Mainlanders: Do you feel like you have been pushed aside?

Why do you use the word "guilty" there?

I'm more concerned about land not making money for LL leading to problems for SL and higher fees somewhere else.

It's that guy who puts clock towers or whatever they are on every parcel. Technically I guess they are builings.

As to signs, I still see the airborn spinners. AR'd a few, but they are still around.

I see 'for sale' signs spinning a lot of places. Long as they don't flash and blink as well, I don't mind them. I did wonder why they were still there but assumed I was mistaken that they'd been outlawed.

What I dislike is when people have some teeny tiny piece of land just big enough to put some really obnoxious, ugly, and/or porn-y ad on a spinny flashy cube. Then of course, they utilise that to its full extent. Who wants to buy land next to that?

It is a shame that while attempting a virtual world Linden Labs has overlooked the importance of zoning committees and neighborhood associations. In real cities there are both.

I don't think anyone actually knows what the rules are for any of the (non-Zindra, at least) mainland, PG or M. The rules seem to be written so that LL can be absolutely arbitrary and inconsistent in what they interpret and enforce. Well, it's always been that way maybe, but now there is a pall of fear because they have some serious agenda. Despite their assertion that "nothing has changed", they are clearly changing the game in very significant ways, and even admit so when talking out the other side of their mouth.

It's a huge gray area of doubt, Novis. Here's the thing: The actual DEFINITIONS of the maturity ratings don't say "these apply only to businesses and advertised events". So, someone could AR you for, say, making love to your partner on your private beach. Or for nastiness they see when they cam into your home.

In forum posts and in office hour transcripts, LL has said "Oh, this only applies if you're a business." But that's not what the published, official definitions say. Do you think that telling the G Team "...but....but...Blondin said this would be OK" will be considered a valid defense?

Then, by the same logic, Blondin's references shouldn't be taken into account in what is NOT okay.

For the meantime, the voice of reason says to stick to the definitions as they are currently posted, assuming they don't change much: Representations of extreme violence (which I get). Expressly sexually themed content (which I get). And the only thing that makes it really a grey area is the phrasing "photorealistic nudity" when in fact they should have gone for "photorealistic porn".

The way it is phrased now, it includes statues and paintings and tasty curvy pics as well. Do I think LL will act on ARs based on a naked statue in someone's garden? No. But that's just my opinion, and unless the definitions are updated, we won't have written word on that.

In reality, the published official document does in fact say that the adult designation is only required on land "if it advertises or publicly promotes" the listed content. "What if someone cams in?" is little more than fear mongering.

Maybe they will lower land fees or adjust the lower rates 1L£ sqm/month should be the only rate.

mainland is useless considering the current rates and the useless search engine.

About 1 month ago I give and sold all my mainland plots, but the free tier parcel due to premium account for my mainstore. I've paid from 3-8 thousand for each 512 sq m parcel during 2 years; restored an ad farm, buying the cheap miniparcels, wainting for the others to be abandoned and them asking them to the lindens. It used to be a nice place.

Now I've sold them ranging from 1400 to 1500 L$ for each 512 sq m. All where sold to land lords and are all to sell, for prices ranging from 1420 to 2500 for 512 sq m. There is land lords that bought a parcel for 1400 and is trying to sell for 1420! And is failing, one month later!

Linden Labs managed well in destroying the land market in mainland.
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PS. Elanthius, you bought 2 of my previous plots. One is priced 1440 and the other, 1550 (if I recall correctly). One of them was sold for 1500 and the other, for 1400. Even if you sell them today, are a few L$ profit paying your tiers after a month? If things don't change, I am sure that soon even the land lords will give up mainland.

Land market is useless if you can buy a plot for less than 3 l$ sqm. The only way land poor lords can make money is to cash out.

They don't say anything about "business only", that bit is ALSO only in people's interpretations of what Blondin and others have said. Which brings us back to the point: it's not just "businesses" that need to care.

But it doesn't define what that means. Do you have to have it showing in search? Under what categories? That's why we started asking Blondin for clarification.

Mainland is useless because of the search engine? By the same logic estate land would be twice as useless. As for the rates, the cheaper land is the more useful it is to real end users I think.



Trading land isn't a matter of "If I buy this I'm guaranteed to make money". Every parcel I buy is a gamble. I've (supposedly) calculated the odds and decided that given the current market conditions I'm /more likely/ to make money than to lose it. Sometimes I sell for a profit and sometimes I sell for a loss but whether each individual parcel is a winner or not isn't as important as whether the entire system usually comes out ahead.

Tier on 512sqm is L$408 per month. Although because of my tier rental system I pay significantly less than that.

Notice that I never said business only but made a distinction between public places (like a bdsm dungeon or orgy room that's free for all to use or a "nude" beach with bunches of sex balls strewn about, which would make the place explicitly sex themed) and people's private homes/parcels, with one or two love balls in the garden... (which can be set to owner/group only use in most cases easily...).

Do I think that some dickwads will use any old reason to AR you if they want? Hell, yes.

Do I think LL will kick everyone off the grid who leaves a sex ball on his/her doorstep? Hell, no.

No, but Phil did.
There's plenty of people who don't have any enclosed house at all, right now, nor do they see any need for one. Bad guys can't steal your stuff, they can look right through walls, and it doesn't rain. They will now have to build some kind of pointless enclosure around their private nude beach with sex balls.

And, no, I don't believe for one minute that the G-team will distinguish between a public nude beach with sex balls and a private nude beach with sex balls. DO you? Honestly?

If that were something I'd come to SL for - yes, actually. I wouldn't boink on someone's home beach, however inviting it might look. If parcel description or signs suggested a free for all - hop on, baby.

We can be damned sure that merely having the stuff rezzed is not advertisement or promotion, and that it was always supposed to be enclosed so that part is nothing new.

Common sense works pretty well. If you have adult stuff on a mature parcel, do not list that land in search, classifieds or events. All of those are paid advertising (OK events are free but there is no doubt that event listings are ads), it's not even a grey area. Common sense also says that dishonesty or gaming, for example listing only the entrance to some naughty place or sneaking adult stuff into a corner of land advertised differently, is asking for trouble. For private stuff it's really not complicated.

People *selling* things or offering *public* gathering places really do have a dilemma, if they're trying to sell a mix of adult and non-adult items, didn't see the writing on the wall years ago with all the people ignoring the voluntary search flags, and haven't already split up their operations. We were told back in May 2007 that we would be required to flag land as adult. The mainland move part was kind of semi-unexpected twist (not *entirely* unexpected because we were also told at the time that there would be an estate tool for flagging), but it's no surprise at all that it needs to be partitioned. And back then they weren't even talking about letting unadvertised parcels stay unflagged.

I wasn't asking if you would see them as the same thing, rather... if you'd expect the G team to see the difference.

But having brought that up, where would you see it as being public?

* It's advertised in search as a "sex club" and has a classified taken out.
* It's advertised in search as a "hangout" and has no classified.
* It's advertised in search as a "residence" and has a sign that says "Nudist club".
* It's not advertised in search but has a sign that says "Nudist club".
* It's got a sign that says "Lady Bay (nudity on beach only)"
* It's got a sign that says "Nude beach"
* It's got a sign that says "Private beach (nudity on beach only)"

Where do you think the G-team would see it as being "public"?

You assert that it always had to be enclosed. I don't recall seeing that provision any time between 2005 and now, and I have certainly never seen it enforced... even on parcels adjacent to PG sims.

Even under "residence"? Renting an apartment doesn't make it public.

It doesn't matter if the change was announced in 2009, 2008, or 2007, it's still a *change*.

Edit: they only excluded private content under protest after it was made obvious that there's no way they'd be able to call it as "2-4%" otherwise.

If read strictly, the old rules already required that on the mainland. This stuff wasn't supposed to be in casual view unless you were on that parcel. Places like that have always been vulnerable to ARs. It's classical cartoon physics in action, you don't fall down until you notice you've run past the edge of the cliff.

One thing that seems clear to me from following this (and other) threads, is just how unclear this new parcel rating system is. This uncertainty is likely a significant factor for many considering purchase of mainland parcels to delay that purchase.

As Elanthius stated, not for LL to worry. Someone is paying tier on all that yellow map land. However, people who buy things like land, buy $L as well, and lots of them. Owning land for most means shopping for content, which is good for the merchants.

It's got to start having some effect on the economy.

Sorry, misinterpreted the phrasing then.



*sighs* Sorry, Argent, but I am too tired to split hairs and to speculate what will happen and how stuff will be enforced because non of it knows how it will turn out.

As unpopular as it may be, I currently believe that LL will go by their own guidelines and say that if a place isn't advertising using adult filtered keywords and isn't an open fuckjoint, it'll be okay on mature land.

Have they? OK, technically you can be ARed for anything, including having prims extending out into the void, but there's been enough drama about pornographic advertising getting ARed and staying there ... back before the adcut policies ... for me to doubt that it's as black and white as you make out.

I don't have an open f-joint, or even a closed one, but there's plenty of people who do. I'm not even going to say that I can't see the point in making them move. I'm just saying that there's people who are not running a business, or even (in their eyes) any kind of public accommodation, who are going to have to move. That's all.

Linden Labs should have implemented something like SVC-205 years ago.

If the owner of the beach in question restricted access to only group members, and did not show it in search, there would be a pretty good claim that it was private. We may see a lot more bankines soon.

It would be good if the g-team resumed office hours soon.