"For Sale" signs now forbidden?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eli Schlegal
It doesn't really go without saying. If it's for sale it shows up on the map and "about land". The sign is redundant. They are letting you have one per sim... why push for more? Seems like you are just trying to be difficult.





The assumption that 'everyone' knows to have their View Owner turned on and to constantly refer to the Map is false for at least two categories of residents: those Phil describes, who haven't previously thought about the idea of buying land but who would, if they knew it was available, and new Residents.


Do most new Residents know about the Map, and the button on the map that turns on the yellow squares, and the 'About Land', and how to get the 'About Land' window, and the View options that show different colors-----when they leave Orientation Island?

That's a rhetorical question.

Of course they do NOT.

And with all the mass of stimuli and options that greets a newbie to SL, many don't learn about the existence of these things for weeks.


It's really easy to assume that everyone in SL knows what a long-time Resident knows. Even easier to assume that they 'should' know.

But that's not realistic.

What you are saying is true but it doesn't apply to this conversation. Phil was not speaking about a newb in his scenario. At least I don't think he was... I could be wrong.

Again, if she was not "looking to buy" land, then your For Sale signs wouldn't make her any more interested in doing so.

What you are saying, to me, is that she WAS looking to buy land; she had a reason and a desire to buy more land, and just needed the opportunity. Maybe she wasn't ACTIVELY out looking, but I would have no doubt that she would have found it without your signs, if she was seriously interested enough to check. I do; you do. Hell, I even have a "right of first refusal" agreement with my neighbors, that they offer me the first opportunity to buy their land and vice versa, so we don't have to "go looking" to see when someone is selling out.

It goes especially in that situation where the parcel she might have been willing to buy was across the sim, where she would never have seen the sign in the first place.

The problem with the assertion is that people who are inclined to buy land most likely are going to take actions to "look" for land to buy. A sign may or may not help, but the other tools will definitely help.

Just to reiterate: it's clear that there are at least two large categories of people who are ill-served by the 'one rules-compliant For Sale sign per sim' policy:

1) those who aren't looking for land but would be happy to buy it (for prims in the same sim, for instance) if they knew it was available. These people are going about their business and are unlikely to be constantly clicking on land to see if it is up for sale, nor are they likely to comprimise their viewing experience in SL by having the View Owner option toggled, and when they use the Map, similarly, they may prefer to have the Land for Sale button off, for aesthetic reasons.

2) those who are new to SL and are unlikely to know all the things known to people in this thread (among them, all the features discussed on the Map and the View menu).

These people may well lose opportunities that could have enhanced their SL experience.

See my post just above. (In the post to which you replied, I was just adding another category to Phil's 'people who don't know they'd like to buy land until they see it's available' class of those who are likely to be harmed by the new policy.)

New residents aren't usually ready to buy land for many weeks, either.

I don't assume that everyone knows what I know, especially when they are new here, but I do expect that people educate themselves before they launch into buying land for the first time. Otherwise, they risk reaping the rewards of ignorance, which often are not very fun or very pretty, or very cheap.

BTW, the "Land For Sale" map overlay defaults to "on".

I don't agree. I certainly don't look at the top of the viewer when I'm flying round, and even if I did, land for sale isn't shown there unless the seller changes the Title. Also, the idea of opening the map by chance doesn't work for me, I'm afraid. The whole lot doesn't allow a landowner to immediately know that the piece next to him/her has come up for sale, or that a piece across the sim is available, unless it's the only piece in the sim from the seller.

We all want the mainland to be cleaned up, but we're not going to get perfection. There will be ads, and rightly so, and that's all there is to it. If cutting a piece of land into 1024s or 512s, and placing a small flat sign on each parcel, no more than 0.5m high, would majorly piss you off, ok, but it wouldn't piss me off because it wouldn't be an eyesore.

I agree that, if the signs are 8m high, your scenario would be an eyesore for a while. I said in the ad-farms thread that 8m high, with no restriction on the horizontal dimensions, other than the parcel dimensions, can make for some *very* big ads.

I suspect that you are visualising many signs that would be an eyesore, and I am visualising much more reasonable signs that wouldn't be an eyesore. To my way of thinking, there is no eyesore-type difference between one seller placing an ad on each of two parcels, than two sellers placing an ad on two parcels. The design of the ads can make a difference though.

We have a rule against one person placing more than one For Sale sign in a sim, and yet it goes without saying that, if something is for sale, a notice stating that it's for sale should be allowed - not just land - anything. In that case, LL needs to come up with a rule, rather like the one I made earlier, that allows parcels for sale to be signed, and yet can't create eyesores of the type that I think you are visualising.

I don't agree with #1. I don't think anyone is ill-served. Don't forget there is still one sign on the sim. If they don't see the first sign they probably won't see the second sign. Anything after 2 signs... well then every one is being ill-served because you are cluttering up the mainland. I have the land sale indicator on the map turned on always... even though I am not currently looking to buy land. I think on is the default setting... isn't it? I would be willing to bet most people have it turned on.

On the other hand, they'd be well-advised to hold off buying land until they know how to open the Map. In fact, I'd really rather they not be buying land without Viewing parcel boundaries, so they know what kind of waffle-cut monstrosity they're buying.

Possibly. "For sale" land is still a common and powerful weapon of harassment.

But when all is said and done, I think most everybody could accept without complaint a single compliant sign per 512-or-greater parcel. A lot of us think that should be unnecessary, but only if *no* land for sale signs were permitted at all--and that's not going to happen, so the current situation is really not ideal.

It's one of those things an actual Estate manager would handle sensibly. There is little in common between G-Team and an actual Estate manager. A pity, that.

Well I've purchased land more than once after seeing a for sale sign. I wasn't looking to buy but it's a "Hey that's handy" scenario when your neighbour or near neighbour has decided to sell up.

I disagree. I think that plenty of people buy land that becomes available next to them. They may not have thought about expanding their land, but when a piece suddenly becomes available that could be useful, they suddenly consider it. I should say that I believe we are both guessing here.

You can't say that. In any case, she wasn't actively looking, which is what I've meant with the word "looking".

You may be right about that - I just don't know. I've never bought land by using search. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the sort of people in the first paragraph. I haven't talked against the use of search, the map, and Land Owners - many people use them, including me (except search). I'm only talking about signs as being beneficial to those around the land.

Cluttering it up? With 0.5M high signs in the middle of a parcel that are a lot less eyecatching than the huge neighbouring building?

1 sign per 512M owned sounds reasonable, if you own less than 512M in a parcel you're not allowed to put a for sale sign up. Personally I think that if you own less than 512M in a sim you shouldn't be able to put an advert up either but that's a different kettle of fish.

..and you wouldn't have bought it if it didn't have a sign?

You don't look at the top of the viewer... but you still might notice it out of the corner of your eye if it said "1024 SQM FOR SALE". The same way you might (or might not) notice a .25m thick sign. And yes the seller would have to change the title.... just like they would have to rez a sign. No difference.

I wouldn't have noticed it so quickly, I might not have noticed it at all. I wasn't looking for more land those times, but seeing the signs made me think it was a handy chance to expand.

Yes cluttering. They can still be seen. If they were invisible then I don't think anyone would feel like they needed them... which they actually don't.

...and having worked as a TSA screener at Orlando International Airport, let me tell you it is no picnic to have to handle the shoes of people who have walked around the Disney parks all day in 90+ F temperatures.

*shudders at the memory*

Yeah lots of things can be seen, that's generally the point of a 3D world.

You seem to be reading a different thread than me. There seems to be general agreement that more than one should be OK, the concern is whether this opens up more griefing techniques on 16m parcels.

I wouldn't even see it then. I don't look at the top of the viewer when I'm flying around - I look at where I'm flying. Does anybody look at the top?

In re the 'eyesore' issue: consider the incentives the new policy creates.

As mentioned, personally I never used floating or rotating or particle-emitting (or any of the rest of it) signs. I had one small, plain (words 'For Sale'-that's it) sign flat on the ground. Most have been 0.5m high and I think that's a reasonable standard.

The one-sign-per-parcel had the function of telling passersby 'this parcel is available'.

But what is the incentive when there can be only one-sign-per-SIM?

The function of such a sign is no longer to tell passersby 'this parcel is available': the function is now to tell passersby STOP and look in THIS sim: there are parcels available here!

A sign that fulfills THAT function must necessarily be different from the 'this parcel is available' type of sign.

A sign that fulfills THAT function can't be small and plain and 0.5m high. It must be NOTICEABLE.

And that means that it must go to the limits of what the new policy allows: it must be 8m high instead of 0.5, it must be colorful and arresting instead of plain, it must be as large in each horizontal dimension as the policy permits.

This is logical.

This is reasonable.

This is the incentive created by the new policy.


Moreover, the new policy creates another incentive: to put the one-and-only sign per sim in the most built-up part of the sim.

Why? Because, logically, parcels that are in a large empty area (a set of 8 512s, for instance) have that empty look that might signal 'could be up for sale' to a passerby.

But a parcel that's surrounded by builds is less likely to be seen by a passerby as being 'possibly up for sale'.

Thus, it's that parcel that should get the sign.



This is a logical and reasonable response to the new policy.

It's beginning to sound as if you don't want ads of any kind anywhere. Is that right?

A potential new policy---restricting dimensions to 0.5m high, in addition to the other restrictions in place---could also specify that one sign-per-parcel applies only to some particular size-or-higher.

It would be possible to exclude 16m from the one-per-parcel rule.

And once again, adding from my experience of actually being a TSA screener for a time, you are absolutely right! If I told you all the exceptions and loopholes, etc. that I alone witnessed in my year and a half in that position, you would be amazed.

Or maybe not.

Again... I'm not saying you would "look at the top". I'm just saying you might notice it if it was in big CAPS. The exact same way that a person not looking for a for sale sign might happen to see it. Your argument is that the sign needs to be there for people that are not looking at (or for) the land.