Status of Ad Farms

Patience, grasshopper. And take satisfaction in the cost to the holdouts in RL US$ or Euros, for which the meter keeps ticking as long as they hold out: If they won't die, good - SUFFAH! : D

Because if they're in the middle of your land then you have to work around them and that's a pain. Plus you don't know what's going to happen with them. On any given day you may log in to find a nasty ad right in the middle of your land.

They may also be roadside and your trying to sell the plot behind. Some, perhaps a lot of, people won't be interested because they don't know what's going to happen on it.

The more I think about it, the more I can get on-board with the idea of phasing out mainland plots under 512m².

--Hugsy

Have you IMed the owner and asked to buy the 16m2's in the middle of your land? Or maybe offer to swap with a 16m2 cut out from the corner or your land?

If they respond with some silly price tag, would that be ARable under the new rules?

Ok. I hadn't thought of the small parcels in the middle of someone else's land. That would be a pain in the ass.

Yes, there's also the concern about what might happen to them, but that's where one should accept Buddhist principles of no expectations or how about "Let go let God." Whatever works for you. I guess a person can't help but wonder but I have enough happening in the here and now to worry about rather than what if's. I try not to focus on those.

Excellent question. Certainly worth a try to find out, but probably not. There are no rules about owning any land big or small so I'm not sure it'd fall into the guidelines.

Bradley,

My favorite benefit from the new policy is the peace of mind knowing that I'm unlikely to wake up to new ad farms. I also no longer panic when a neighbor puts their plot up for sale. I only buy land that I really want, instead of feeling obligated to guard the view at any cost.

While it is true the number of unsightly adfarms has gone down, and the level of arm-twisting extortion also has gone down, there is still plenty extortion to be found.

The whole practice of strategic "landcutting" is alive and doing phenomenally well. What is that, you ask? Simple. Take two adjacent 512m plots, both for sale by landcutter X. Someone buys one of the 512s at FMV. That's fine and dandy. X then chops out one or more 16s from the other parcel, adjacent to the 512 that sold, then dumps the remains of the cut 512 on the market for bot-attractive price. X then sets the 16s for sale at anywhere from $1495 to $4995, advertising the land as "more prims 4 u!". Sometimes, X does this in such a way that expansion around his plot will surround him, giving the larger land owner even more reason to want to "buy him out", because he will have a hole in his build that he can do nothing about. Tier isn't a big deal to X, because one 16 per month costs, on average, US$0.10, and the sale from ONE of these, at the cheapest price above can wait up to 5 YEARS before break-even becomes an issue.

So, basically, X plots and strategizes, looking for the most likely patsies who will need to expand and are willing to pay his usurious prices. The plots that aren't selling, well, just drop them a bit lower, and maybe the neighbors will bite.

It is the same game, in the end: a greedy, profiteering leech who really adds nothing to the world.

Even though I am happy to see that the most egregious forms of arm-twisting have gone the way of the dodo, I would be most overjoyed to see even the subtle forms go away as well. Something that several of us are working on right now to help the Lindens formulate a policy to wipe them out with the least collateral damage to others.

From what I've seen Bracken can't get enough of me. Constantly bringing me up on threads that I haven't even posted on. And this from someone who according to his own perverted self says I'm always muted/banned. Isn't it ironic?

I see a few others going thru' the same route. It's ok I don't mind, really. Nice to know I'm being thought of. Actually, I'm enjoying it.

An Old adage comes to mind: Don't worry when they talk about you, worry when they don't.

By the way Bracken, I like kinky. I like freaky. I hate disgusting. You're clever enough to know which slot I have you in.

I Heart Ricardo

"I continue to hear people complaining about nothing having been done about the ad farms and it confuses me. I've checked some of the areas that I remembered having been terrible and am happy with what I found."

Not sure were your really around sl these days but i see many around.

I don`t know how LLABS are doing the removel. But WHY there some still around and some not. When you see a adfarm that is higher then on of the tallest trees someone tried to hide it is not a person that is confusion on the part of the person thinking about it. Its just a the way LLAB does its removel problem. Some get taken care of some just continue to be continious eye sores.




Thank you Hugsy Penguin ..............

Solve for X. Glad to hear it. I'm quite impressed with what LL has done to show willingness to act within the initial ban. As you point out, there remains a problem that affects the overall value of LL's Mainland asset. It's kind of surprising the hold-outs still haven't read what the blog announcement actually said.

Would this help? http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-920

Not for me, really. I can tell when there is a hole. Just turn on Land Owners, and turn off textures in the client rendering menu. Then select the plot and look for holes.

No, what we are aiming for is more policy additions to simply make the extortive tiny plot business model very unprofitable. One idea is to limit minimum land ownership in a region to some nominal value, like 512sqm. It has collateral damage issues, though, so it needs some refinement.

I found it strange they were talking shit when you didn't post anything wrong or controversial. What I didn't find strange was who was doing it. Same weak minded ones who cringe whenever anyone disagrees with them. The thing is for people who can't take the heat, they sure love hanging out in the kitchen.

I have an almost complete 512 lot that is lacking two 16m plots. These are empty lots with no signs. The owners won't sell. Using the wireframe tool reveals a small object buried in the terrian of each lot. I can't sell the lot with the chunk missing in the corner except to a land bot. (give away prices)

So I have an empty lot that is only good for the Prims it provides. I still wonder what the objects are.

"CX"

There are a few 16x16m parcels in my sim that are used to store server nodes. Creating a minimum ownership restriction would make that legitimate use of small parcels financially unfeasible. Fortunately, the owners of those parcels are quite amenable to swapping out the pieces for another equivalent parcel on the same sim, which I've done twice now to even out my borders.

An alternative strategy would be to set a fair market price for all parcels under 512sm. You could cut land up and sell the parcels, but you won't make a profit. Period. That would end land speculatio and allow people to still use them for legitimate purposes.

Unless those parcels were forced to sale at the fair market value to any buyer at any time, they'd still be used for extortion, they just wouldn't be For Sale: "Need extra prims to complete that project? (wink wink nudge nudge) No time for chat, but L$s get my attention."

In the cosmic scheme of things, if the server-hosting microplots were to become "collateral damage" I rather doubt any of our Second lives would materially suffer. On the other hand, they've always been perfectly reasonable when I've contacted them, so it would be better if they didn't get caught in the crossfire. If they can come up with a workable solution, it would be great to know about it.

Aye, those are some of the folks we have considered as affected by collateral damage from a min-plot-size restriction. I myself have considered doing just that in the past, though, storing my servers in other sims on other land. However, I actually planned it on a normal-sized plot. I considered using a tiny plot for that purpose, but 1) the number of prims is too limited for the number of servers I wanted to hold; 2) I didn't want to buy a normal-sized plot and chop out a piece just for my own use; 3) I didn't want to buy someone else's hackjob on another perfectly good plot, including ending up with the possibility down the road of being someone else's "donut hole".

*shrug* just my sensibilities I was working under; others may differ, and that is fine, but, really, another 512sqm costs at most US$10/month (using an alt's 512 from going premium, as opposed to US$5 for first tier, or less for additional tier). That's pretty darn cheap, you can house lots more servers, and, hey, you can also RENT out server space to others who want the same thing and don't want to pay that price, so you can pretty much get someone else to pay for it for you.

As such, I tend to think the real collateral damage is quite minimal in this case.

I'm not keen on price restrictions because there really is no guide for what would be "fair market value" in that situation, and LL will be loathe (and rightfully so) to get into the price regulation game. Min-plot-size restrictions are easy and can be set fairly for just about everyone.

Well argued, both of you.

Obviously, there's no easy answer and someone is going to get their toes stepped on, which is why this situation has persisted for so long. Finding a plan that can be implemented automatially and fairly is difficult.

I'd say virtually impossible. Unlike the ad farm ban, I can't imagine any of the plans suggested that won't affect many people who are innocent of any wrongdoing.

Ad farming is alive and well (for the ignorant).

Have a look at this batch that went up overnight near my place :/

http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=262641&sort=Pictures.PictureID+desc

have filed ARs on them all, crossing fingers something can be done soon.

I don't think there's a single post in this thread that says all ad farms are completely gone or that more wont pop up from time to time.

Good luck on the AR. I hope they respond as quickly as they were a month or so ago.

I know, i guess it's just rather depressing to see a neighbor go and do this without provocation, with the expressed purpose of aggrevating others. It is evident from his recent efforts that he did not see the announcement of LL's new policy on ad farming, hence why i brought it up.

The user in question has had a history of trying 'get rich quick' schemes in SL, i've found, though, so i guess it really shouldn't have been a surprise. It's also upsetting to still see about 15-20% of the land in my sim still occupied by advertisements or parcels that are blatantly on sale for exorbitant amounts of money.

I know at some point i ought to move, but like many in the same situation, I've put in a lot of time and attention on the build, have a responsibility to my tenants, and overall dislike the idea of having to move and lose familiarity and good flyby traffic.

I don't get it. All I see is a load of for sale signs. What#'s wrong with that?

There is nothing wrong with advertisements, or putting land for sale at extremely high prices. When the two come together, you can get LL to act, but not until.

That's correct under the current policy, but the reason for the policy was to protect the value of the Mainland as an asset for LL, and there are still ways that microparcels can be abused (e.g., "extremely high prices" as part of extortionate land-cutting) that hurt LL's bottom line by reducing the appeal of new and existing Mainland. I would expect further steps, as suggested in the blog post announcing the policy. That the first stage was really pretty effective both reduces the pressure for any too-hasty next stage and demonstrates LL's ability to implement these policies effectively through the AR system.

In the example shown, though, an AR will probably be successful under the current policy because the For Sale signs are themselves in violation. Looking around the Mainland at high-priced 16sq.m. parcels, not many have signs more than 0.5m above the ground surface, at least not for more than a day or so; most have no signs at all now.