LL ad-farm policy now applied to non-ad-farms?

So nice to have a government of men not of laws.

That was totally different - this was one sign on a big chunk of land advertising that land, not hundreds of 16m2 parcels spread all over the place.

I guess I'll head to Jacks office hour today and complain "in person." If LL is going to start policing the look of the mainland, they should tell people.

TY for yer posts, all.

I think he's on holiday, not 100% sure.

Then I will yell at his dog instead.

edit: and no, I don't mean an actual RL dog, I mean the prim dog Jack has in his office.

Sindy,

It might help to see more of the document in the knowledge base; I think it answers the questions you've posed on the thread.

"Advertising rules and restrictions

* We will allow no more than 50 advertising locations owned by a single individual, whether personally owned or via groups in which you are a member, unless you have written permission from Linden Lab to exceed this limit. The use of alt accounts/groups to circumvent this restriction will be considered a violation.
* In addition to this cap, we will allow no more than one advertising placement by an individual in any single Region.

The advertisements themselves should conform to the following rules and restrictions:

* Ads should be grounded to the terrain, not floating.
* Ads should extend no higher than 8m from the ground.
* No rotating, no flashing content and no particles.
* No unsolicited dispensing of IMs, notecards, landmarks, or content.
* No light sources or glow (full bright is acceptable however).
* Advertising hoardings should be Phantom.
* Ads must be clearly PG in nature.
* No sound and no temp-on-rez content.
* Ban lines should be switched off.

We will expect that all advertisers make a reasonable attempt to fit in with the local area and to respect the wishes of Residents living nearby wherever possible. Linden Lab can and will, at its sole discretion, ask you to remove or modify any advertising-related content that we feels is unacceptable. If you, using alternate accounts, groups or other methods, attempt to create a networked advertising business that extends over 50 placements without our express permission, we will consider that to be a violation and you will be asked to remove them.

Finally, if we review your land transactions and deduce that your primary purpose in placing the advertising content is to force the sale of land rather than genuinely advertise, this will be deemed to be a violation and dealt with accordingly.

Frequently Asked Questions

This section answers some questions that came up in the forum posts following the initial announcement of this policy change on the Official Second Life Blogs.

I have several Mainland store locations with signs above them; am I affected?

No. This policy change is not aimed at personal advertising of this kind.

I run a business that places ads inside clubs and malls; am I violating this policy?

We call this "affiliate advertising", and it's unlikely to be affected, especially when it's inside venues and therefore not adversely affecting the local area.

Does this policy include signs advertising parcels for sale?

Yes it does."

So, if someone owns a store or a mall, the store signs do not have to follow the rules for ad signs (with the proviso that LL reserves the right to remove them if they determine that the signs are really there for harassment). Some people who posted in this thread have mentioned signs that they have, or have seen, signs that are attached to or inside stores or malls--the policy exempts them. If your friend's sign was not part of a commercial build, but simply a free-standing ad, then the ad rules apply to it, according to the KB.

Hope that helps!

Thanks. That's sorta how I read it, too..

/me sighs.. I seem to be the only one here at Jack's office..

I would think so - it's Christmas Eve.

Good luck getting LL to do what huge conglomerates of adfarmers couldn't.

Of course on your own land. The ad farms that were banned were all on 'their own land'. Who owns the land makes no difference.

/me thwaps Johan on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

I didn't mean a thousand 16m2 parcels you own, spread all over the grid. I meant a sign for the place on the land of that place. There's a big difference.

Unfortunately the adfarm policy didn't include "having thousands of signs" as part of the policy. A single sign can be against the policy. This was brought up during the discussion, and a Linden said, explicitly, that a single sign could be against the policy... and despite all the "you gotta be kidding me" posts that followed they stuck to that decision.

/me again quotes http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:About_ad_farms_and_network_advertisers:

What circumstances are you referring to where someone had multiple actual mainland store locations, real stores, where a store was treated as an adfarm?

It's correct, Sindy. You can put a sign on each store, even if they are in the same sim - you have to, to inform people what the store is called. Those are not advertising signs, anyway.

Other than that, you can put one sign per sim as long as it is within the stated rules for advertising signs and, from what you've said in this thread, the sign that was removed was outside of the rules in at least 2 respects and probably in a 3rd. (1) it was spinning, (2) it wasn't grounded, (3) it weas probably too bit and (4) did you say that it glowed a bit? That be a 4th infringement if it did.

Incidentally, your friend can put the sign back as long as it is changed to be within the rules.

/me sighs. Happy Holidays to you, ferrit. You get a pass on the rolled up newspaper today.

It wasn't multiple places. It was one place. It was one sign. It's exactly like if you had 7k or so of land and put a "Ferritville" sign on it. Not a ginormous, garish sign. No particles, no (or very little) glow, just a little rotation.

That's allowed as long as it is within the stated rules. You friend can put it back as long as it's changed to fit the rules.

A sign, not a store?

Because, yes, that's exactly what the debate in the discussion was about. A Linden said a single sign on a parcel, like a for sale sign, could be considered ad farming, regardless of the size of the parcel. Meanwhile obvious pure adfarms are still operating, because the restrictions don't target microparcels, they target signs.

Yes, this is stupid. It's part of the policy, though. I asked (just asked, mind, though they did comply) one person in the Coonspiracy shopping area to take down a rotating sign that seemed a bit "too far" from their stores because I expected this kind of thing.

Mostly, I'm just annoyed at LL. With all the build blight on the mainland, it seems like they could find far better targets if they're suddenly interested in making it all pretty.

Bear in mind that they act on abuse reports, versus running around proactively to find violations. As such, your annoyance may be better applied to whoever filed the report(s) on the signage.

True. The chances of finding out who AR'ed her sign are slim, though.

LL could have said "no, this is silly - stop doing ARs" to them. They didn't so I'll keep being grumpy at them.

This.

On the other hand, people keep saying "oh no, I only reported it, it's up to LL to act". LL's abuse team are overworked. So do be grumpy at the source of the AR as well.