Is it time for another LANDBOT thread???

Yeah I KNOW... I've read several threads about this in the past. But damn, it happened to a friend today while I was standing there (and trying to help them undeed land from a group.) I told them to sell the land back to themselves... I wasn't specific enough about telling them to set the land for sale TO A SPECIFIC PERSON and in literally 1 second, yes, * 1 second* a bot got the land, for $1L. My friend is gutted, and so am I.

In older post about landbots, the following was written:
QFT.

To add insult to injury, the AV came back and ejected us from the bought land while we were standing there, stunned. The Lindens REALLY REALLY need to do something about this. YES it was my friend's "fault" but the actual rapidity with which this happened was astonishing.

Ouch. kicking you out right after is an extra douche move.

Yes this is sic and not really on,But I have been warned.I also have heard that if you click the abandon land button even by mistake,your land is taken,gone.Without a box coming up to check,I don't know this for certain but I am too afraid to try it.LOL

Have you tried contacting the owner of the land bot? Apparently some of the more reputable land bot owners will sell the land back in the case of a mistake. It's worth a try anyway. And I also agree that the warning about not selling land to a specific user should be changed to help people avoid making this mistake.

You do get the popup when abandoning land. I've done it.

that royally sux. especially the asshat who ejected you.

Really bots have nothing to do with it... Before the bots there were the "land swoopers".

An example from 2006

/130/43/135391/1.html

Sometimes you just can't protect people from themselves. I have yet to sell any land, but from my understanding You get 3 warnings about selling the land to "anyone". If you put "WARNING ANYONE CAN BUY THIS LAND FOR L$1" in big red letters..... it will still get ignored, you can count on that.

Well in this particular instance it really IS about the bots. 1 second... literally.... and the land was sold. I've bought and sold land a number of times, mostly not on mainland, however. But in this instance, I didn't even have a chance to check how my friend was setting the land for sale before it got sold out from under him. In addition, I use an AV scanner and NO AV had even come within range before it was sold.

and the old threads about land swoopers are mentioning times of 2 to 5 seconds... not that much of a difference.

Yes, this is true but how difficult can it be to add something like "INCLUDING COMPUTER CONTROLLED AVATARS THAT CAN FIND AND PURCHASE THIS PARCEL IN AS LITTLE AS 1 SECOND."

I know, some people would not read it anyway but if adding such a simple precaution helps the situation at all it seems like a no brainer.

200 to 500% difference actually.

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Although really you just make the point stronger ..


LL needs to do something about Land Swooping period ..

They have had 5 years .. why is it still going on?

People need to realize these facts when they are buying/selling/trading/transferring land:

1) When you put your land up for sale, it goes into the listings IMMEDIATELY. There's no delay. The next person to search after you click the final "OK, SELL IT!" dialog button, it will show up for.
2) This is the Internet. Things happen literally at the speed of light / thought / whatever.
3) People don't have to be physically present to buy your land from you. They can appear at 4000m in the sky, or buy your land from a sim or more away.

Talk to the bot owner. If he/she fails to negotiate with you at once, then file a support ticket or AR the owner. In some cases, the Lindens can correct the situation, though they are /NOT/ obligated to do so.

This is all understood, especially now, but regardless, I still see it as a problem.

It is not made clear the absolute rapidity with which this can happen when putting the land for sale. Of course I would never leave land for sale for $1L. I am even careful about making sure items on my property are not accidentally set for sale. However, before I'd even had a chance to clarify that my friend needed to put the land for sale to himself or someone else, it was gone. It was like... "To undeed the land, you need to sell it to yourself for.... OH DAMN!"

Of course this is the Internet but this was a transaction that happened to a human. It is a very honest, human mistake that was TOO easy to make, and cost my friend thousands of lindens.

You think that if the bot-owner who bought the land was kind enough to eject us from the land, he'd be willing to sell it back to my friend? As well, the AV's profile description was in Japanese. Who knows if he'd even understand us.

I know what you're going through, I had the same thing happen to me not long after I rezzed in! I wish you luck with this, with getting your land back, or duly compensated...this majorly bites!!

However, don't place a lot of hope on the Lindens helping you with this..when I called customer support, they told me that they have no control over the landbots...so, basically, they were no help...but did, however, encourage me to tell all my friends to be VERY CAREFUL when setting land for sale. Like that helps.

I hate to hear of this happening to someone else. *hugs*

Well that is nice to know ,cheers

There is a move to do two things about this problem:

1. Make a "Transfer to Individual/Group" option for land, right next to the "Sell" (or whatever it is) Button.

2. Delay the parcel listing in search for a few minutes so the bots wont pick it up in search.

If you have interest in this, voice it at Jack Linden's Office Hours on Wednesdays at 1pm SLT.

There may already be a JIRA for this, I don't know.

I agree, this and possibly a delay of about 1 minute between hitting 'okay' and the land going to the search would be nice.

Right now, LL fears being viewed by companies who might consider coming into SL as REGULATORY of business practices, which in today's economy is the kiss of death for any media form. However, the stigma of regulation is becoming less onerous in RL politics as these major international banks based in the US keep hitting the skids. If regulation becomes popular in the general culture, LL will likely take more agressive action. If the free-marketers win the day, LL will only regulate things like ageplay and casinos. It's all business. LL has no real ideology about these things, nor are the residence their primary concern. I don't like it, but I accept it. If it means that much to you, I figure the answer is to get RL regulators into power now that the iron is hot. LL will follow.

Yeah but there weren't a few hundred Land Swoopers operating 24/7

There's only two or three land bot runners right now. To be fair, they run multiple alts, but not hundreds not even close. Before they were all put out of business by that 200-500% speed increase there literally were hundreds of land swoopers.

Anyway, the problem isn't bots the problem is GUI design. Change the GUI to guide people to transfer more safely, I've always liked this idea: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-251

Oh also, I have seen LL transfer land from buyer back to seller in these sort of events without contacting the buyer at all at least twice. So it can happen.

So, Elanthius, would it actually hurt anything if the listings were delayed by a minute or so? That wouldn't prevent all of this, for sure--and I'm not even 100% sure it wouldn't make the matter worse ("I've got a minute: plenty of time. Hey, why did my Mini-Map just go red?", but I'm curious if it would actually hurt anything, from a buyer perspective.

I know nobody agrees with me on this, but I still think upping the minimum price to sell to "anybody" to L$2 for a parcel would reduce this phenomenon dramatically. L$1 is too common a "nominal sum." If somebody were to try L$0 and it doesn't work, and then try L$1 and it doesn't work, and then went on to L$2... well, they get what's coming to them for being so stubborn.

I really don't see any downside to this plan. I don't think it will totally solve the problem but it'll get a good 70-80% of them.

How does one know how many land bot runners there are?

Well, this one knows because any time I try to buy a parcel and don't win I check out who did. Or, alternatively, set a parcel for sale for L$1 and see what bots turn up.

While I agree there aren't that many landbot runners, 2 or 3 seems low, I'd estimate 6-8.

Anyway, the main point of the 1 minute wait idea is for human error to be realized and fixed. The human land jumpers (Swooping was a TOS violation until bots came in and LL rewrote TOS several times.) had the same human limitations, that is the 200-500% speed reduction from bots, as the human seller who made the error. While I agree a minute delay would have been useful then as well, the chances of catching a mistake and preventing a bad sale were better when your human brain that usually was responsible for the error was in competition with other equally fallible human brans.

As for GUI design, I agree that needs to be fixed, but really GUI alteration won't help people who might not read that well or might not be as english proficient, or may just not be paying attention. I know they SHOULD be paying attention, or be English Proficient if they are working with an English-based application, or be better readers, but not being any of these things should not give bots or human realtors the right to swindle. 1 minute or even 10 minutes would give persons the time to review what happened. It won't stop all human error but it would cut down significantly. The human brain isn't technologically upgradable (yet), but a simple 1 minute server delay is within the realm of possiblity.