"For Sale" signs now forbidden?

No, I think that's your incorrect take on it; I don't know anyone who really thinks that way about it. Most folks are pretty tolerant of all kinds of "ugly". I've had some neighbors make some rather dubious builds, but I don't really care all that much; unless they are sapping an unfair share of sim/view resources, it doesn't make me think twice about it.

I think the real issue is that we've been putting up with a lot of harassment from adfarming and extortion for a LONG time with no recourse, which includes a LOT of intentionally ugly, spammy, harassing builds and plot cutting. As a result, I think it has made a lot of folks sensitive to the "aesthetics" issue.

If I owned a parcel in the sim where that photo was taken I might AR those signs for breaking the ad policy. It is ugly in my opinion and I think this is what the new policy is meant to discourage. It's laziness really... The seller wants to put up all those signs and then not have to ever go back. Put up your one sign that you are allowed per sim, then if that parcel sells put up another sign. There's no need for more than one.

That is certainly true.

But note that I am NOT defending any of that.

Note also that I'm calling for an even STRICTER standard than the current policy allows: signs no taller than 0.5 meter, as opposed to the 8 meters now permitted.

Thus, I believe my comments still stand.

From where are you getting this claim?

Isn't it possible that the seller wants to inform passersby that there is more than one parcel available?

Let's make it optional. ^_~

Chances are, I think they will be able to figure that out without more signage.

Well, you quoted everything in that paragraph but the conclusion, which kinda tosses out your notion that "folks aren't being adult about all this". I think that the vast majority of folks ARE being adult about it.

A bunch of people went WAY overboard. Many others got peeved over it, and rightfully so. People on the fringes of the excessive behavior also were (and are being) scrutinized as a result.

It's not necessarily "childish" behavior, but more like an understandable overreaction to "childish behavior". One thing that *I* was taught when I was young was to be a good neighbor; to demonstrate empathy and sensitivity to others and their concerns; to respect and support others and their rights; and to not tolerate abuse of same.

"It's my sandbox and I will play however I want, the rest of you be damned" is no more "adult" than "You must live your life according to MY rules, or I will (cry/fight/call the cops/insert whatever here)!".

Most of the sim where the photo was taken is up for sale in plots. It's not ugly at all. The for sale/rent signs are definitely not ugly - they are very nice as ads go, the rental boxes are not ugly, and the trees are not ugly. There's nothing ugly in that sim. Some people really mean that there are a lot of those signs there, but there's nothing else, so who is it affecting? Imagine a few of those same signs in a developed sim that has buildings. They are not ugly now, and they wouldn't be ugly in a developed sim.

What have I typed that would lead you to believe I disagree with you on this?

The thing that seems clear to me is that 'ugly' is very much a matter of opinion.


To get technical about it, if we had a genuinely reliable and valid poll to look at, there would be some things [spinning and floating and glowing, let's say] that a large proportion of SL residents would find 'ugly', and then other things [a geometric pattern of flat signs laid out symmetrically on a stretch of land, say] that some proportion would term 'ugly' and some other proportion would term 'neutral' and some third proportion would term 'pleasing'.

Just in general, if someone posts a snapshot and types "I find this ugly and I'm glad it will be prohibited"----I have NO problem with that. Because it's an expression that takes into consideration the fact that not everyone is expected to share the writer's opinion. I can respect that method of communicating.

But, again in general, blanket pronouncements that 'everyone' finds a certain thing 'ugly'---not to mention critical remarks about those who disagree with the blanket pronouncement---that type of communication is much harder to respect.



Speaking of respect, I got a very nice response from Harry Linden about my ticket. I'd written the ticket courteously, but within about an hour of seeing the Warning email about being banned, so I did use caps to emphasize my surprise and dismay, in a few places, which I rather regret. Anyway, too bad we can't respond with thanks to ticket responses without re-opening, which I'd assume they'd just as soon we don't do unnecessarily.

Anyway, it sent me back to Jack's blog. This sentence really caught my eye:

"By Networked Advertising, we are specifically talking about the use of multiple parcels on multiple regions for the primary purpose of advertising, USUALLY ON BEHALF OF OTHER INWORLD OR REAL WORLD BUSINESSES" [caps mine].

Is it any wonder that many of us felt safe in assuming that 'For Sale' signs weren't part of this---and that the short mention in the Q&A about "signs advertising Parcels for sale" referred to ad agencies putting up ads, for a fee, to advertise Realty businesses?

I do hope that they will seriously revise that 'usually on behalf of other' language, because it does seem to give a clear implication that a person selling their own land isn't part of this policy.

I didn't intend it to be discordant with what you said, just complementary.

That's what I was driving at; that a large part of the negative response you are seeing here is a result of the former kind of "childishness", leading to a reaction containing some amount of the latter kind.

As such, it's a tad unfair to categorically toss resistance to signage in large part into the "childishness" bin.

Well, I think you make a fair point. If I had it to do again I'd stick with the 'type of communication I don't respect' style of expressing my opinion, instead of having referred to toddlers.

(Factually I don't think I said "childish". I used the toddler reference because of the well-known tendency of humans of that age to see only their own point of view. But...that's probably splitting hairs.)

I suppose the idea is to come up with some finite set of criteria for things that have the most potential to be seriously degrading to the Mainland experience. Not every spinning, floating, glowing thing is ugly (in theory, anyway ), but those features all make it very easy to really mess up the neighbors.

There's also a bit of reigning-in the one-upmanship. In the bad old days, it was practically impossible to use any remotely conventional build for displaying ads: who would ever find it, hidden in the particle-spewing, twirling, light-emitting, hovering tower forest of monstrosities?

And density of repetition was part of that one-upmanship, and very much contributed to the problems, so the one-ad-per-sim rule makes sense as part of that "finite set of criteria"--but in the case of land-for-sale, I completely agree that relaxing that spec while further constraining others (like, "flat on the ground" and "only on 512s-or-greater" would in fact be better for everybody, as long as any land-for-sale signs are permitted at all. (To repeat myself, I'm 99% sure that if no land-for-sale signs appeared anywhere, nobody would lose enough business to notice, but as long as any are permitted, they will continue to make a difference in sales.)
I've learned that they do read the comments one leaves when *closing* a ticket (the step after they move it to "solution provided", so that's where I note gratitude. (I've only ever gotten support from concierge and operations, though, not from G-Team, so maybe it's a different process?)

*wonders how many will AR Nautilus's glowing higher than 8 meters advertising crystals?*

Matter of opinion and personal taste. A single elegant sign may not be offensive - it can be attractive, even - but multiples of that very same item can easily be ugly, just because it's... well, a sign.

I agree up until the last bit. Your scenario doesn't describe something as being ugly just because it's a sign. It describes it being ugly through the repetition of the sign.

The sim in question is empty - nobody living there, and no stores, clubs, or any other buildings there. It can hardly be considered ugly in the context of what it is. When the sim becomes developed, and there are various kinds of buildings there, most of the signs will have gone. There may be a few left in various parts of the sim, but the odd flat sign with a small rental box on top and a palm tree shading it can hardly be called ugly.

And great George Carlin routines on the subject:

Airport Security - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6qdH8iji5o

Airline Announcements - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DagVklB4VHQ&feature=related

I still laugh on these

There's plenty of buildings around it; the mainland doesn't stop at a sim border, you have 8 other surrounding sims.

And personally even if the price was great, I wouldn't buy land there to end up surrounded by a "for sale" advertising farm.

Given the choice between two similar plots (one surrounded by other plots for sale that are barren, or just have some landscaping; or one surrounded by other plots for sale that are littered with signs) I'd pick the plot with no ads in sight.

The risk of someone moving in next door and putting down SL's ugliest build 5 minutes after I buy it is really just the same in both cases, so you're still better off with a non-ad littered neighbouring plots. It looks nicer *now*.

But that's different. I'm only saying that that the ads in that sim aren't ugly.

I'm not understanding your terminology: in what way is a stretch of parcels up for sale an "advertising farm"?

This one went directly to 'closed' without any 'solution provided' step (as you say, maybe different divisions handle the ticket process differently). But I might try leaving a succinct 'thanks' and see if they grumble about Please Don't Reopen tickets unless there's a matter of substance to be communicated.....

The signs advertise land for sale so it is advertising.
There's about 40 signs in that picture, making it a farm.

Put those together and you have a "'for sale' advertising farm".

I'm sorry, but that's nonsense, imo. Technically, it might be correct, but to equate it with ad farms in just nonsense.

When new mainland sims are bought, they are usually cut into small pieces and sold, with each piece having a for sale sign. Nobody ever thought of them as ad-farms.

I agree with Phil, to be an "ad farm" the parcels have to be significantly smaller than 512 square meters... and you just don't see legitimate for-sale plots that small.

Why would it be common sense to have a sign per parcel when they're right next to eachother? No one sees from any map the contents of the advert, right?

Anyone flying over - for whom you have ad prims in the first place - is going to land and look, then investigate the neighboring parcels and compare. This goes especially to those looking via map or search and landing in the area. They see yours, they see yellow around it, they compare.

Take it from someone who's done extensive land hunting. The extra ads are not necessary and they just litter the landscape.

Invest in a searchable ad, again one in the area is enough. Put in that parcel's properties to look for more plots in that sim. It's so easy to comply.