What constitutes an Ad Farm?

Hi Guys

Fresh from my inability last week to divide up some land - all sorted now - I now have another issue. Will try and give you the abridged version.

Bought 3 plots of land, all in a row next to each other, two owned by one person and the third by someone else. Land is half beach-half water, and part of it was nicely landscaped with a fake beach (over the water) and some rocks and plants. Subsequently discovered that all the nice landscapey stuff was no transfer, and therefore not included in the sale as the ad had said, but hey ho, never mind.

Anyway, as I was duly returning all the non-transfer stuff, I noticed that between 2 of the plots was a stray 16 sq m, which had been hidden by the water, rocks, fake beachy stuff, which was owned by someone else. I honestly did check all round, but it was obviously well camofluaged, presumably so someone like me wouldn't see it. So I think to myself, hmm, it's not really a problem, but I like things nice and tidy, so I sent the owner a polite IM, saying, Hi, just bought this bit of land, see you've got a little bit in the middle, would be happy to buy it from you, etc, etc. The 16 sq m was actually set for sale to another person.

Couple of days later, I get a short IM back, saying send the co-ordinates and they would do it. I had since discovered another 16 sq m right on the corner (again, not a problem but it would just square things up), so I send a polite notecard with landmarks for both plots, saying thanks very much and I'd be happy to buy both bits. Job done, I think.

This morning, I log on to find a large red box on the 16 sq m. I go off to do something, and when I get back, this big red box has become a 10 m high advertisement for a goth nightclub and a mall selling tacky poseballs of people doing things that I thought were illegal!!! Then, the guy who owns the sign (not the land) shows up, and proceeds to have a perfectly pleasant conversation with me. I thought I'd just let him go on, after all, he doesn't own the land himself, and finally he says, "see that sign, that's my club and mall". He went on to tell me all about his club, how slow the mall was (apparently it's only been open two weeks), etc, etc. I probably should have said, "Oi, mate, WTF is that sign doing there", but I'm a nice girl, and thought I would see what happens. Then he invites me to join their goth and kinky sex group. Now, I've nothing against Goth's, or people who engage in kinky sex, but neither really do anything for me. So I accept to be polite - well, I can always leave the group again later - and he says, hey, drop by, etc. By now, he's sat down on my beach and is making himself at home. At this point, I make my excuses and leave.

As I leave, I am thinking, you idiot, he was on your land, why are you leaving and not him?? But with that 16 sq m sitting there, I am playing it nice. So I send the owner another polite IM, saying, sorry, is there a problem with selling me the plot, as there is now a big sign there?? Her profile says she's got 3 brothers, so don't mess with her (!!!), so I guess that sums it up. I suspect I'm flogging a dead horse.

Anyway, my questions are -

Firstly, does 1 sign, (even though it's not spinning) constitute an ad farm in anyone's opinion, and would therefore be AR'able, although I am somewhat reluctant to go down that route in an attempt to be neighbourly.

Secondly, I know I cannot block their access to the 16 sq m, but if I were to surround the sign with loads of plants, plumeria for instance, and maybe a couple of big rocks, all on my land so it couldn't be seen from any angle, am I in danger of being AR'd myself?

Thirdly, the other thing I was thinking about was something like a big mega-prim square tube (like a hollow 3D rectangle) slightly larger than 16 sq m, phantom so you could pass through it, transparent from the inside and with a nice beachy scene on the outside, that could be placed over the plot. Annabelle kindly gave me a folder of mega-prims, but then told me to be careful as one was big enough to fill a whole sim, so I have to confess to being a bit scared of them now. So, is this possible, and if so, and if I fluttered my eyelashes a lot, does anyone have/could make something like that?? Finally, would it be AR'able, being transparent on the inside and phantom so you could pass through it?

Failing that, I will just keep my fingers crossed that the club and mall will slide into non-existence with the passing of time.

Finally, if you've read this far, many thanks.

Jen

From the knowledge base on ad farms:

About Ad Farms





Despite the title of this article, the phrase "Ad Farm" is a bit of a misnomer. To be clear up front, advertisements themselves are not the issue; we don't want to stop legitimate advertising or the use of small parcels for promoting events or stores. For the purposes of this document, "Ad Farm" applies specifically to advertising or content that is intended solely to drive an unreasonable price for the land parcel it is on, usually by spoiling the nearby visual environment for others.

So whilst advertising is okay, when it crosses the line into harassing behavior or visual spam, and where the intent is purely to compel another resident to pay an unreasonable price to restore their view -- it violates the Harassment policy in our Community Standards. Such cases should be abuse reported as you would any other Terms of Service or Community Standards violation, so that our governance team can take the appropriate action.

It will obviously be difficult for us to define exactly how one specific example is an abuse issue when compared to another, but our intention is to be as consistent as we possibly can and to remove offending content as it is reported to us. Also, please keep in mind that this only applies to the Mainland; it does not impact private estates or islands where the owner is able to manage their land themselves.

To recap

Advertising on small parcels is fine; we are not outlawing the use of small parcels for this purpose --

However

Using content, particularly advertising, to deliberately and negatively affect another Resident's view so as to sell a parcel for an unreasonable price, is deemed unacceptable and shall be dealt with as a violation of our Community Standards.


How to most effectively abuse report "Ad Farm" situations

When filing an abuse report, please stand beside the offending content before choosing Report Abuse from the Helpmenu. Use the Harassment category and include the phrase "Ad Farm" in the summary line. If the owner is clear, enter their name. If it is a group-owned parcel or object, then either enter the owner or officer of the group if you can find it or enter "Governor Linden" (yes, we're asking you to abuse report the Gov, it's okay, she won't mind...) and put as much supporting detail in as you can.

Our first action when we come across cases of "ad farming" is usually to return the content and warn the person responsible. Repeated violation may bring further action, including suspension. If you are suspended and feel our decision was wrong, you can appeal.

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417

Might want to just check the 16s to see if they even have auto-return or no-build set. It's possible Goth Guy was just, uh... "homesteading"--and maybe the plot owner will come through with the sale.

If worse comes to worst, I don't think you can get in trouble for encasing the ad with phantom, transparent-inside prims all on your land. (Can't do it with just one hollow megaprim, though, because its origin would be on the parcel you're trying to block.)

But I wouldn't do any building around a parcel that's both for sale and has an ad on it. Some very simple ads are allowed on for-sale land, but generally that's a successful AR.

It would be a strange coincidence if your buying the surrounding land and contacting the 16s' owner triggered them to put up an ad, where before there had been prims fully covering the little parcel. Something's not quite what it seems--for all concerned, it would be a lot better if the current ad is there without the plot owner's consent.

Macphisto - thanks. I am not sure I am in visual spam territory, in that just because I don't like it doesn't mean that someone else wouldn't. Actually, I can't believe anyone would like it, but that's just my opinion. That said, if I were to try and sell the land again now, then I couldn't imagine anyone would buy it with the sign there, so I suppose that would adversely affect the price in the end. Guess I'll just have to sit on my hands for a bit and see what happens.

/me shuffles off glumly.

You are quite welcome. I wish you luck in this.

Qie - thanks. The sign owner and the plot owner are all connected, as they are written all over each other's profiles (and we mustn't mess with them, it says!!). Auto-return is off, and the plot is set for sale to the owner's partner, so it all seems a bit fishy. I am sure that the IM re the sale and the erection of the sign are connected, all too much of a coincidence.

Will just have to wait and see what happens, I guess.

The Ad Farm bit only clicks in if the parcel is put on sale to anybody for "an unreasonable price".
Advertising is OK - unless it's content that contravenes the TOS/CS.

If you want to hide the thing from your view, just build something on your boundary. Just be sure that nothing of the build encroaches on the other parcel.
If you do anything to harrass them, then (1) you're the griefer, and (2) given that you've inquired about buying the land any harrassment on your part would be seen as trying to force them to sell to you.

You are not obliged to allow the neighbourhood a clear view of their ad through your property.

End of story.


Moral:
When buying land, always turn on Property Lines (and Land Owners) in View.
In a water plot, the sea bottom is usually empty and will show up any oddities.
Whether on water or dry land, if there are any prims covering the land, then you can filter them from view so that you can see *all* of the property lines.
- Debug Menu (Ctrl-D)
- Client
- Rendering
- Uncheck the 'Volume'

Another good trick before buying land is to turn set volume off. (Advanced/rendering/types/volume) that will make all prims invisible, so you can get a clear look at the boundaries.

ALWAYS make sure you understand exactly what you're buying, (or selling) before you do the deed.

Sounds like you got hooked into a scam. They will either try to sell the small plots at a high cost, or offer to buy at less than what you paid them.

If they do either, it constitutes and ad farm in my mind. Since they are using advertising to reduce your property values, and boost theirs

Offer them a fair price, and mention they can buy back from you at cost (or slightly over cost)


And one key thing: Is your land set to mature?

This is a typical ploy done by the current crop of adcutters/farmers/exploiters.

We've been fighting them for many months now, and though we've made progress, there are quite a few who are rather recalcitrant to give up their little exploitation "game".

Contact me in-world for an invite to The Ad Zoo group, and we can help you fight these parasites.

A war is brewing, one brought on by other people's greed and excesses. It will be taken to them, and there will be a Day of Reckoning for them.

Does this count as adfarm, 32 sqm lot set at $9999 with banlines up?

if it has ad prims on it yes, otherwise it's just human stupidity

Thanks for your replies guys - makes me feel a lot better. I did check the boundaries, but obviously not carefully enough - my fault, I know!!! I think the land is mature, doesn't make any odds to me as I'm not doing anything maturish, but I think it is. The sign is quite clever, as it would, I believe, be fine in a PG area.

The land was, in my opinion, pretty cheap anyway, so I don't feel like I've been scammed, particularly as I didn't buy the land from the sign owner in the first place. If they wanted it that much, they could have just bought it anyway. It's a shame there is no facility for seeing who the previous owners of a plot of land were, you know, a bit of history. That would give buyers a better picture of what was going on.

Anyway, thought you'd like an update. This morning, I logged on to find he had erected a second sign on the other 16 sq m plot, identical to the first, which is directly my front door, so to speak. I was just about to go over and ask what his game was, when I got logged out for maintenance!!!

The thing that probably pissed me off more than the signs itself was that he obviously checked my profile, and then promptly joined all the groups I was in and sent out advertising notices to all of them for his crappy mall and club. I didn't mention this before as I didn't want to name names, but this is not, in my opinion, playing the game. Guys, I am sorry if you got group spam on account of me.

At the end of the day it's his land. He may well be a complete asshat, but at the end of the day he can do what he wants with it. It doesn't really affect me at the moment, as I'm only going to be using a little bit of the ground, and the signs can be screened off with plants, etc, without too much effort on my part, so I'm not going to worry about it. I will just keep my fingers crossed and hopefully in a month or so the club/mall will slide into oblivion.

Jen

Nope!
It's the same principle as ugly prims.
I saw many ad farmers put up ban lines immediately the new policy came into effect.
Ban lines on small unreasonably-priced plots do not fall foul of *the letter* of LL blog posting. They do fall foul of the principle.

I have ARed a ban-lined ad plot and seen the ban-lines disappear. I don't know if there was actually a cause and effect.

hmm, that almost sounds like harassment by joining all the groups you were in and spamming adverts.

Adding the second one is iffy on their part.

log the im's to him and the land owner about buying the parcels (offer reasonable rates to buy, don't ask what they want. figure out what you paid for the land itself and maybe add 1 to 1.5l per meter to that price)

The plots are set for sale at L$250 each - LS16.5 per sq m. I'd be happy to pay that for them, but expect they will want a lot more!

considering the going rates are much much lower, you can offer the going rate of about maybe 7l per meter at most and reference the lots as ad farms..

Say "I'll pay 7l per meter for your ad farms at these locations"

L$250 for a 16 isn't terrible, though I offer L$10/sqm for small plots. Right now, it is a more than fair price for the land.

However, anything more than that is simply extortion.

Well this know ad farmer has a 16 sqm set at $1500 and a 32 sqm at $9999 with banlines up around them. He has multiple 16sqm and 32sqm lots from $600L and up.

Not to start a conspiracy theory, but we don't really know if the sign owner is a different RL person from the ad plot owner, from the seller of the parcels you bought. (Well, unless they're so big that their RL identities are known. I mean, I don't think Ansche has resorted to adfarming.)

Apropos parcel history, land dealers actually have a little advantage there, in that they have a tool that accesses some database of parcel information. I've seen it in use a couple of times, once successfully and once not, but I don't know the details. I believe the data are privately gathered, presumably by bots, and access offered for a fee. (If it were free, I'd love to get a glimpse into the past of some of my land, but that's just hysterical historicism. )

Ah, conspiracy, hadn't thought of that. Anyway, it's a good thing you can only get 3 prims on a 16 sq m, as one of the signs has now multiplied into two signs, one on top of each other. I am sure the other will go the same way, only my alt and a friend were stood on the plot and I don't think they had the nerve to come over and do it whilst we were there.

I was talking to Randonee earlier and she said someone from the place that shall not be named had given her an invisibility screen, which looks like a sky? If anyone has something like that, and could toss it my way, I would be grateful.

Thanks muchly.

Jen

I met one of my neighbours today, nice chap. Owns the plot of land right next to the goth club, poor lad! Says apparently they have only been there a couple of weeks. So, all being quiet, and not being able to do anything else, we went to check it out.

I have to say, it was the most fun I have had for ages, because it was all so bad!! They have a Coffin Party Popper (like a sploder) but shaped like a coffin. Dance poles with 5 second animation loops that get stuck when you try and change them, and a mist and floating dollar sign emitting dance floor - for the camping, and mightily lag inducing.

Best thing, the dance ball only does line-dancing!! Can you imagine, 20 dark and leather clad goths all in a row doing line dancing?? Fantastic. And the music? I have no idea what kind of music would be appropriate, but they were playing a selection of Madonna tracks.

Am going to quietly sit on my land and wait them out!!

Jen

There is no 'conspiracy theory' here. That's clearly what is happening.

The game here is that once they know they're not going to sell the 4x4 to you at extortionate rates, they will then 'sell' it to another alt who has a legitimate-sounding reason for advertising. The goal in this is to make it so annoying that you want to leave. That way, after you're gone, they can set the parcel back for extortionate prices and maybe get the next sucker who comes along and buys.

They are not reasonable people and will never sell to you unless you pay the extortion. Being reasonable is a losing strategy for their game. Don't offer a cutter anything. If you have a 4x4 on your border, there is no way to win it unless they screw up and do something AR-able. Assume that they wont' screw up.

But if you border one of these 4x4s, take small consolation in the fact that you are tying up their business, not the other way around. They want you to leave as soon as possible. So stay and annoy them.

Yep. I have seen this firsthand at my mall. A well-loathed landcutter and his partner-in-crime (probably the actual real account he is an alt of to protect "her" lousy real estate business and skin store) did this. Even had the audacity to set a 16sqm for sale to me for L$99000 with a harassing comment in the title. Recently, the "partner" came by, reclaimed the land from the extortion group, put it in her group, and put up two 50m tall ad obelisks.

I'm not going anywhere, and eventually, I will encase them and continue ignoring their BS. She can pay the tier for being an amusement park attraction near my mall.



I don't have to win; I just have to out-last them, which I can easily do. But you are right; don't give in. Offer them a fair price for the land, and go about your business. Incorporate their build into yours and lampoon their shenanigans.



Absolutely good advice. I will keep on and do what I am going to do, regardless of them. It is just a matter of time.