Completely confused about my tier

Hi there,

Anyone have patience for a complex land question? You'll have my everlasting gratitude.

For years I've been at the $40/month tier level (8192m2). I recently created a group, deeded 4112m2 of land to it, and later returned the land to myself -- and was dismayed to find that I'd been bumped up a tier, even though I haven't added to my land holdings. Tonight I tried creating a new group and deeding the 4112m2 back to it, but I'm not sure that's qualified me for the lower tier. The numbers make no sense to me.

Here was the situation before I deeded land to a group. I owned the following four parcels in my own name:

4112m2
496m2 (this may originally have been First Land 3 years ago, I don't remember now)
1024m2
3072m2

That totaled 8,704, and it apparently qualified me for the $40 tier (8,192 acres). I'm not sure why -- although I see something on my account called "premium bonus" of 512m2, which would be just enough to make up the difference.

Anyway, I then deeded the first plot, 4112m2, to the group. That didn't affect my tier -- in fact, it gave me a small bonus of additional land I could buy. But I chose not to do so.

Later I disbanded the group and returned all 4112m2 to myself. This tiered me up to the next highest tier (16Km2, $80/month). Now I want to return to my lower tier without selling any of this land. I thought if I simply redeeded that 4112m2 back to a new group, that would do the trick, since one gets a bit more land allowance if one donates land to a group (right?). Following the instructions in the FAQ here, I put in a contribution of 4112, but now my group info sheet says I've contributed 7,851, with 4112 in use. And I see these numbers in "My Land' in game:

Allowed land holdings (16,896 at the higher tier)
Current Land holdings: 12,443 - huh? My land adds up to 8,704
Available for purchases - 4,453

Confusing me more, the numbers on the SL website say this:

Square meters owned: 4592
Square meters donated 7851
Premium bonus 512
Paid tier level 16896
Avail m2 9045

Can anyone advise me on what to do? For starters, should I try deeding the three remaining parcels to this group? Can I deed separate parcels, in separate sims, to the same group? Will that let me tier down? I know I could sell a small amount to make the lower tier, but it's all in use, and I don't want to sell it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

I've read your question twice now and I'm probably as confused as you are. But the only thing I can think of is did you remove the tier from one group before putting it in another?

You don't say anything about timing. It seems that you did not recover the donated tier from the "disbanded" group. Could it be that there is a delay between the act of disbanding and the return of the tier, and that you got caught in that. Are you sure vthe group is disbanded? Who are/were the other member(s)?

Tier is considered used once it is donated to a group, even if no land is owned by the group. If you donated separately before deeding the land, instead of making the contribution with the deed, then you got bumped up since you are billed according to the maximum amount of tier used. If you did not subtract the donation before reclaiming the land, you got bumped up.

Sounds to me like you neglected to remove the tier from group before taking your land back which effectively made your tier level go up because you would still have been donating the original contribution. That would have required you to get more 'personal' tier to cover the same land (tier does not move with land, it has to be done manually).






Yes your original 512sqm you get with your premium membership would have covered the difference. FYI you also get a 10% bonus when land is group owned.






When you deeded the land to group you must have deeded with contribution (the manual donation of tier to cover the deeded land)





As stated before, you've left your original tier in group when returning the land to yourself.

The numbers above show you what your maximum land usage was in that month so the numbers are correct. Because you transferred the land back to yourself, your square meters owned shows the amount owned in that month. Because you didn't remove the donated tier along with the land the group was still considered as owning that tier.

I'm afraid there's nothing you can do about this month's cycle. Once land is owned during the month, regardless for how long, you owe the maximum amount owned in that month. This will reduce back to normal once this month's cycle has passed.

I hope this makes sense, land issues can be just as complicated to explain as they can be to understand





I'd suggest you get the land you own in the configuration you want it to be before your monthly cycle is up (making sure to have enough personal tier to cover any you return to yourself or you could quite easily fall into the same trap. Once you get it how you want it, all will be good next month and your tier will fall back to your normal amount.

~B

Give Linden a call ... usually, if they can see it's genuinely a mistake they'll waive it as a one off gesture of goodwill.

The thing that I think confuses people is that there are TWO things being measured here.

Your tier-allowance is how much land you can potentially own.
Your land is how much land you actually own.

The two are not necessarily the same, but you get billed on the FIRST one.

So if you had donated tier-allowance to the group then added some actual land to your own holding, both counted to the tier-allowance total (the allowance donated to the group, plus the alowance needed to let you hold the actual land).

It is confusing. Just moving land from one person to another NEVER reduces tier-allowance, but can make it go UP.

To reduce it you have to manually change it. Either by ensuring that none is donated to groups unless you want it to be and on the SL web page where you set your tier-allowance.

Contacting the Lindens may well result in their helping you out. Though I know a few people who have been in similar situations and the Lindens have said it is just hard luck

For now, do make sure you have no tier-allowance donated anywhere and thatyou have set the correct allowance on the web-page. It must of course be set to somewhere that covers all land you really do own.

Good luck

Another thing to keep in mind when moving land around between groups and yourself: In order to accept new land, a group needs to have enough tier to cover it, where that tier is either unused pre-donated tier ("Land Available" in group info "Land & L$" tab) or from "Owner Makes Contribution With Deed" from About Land when the deeding is executed (but not both).

*However*, it's not necessary for a group to constantly have enough tier to cover the land deeded to it. Once the land is deeded, the group can fall short on contributed tier for a while (exactly how long is uncertain, but definitely long enough to complete a complex rejuggling of land ownership). The Land & L$ tab will bitch about it ("Group members must contribute more land credits to support land in use", but it doesn't do anything about it right away. So to be on the safe side in such transfers, a group that's going to give up land can run short on tier long enough to be sure one doesn't double-up on tier for the transfered land. Once the dust settles, one can go back and "make good" on contributed tier for all groups involved.

Actually, your tier does automatically adjust as your land ownership adjusts. If you have your tier set to say 16ksqm but only own 8ksqm you will only ever be charged the 8ksqm tier even if you leave your available tier set to 16ksqm.

You get billed on the maximum land usage for that month, not on how much you have your tier level set to (unless of course you own enough land to fall into that tier level) This of course includes any tier you have donated to a group as the system considers this to be 'used' tier.

There is no need to manually go and change your tier level on the website unless you truly wish to. (You can only do this once you have passed the monthly cycle which set you on the higher tier in the first place. You can't set your tier level lower than what you owe for that month)

From the Knowledgebase

On the Mainland, we bill based on peak usage for the prior 30 days; your land's billing is based on the date the land was acquired, and the amount of land held in the prior 30 day period.

Our Land Pricing page states this as:

The Land Use Fee is a monthly charge for the peak amount of land held during the previous 30 days, including actual parcels held and land tier donated to groups.

Once the peak usage has been billed, your peak usage is reset to the current amount of land you own or have donated to a group. All land owned or donated during the prior 30 days is counted, no matter the amount of time it was held.

Account fees, which are separate from mainland billing, are based on the user's sign up date and are paid in advance.


AND

Mainland Land Use Fees (Land Tier)


You can own as much land as you choose; change the amount of land you own and your monthly fee will adjust accordingly. Your bill at the end of the month is based on the peak amount of land you owned during the previous 30 days.

*bump on Qie's advice *

Another thing is to always make sure to check the "Buy Land" window. When you sold the group-owned land back to yourself, it would have indicated that you were going to go up a tier level and that's the cue that you missed something.

Thanks for the correction, Bellissa. I guess I am not up to date on that.

They USED to do it the way I said - I know coz I got stung, heh. Thank goodness it is fairer now then

Thanks for the replies, but I'm still not sure what to do.

First, I understand that I have to pay the higher tier at least once, since I got bumped up. I don't have a problem with that. My sole concern now is rearranging my land so that during the next billing cycle, I'm at the lower tier.

Second, you guys asked about the timing of all this. Well, I owned all my land "individually" until about 3 months ago, at which point I made the first group and donated some land to it. That didn't affect my tier -- indeed, it gave me a slightly higher ceiling of possible land ownership. But I didn't buy any new land. I disbanded that first group about two months ago, whereupon I immediately got bumped up in tier. I've paid that higher tier; I'm resigned to that, I can live with that. Finally I made my new group just last night, in an effort to push myself back into the lower tier in time for my next billing cycle, which starts Sunday.


What I tried to do was to deed 4112m2 to the new group last night, and to contribute exactly that amount to the group as my contribution. For some reason, though, my "contribution" (my tier-allowance to the group) is now listed as 7851. If I manually change this number in my group-info page (land/$ tab), and move it down to 4112m2, will that solve my problem?

One more point FYI: I made this new group just yesterday (with my "main" and "alt" for the sole purpose of addressing tier. I'd have been perfectly happy just keeping everything "individual" instead, but I was worried that for some reason I would remain at the higher tier unless I took advantage of the 10% group bonus. And yet 3 months ago, I held this identical land entirely in my individual account, and I was in the lower tier.

Ah! Now I think I see what happened. Yes, you want to do that... but actually, your group contribution will only need to be... uh... well, 4112 / 1.1, whatever that is, in order to cover the 4112 sq.m. with the 10% group bonus. (I always just try different numbers till the spare tier for the group goes to 0.)

(Oh, just to be sure: this group will always have two or more members, right?)

OK, reducing my "contribution" to the group may have worked. I set "contribution" to 4112m2. I now see these numbers on the website:

Square meters owned: 4592
Square meters donated: 4112
Premium bonus: 512
Paid tier level: 8192
Avail square meters: 4592
Monthly cost: $40.00

I *think* that's the result I want. I still don't understand the second-to-last line -- why isn't my avail square meters zero? Also, do I get charged separately for the group's land tier? I don't see any indication that I incur such a charge, but I want to be sure.

You are by no means the only person who has ever been confused about this

Tier is based on the peak amount of land that you owned during a month. In other words, the amount of land that you owned at the moment when you owned most land. It does not matter if that moment only lasted a fraction of a second - you still get charged based on the amount of land you owned them.

If you put contribute land credits to a group, then you are counted as "owning land" equal to the amount of credit you put into the group - even if they group isn't actually USING the land credits. (Without this rule, there would be messy situations along the lines of "I put in 512sqm and you put in 512sqm, the group owns 512sqm, so which of us pays?" A further complication is that when you put land credits into a group, the group actually recieves 110% of what you put in - groups get a small bonus. Nobody has to pay for the extra 10%.

So, let's see what's happened:

1. You had 4112m2, 496m2, 1024m2, and 3072m2, for a total of 8704sqm. With the free 512 land credit that you get for being a Premium member (which, in most cases, you must be before you begin paying tier), you have exactly 8192sqm of land to pay tier on, so you are in the 8192sqm tier and getting the best possible value for it.

2. You deeded 4112sqm to the group. Assuming that nobody else had put any land credits into the group, this had the effect of taking the 4112sqm land credit you were using to own this land before, and contributing it to the group. The effect on your tier was nil.

3. You returned the land to yourself. Now, this is probably where the first problem occurred. Taking land out of a group doesn't immediately take away the land credits you are contributing to the group - and as mentioned above, land credits paid to a group are always counted as being used, even if the group isn't using them. So when you took the land out of the group, you gained 4112sqm land of your own, but the 4112sqm of land credits that was previously supporting it in the group did NOT get taken out of the group. Probably you took out the credits yourself when you disbanded the group, but the fact remains that for a few seconds there was a time when you owned that 4112sqm AND ALSO had a 4112sqm contribution to the group - and that few seconds is enough to make the "peak usage" for that month become 12186sqm, putting you in the 16384sqm tier.

Now, I BELIEVE that the way to safely take land out of a group is to remove your contribution FIRST. You then get a warning that the group is under credited and you have a limited amount of time to sort it out - and you then sort it out immediately by removing the land from the group. But I'm not positive that this is how it works, as I've never tried it.

4. At this point I'm not quite sure what you did with the existing land - you "contributed to the group" but you also redeeded the land. What it sounds like is that you contributed the land credit to the group, and then deeded the land while leaving the "owner makes contribution with deed" box checked. This is a horrible bit of UI design - if that box is checked, you automatically contribute enough **EXTRA** land credit to the group to support the land, EVEN IF YOU HAD ALREADY DONE SO AND THE GROUP DID NOT NEED MORE. (If you think this is as silly as I do, https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2227 ).

This is how you ended up contributing 7851sqm - the 4112sqm you initially contributed, plus 3739sqm that was automatically contributed by the system (3739sqm because the system "knows" that groups get a 10% bonus, so when you deed a 4112sqm, it contributes 3739sqm because 3739 * 110% = 4112)

From the sound of it, you've sorted things out now, but this is just an attempt to clarify what might have actually happened. And no, you don't get charged separately for the land credits you donate to a group - it just increases your own regular tier.

Yumi, thanks for the very helpful post. That's what I hadn't understood -- that "contribution" counts sa "owning land" even if the group doesn't actually use the entire contribution.


Yep. I get that -- if you go over peak usage for a nanosecond, you bump up. And yeah, I was over for more than a nanosecond.


Yep, I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

What I still don't get is this: before all this started, I owned everything individually at $40/month. After going thru the creation/deletion of the group, I was back to that exact same situation. I understand that I had temporarily passed my peak usage, bumping me up for one payment period, but why wasn't I given the option to decrease tier (it was grayed out) once I'd returned all the land holdings to my individual ownership? (Maybe I had the option and didn't realize it?) The only way I gained that option was by once again creating a group and deeding some land to it.

Anyway, I can live with it, for now at least. There's no real harm in having my land in a main/alt group, and it can actually entitle me to a little more land.

Thanks again for all the informative posts here. As you say, this system doesn't feature the world's best UI design.

same thing I was thinking, did not take back the tier from the group

Why is it then, when you select your desired tier level on your account page, that you get billed immediately for that full tier allowance, reguardless of whether or not you ever own any more land?
Why is it the only time your tier level allowance changes automatically is when you go OVER (read: over) your allotted amount?

It does NOT go down automatically when you own less land. You still get billed for that 8192m (at $40) even if you only own 1024m, or no land at all in that month. The maximum usage billing statement refers to people like the OP who HAVE (as far as the numbers went ) held more land than their tier level allotment in that month. That is why the OP never got an automatic option to decrease tier allotment, and why it didn't do it on it's own.. because it doesn't do that... the ONLY way to decrease is by going to the website and selecting a lower tier bracket. How is it you think we can donate unused tier to the cartel, and still have some of that tier sit in the group unused? Because even unused.. it's still payed for. You pay by your tier allowance bracket (up to your max allowed) until you go over, then you get bumped up.

Ricky, part of the unfriendliness of the system is that it doesn't recognize WHICH land piece you have transferred, only that you have. You may know that you moved a piece of land back out of the group to yourself, but since you still had land contributed to the group when you did that, the amount of land coming back to you LOOKED like newly aquired land, or more land to the system. It only knows plusses and minuses.

I've been at allowed holding of 4,096 on the website for years now while holding zero land and been billed zero, like I should be.

Submit a ticket. I managed to mistakenly bump myself up a tier level whilst shifting some land about. Once I'd explained what I'd done, the nice man in Billing re-set me back down again, so it didn't cost me any extra.

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I think we can all agree that the interface for the land system isn't a model of clarity! In any case, if I get billed at my lower tier rate tomorrow, I'll be happy.