then jacks up the price---with the alt being the only one subject to Linden discipline) will be exploited so widely that the Land Cutting policy might never have been made. It was all, basically, wasted effort.

You need to look at the spirit of the rule, and not the letter.

Elan doesn't put ugly builds or signs on lots to "entice" people into buying. He doesn't sell 16m plots at ridiculous prices, but at general market values.

My personal status monitor is the carved up 512 in my home sim. As a group land owner, I actually have a use for some small parcels to top off my land allowance. In the past week I picked up one 16m @ a market price (thanks Elanthius), but the remaining dozen or so are still priced anywhere from 600-9999L.

So from my standpoint its "no progress" on overpriced microparcels. Anyone else seen some movement yet?

Three of my builds, in three different sims, have ultra-high-priced 16s inside or bordering them. And....no change.



Personally, I don't care. As long as I know LL will respond to ARs for any giant rotating neon signs (or such) that might appear on the 16s in an effort to extort payment---and so far they have---then I'm happy.

I continue to salute LL for making and enforcing the policy against placing extortionate builds on high-priced parcels.

The mere existence of empty 16m parcels, be they priced ever so high, is a non-issue for me...but I realize this isn't the case for many people. So I'm watching the situation with interest.

To get a more general overview of the situation, I did a scan of all mainland for sale at over 100L$/m using search. By counting pages of 100 at a time, I came up with 4,100. Then I did a search of parcels 80m and larger and over 100L$/m and came up with 500.

Therefore there are 3,600 parcels which are over 100L$/m AND 64m in size or smaller (my definition of a microparcel).

By re-doing this search once in a while, we can get an idea if there is any progress, or if its getting worse.

Daniel: thank you for that no-doubt time-consuming and boring work.

This is going to just keep getting worse until Linden Labs starts kicking extortionist butt, or getting out of being a party to the extortion business.

Thats great Daniel.
Information of this type will show the new policy is having litle or no effect on the land scammers.


From my own point of view I have seen more cutting over the weekend but in a less obvious way than previously, without the signs of blatant extortion so far.
The 16sqm plots that were cut initially have now gone except for two now, they have been cut out of larger parcels and taken off sale for the time being.
I don't know if this was due to linden involvement or not.

There are now a large number of 64sqm strips, spread right across the rear half of the sim, cut infront of 512 plots, this seems curious because most of these strips are being sold at low cost so its hard to see the financial benifit for the cutters carving up this sim, especially as it contains a nice park which leads down to protected waterway.

I would have thought the land would have had a greater value sold on as a large lump, than even being cut into 512's, which were initially being sold at 3.7L/sqm right at the lowest end of land sales.
Most of the plots have been flipped already and will probably be very hard to sell now due to the amount of cutting that has taken place.

I take this example as a sure sign, the lindens new land cutting policy has failed dismally, to both protect the mainland from further fragmentation and to prevent the continued practice of land scamming.

It does seem to be a great shame in any rate, especially for the park owner, who has obviously dedicated a great deal of time making her land so pleasant.

One noticeable thing is many of the smaller plots have been bought by an island estate management company, however that may be me, just being a little paranoid.

@Neptune. I wouldnt despair just yet. Mr Jack Linden said LL would be talking to people first. They are doing that now. When they do cancel accounts of people who arent listening LL doesnt make any announcement about this.

Same as how they havent announced that they been cancelling accounts of people who have been ripping builds and content out of SL and taking them to other worlds.

LL will no doubt make examples of a few cutters, at some time in the future in the mean time the cutting goes on and the land is changing hands.

Once land has changed hands then there is nothing really LL can do easily, without upsetting a great number of tier paying residents.

For instance in the sim I was talking of previously I have purchased 2 x 512's and a 16sqm which have now been rejoined, my neighbor in the sim has purchased a 512sqm and other plots have been bought by the more reputable land dealers, these also include most of the small cuts of 64sqm.

Very few of the plots are now owned by the original cutter, most have different owners, although I would bet the cutters still hold a few of the small cuts in an alt account.

Really after the plots have been sold, how will LL repair the level of fragmentation?

Can LL tell from their databases, who cut up a sim in the first instance? or do they just hold the names of owners?

My concern is more for the park owner who holds almost half the sim, my loss in leaving this land would be negligble, but theirs would be great in both the devaluation of land and that of their time devoted to building the park.

LL said in the blog annoucement that they know who owns what and they do have all the land data. They also got the transaction history of everyone going back to the beginning of the world. So, ya. If people think they can hide and get away with stuff then they deluding themselves really.

Is the same delusion that the chan/greif crews have about themselves when they think they can do whatever they like, anywhere they like, and get away with it. What these people forget is that theres another chan that pwns them. Pwns the internet actually. Is the isp/rwe godchan. When this chan goes after anyone then they toast.

Same in SL really. LL mostly a benevolent god, slow to anger. But when she does angry, she starts eating people who poke her with sticks.

I just hope she starts eating sooner than later, never thought of LL as a lady before.

But then who cares as long as she eats everyone who pokes her!

ERm did I just say that?