"For Sale" signs now forbidden?

Have you ever noticed how many 'owned, NOT up for sale' parcels are empty?

Someone flying over a sim and seeing one For Sale sign is NOT going to consider the possibility that there may be a lot of parcels up for sale, there. They're far more likely to think, oh, there's a parcel in the midst of not-up-for-sale land. Because we're all used to seeing 'unimproved' property that is NOT available (due to either the owner not having it up for sale or to it being reserved for some future auction by the Gov.)

Without seeing that there IS the option of buying several and putting them together, they may not consider the possibility. We've already established, from personal testimony in this thread, that people DO make purchases when they see availability, even if they hadn't previously been searching for land.

The options you describe leave these people out entirely, as they all involve a conscious search for land.

Dunno, if I saw one ad for a parcel in a particular sim, and I had any impulse whatsoever to "buy" in that area, I would turn on View->Land Owners to see what else was also for sale, with or without signs (in draw range or not). That, and probably have a look at the map, too.

Wouldn't want to miss out on a good deal.

I actually go and look at the price the land with the sign is on when I TP in via search. When I'm considering a price I like to compare this via nearby parcels. I've generally landed at the cheapest plot of the size I'm looking for via search but seeing the for sale sign does attract me to take a look.

I can do this via the map of course but for sale signs do serve a purpose.

I see Sarah Nerd has come up with an inovative solution.

On each of ther lots for sale there now sits a nice Cumfy couch and TV on a cute little carpet, even has a side table, Lamp and a plant!

On the screen of the TV is her "Sarah nerd buys land" logo and her picture.... no mention at all that the plot is up for sale... and I guess its not against the rules to ress furniture on land you own right?

Suprised Phil didnt think of that, he could even put up furniture from his store that he has for sale on land he wants to sell.

Sarah is always the innovative one.

Then it's an ad and has to obay the rules. It dosen't matter how they try to bypass the rules if it is advertising something it's an ad. If it's an ad you can have one per sim and 50 max gridwise.

Even that would be against the rules if there's more than one of them in a sim. The ad on the TV is simply an ad.

Interesting idea. I'm doing a little experiment in the sim. I have 2 ads there (yes I know it's against the rules). There are no roads or paths through the sim, but one is placed at the side of almost a path, and the other is placed in the center of the sim - where people land when TPing to the sim from the map without entering any coordinates. From the discussion in the ad-farmers thread, I was curious to see if such ads get clicked on. Mine don't suggest clicking on them, but they do get clicked on and deliver an LM for the store, which is in the sky. The numbers of clicks are very low, but the one in the center far surpasses the other one so, judging by that little experiment, ad location definitely seems to matter. Maybe I'll put a sofa etc. there. If the terrain wasn't rock, it might even get sat on, but it should attract a few more waifs and strays.

How about, Buy my land get a $1000L cupon for Phils store......they are going to need Furniture ....

No it's not.

There is one land seller who uses a clock tower to advertise the plots. It is a lovely piece of primware and has no words on at all. After a while of seeing those on a few otherwise empty plots, you just know the land is for sale. Still a sign, about as unspammy as it gets imo.
Of course you need to be a regular land seller to pull that trick off. For those of us who want to occasionally flick off an unused parcel a it has to be a bit more blatant I think.

How about picking on another store to give away its stuff for nowt

Yes it is. I'm only allowed one ad per sim. ....... unless you know different, of course.

Unless I'm mistaken, many of the parcels in the sim the 3ring pointed to are being sold by that seller. I've never seen it before, but many of the parcels have just such a structure on them, and nothing else. I can't guarantee it's a clock, but it's certainly a very nice looking tower.

"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."

Your 2 ads on the sim you have your own business really aren't in that category.

um "...usually on behalf of..." but not necessarily. And they seem to be enforcing it against individual land owners with more than one for sale sign per region.

You might be right Ciaran.

I've been thinking about moving from my current mainland parcel, so last night I looked at about 50 or so parcels on the mainland. About half had spinning, floating or neon "For Sale" signs that were larger than 8m, and most had land signs flattened on the ground. There are still a lot out there.

How many of those are just selling 2 parcels anywhere in the grid? For Sale signs are specifically mentioned in the policy anyway.

The policy isn't and never was aimed at low volume advertising, it was aimed at the notorious ad farmers with their 16M plots and extortionate sale prices.

For me, you are preaching to the choir. Tell the G-Team that. *shrugs*

Yes indeed, my ticket, discussed a couple of pages back, was in response to a Warning that I was In Violation and etc---and the signs were flat, no particles/sound/glow/spin/float and all the rest of it.

The only 'violation' was that there was more than one per sim.

I haven't been inworld much today yet, and didn't look, but last night there were certainly multiple For Sale signs by the same avatar in all the sims I went around to.

Of course it will take them a while to get to everyone. Just as 'of course', those who put a target on their back by publicly objecting to a moderator action will probably be first on the list...such is human nature. Though of course it's perfectly possible that all emails were sent at the very same instant to....hmn, could there be 10,000 residents with two or more signs in the same sim? 50,000? Hmn.



Edit, some time later---I've been in and HAVE seen more signs taken down, as compared with last night. No doubt it will take quite a while to let everyone know: as has been pointed in out in this thread, not everyone reads the Forums, not everyone reads the Blogs, and not everyone who reads either will realize what's being asked.

Probably those responsible for sending out the Warning emails have good solid job security for weeks to come...

I'm seeing the same thing on my sim. The huge spinning signs that I AR'd were gone that same day. The person with those signs had 3 parcels for sale. One has sold and now there is one small flat sign on the ground of one of the remaining 2.

There is a fairly active (from what I can tell) land seller on our sim; in fact I purchased a couple of my parcels from his business. He has the type of sign that is on the ground, but had flashing words and one on each parcel. And he has a LOT of parcels for sale in the sim. I did a fly around tonight and noticed he now only has one of the signs up.

Word is apparently getting around.

The land retailers get around it legally by having obvious buoys on each parcel that show they are all in the same boat. So you see one 'For sale' and you see three parcels with the same unique buoy in the middle of a bare parcel - it was obvious enough for me to figure out in a glance and to check the parcels.

Phil, you are of course correct in your analysis of my description; however, since I spend most of my working life wrangling words, I don't expect to have to waste time spelling everything out in an SL forum post - the fact that it was the repetition of the sign was implicit, as you so rightly interpreted.

On 'the sim in question' - I'm not referring to any sim in particular in my observations. It boils down to the same thing, i.e., to some people, multiple signs however tasteful will be an eyesore. Equally, so might 'the odd flat sign with a small rental box on top and a palm tree shading it'. Since aesthetics are largely a matter of personal taste - art and design theory aside - there's little point continually arguing what you perceive as merits when others simply don't share your view, I'm afraid.

IF that is going to be permitted, then it would solve the problem of having parcels up for sale that happen to be widely separated within a sim.

IF.

Gabrille mentioned it earler, and it's an interesting idea. It works on the sim that 3ring pointed to because there are no buildings there, so there's nothing to prevent them from being seen. And it would work on adjacent parcels in built-up sims, but I can't see it working quite as well on widely seperated parcels on built-up sims.

Of course, they are still ads. Ads don't have to have words to make them ads - just a visual of some sort. But it would be a sad Linden who insisted that they are removed from all but one parcel.