Feedback on Ad Farm post

Feedback thread for todays blog post on Ad Farms

/me blinks. Wow..

I know you said that licensing details will be along shortly but I think one thing a lot of people are wondering is how you will prevent abuse of this. Like, what's to prevent me from making up a dozen different names and getting LL-sponsored licenses to spam?

Thanks for the info, Jack! Glad to this progressing.


http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/09/04/second-life-and-ad-farms/

... on tenterhooks ...

[Meade: The blog post said there would be a limited number of licenses... and Linden Labs does have the ability to track alts pretty effectively, so I suspect that kind of trick will be slapped down pretty quickly if anyone is dumb enough to try]

Thanks Jack for finally listening to us about how bad the problem is.

Promising start but still so much to be done. Thank you for a foot in the right direction jack and heres hoping that there will be as much enthusiasm suggesting regulations.

Perhaps a small competition to submit suggested standardised advertising hordings?

This seems like an unnecessarily bureaucratic and intervention-heavy solution. I'm ecstatic to hear something being done, but this sounds like a potential paperwork (virtual of course) nightmare.

I offer these other, more automatic solutions:

-Cause any parcel smaller than 512 to cost the same in tier as a 512 (idea stolen from a friend)

-Charge a per-parcel premium over a certain number of parcels, which can be determined with some economics math to include almost exclusively ad farmers and spare legitimate realtors (probably)

-Completely disallow parcels below a certain size (128 perhaps)

I posit that implementing one, some, or all of these ideas will reduce ad farming to negligible levels almost everywhere, prompt all the tiny parcels to be glommed, and clean up the grid automatically. Otherwise, you're basically just creating another branch of the LL "government" dedicated to judging fair land use.

For example, what if someone, perhaps out of sarcasm, buys hundreds of 16m parcels and covers them with adorable but large pictures of kittens, advertising nothing? This would cause mostly the same problems as an ad farm but violates nothing.

If I've learned anything in SL it's that people will try to game _everything_.

I'd still like to hear more about it, if there's more to hear, or even just a "Yep. We've got controls in place and will stompify anybody who tries this" from Jack.

Best Blog announcement ever. Thank you very much, Jack.

I'm somewhat concerned that your blog only addresses this problem in terms of ad-farming. I'm hoping that this is going to take care of every type of land-cutting extortion and deliberate mainland-ruining, regardless of whether there are ads on the prims or not. There are other huge problems, such as the hidden hole in the parcel for sale -- is that going to be cracked down on, too?

As for what licensed advertisers should/should not be able to do, as long as you're asking our opinions, I'm sorry but I say: F*** them. I'm not convinced that anybody ever used in-world advertising for anything besides griefing and extortion. I've never heard of anybody who wants advertising while living their Second Lives. It's nice for you to try to be fair, but honestly, who really wants this, and who cares?

--Avion Raymaker

This is a stunning and welcomed beginning. But it leaves so much still unanswered. Empty high priced small parcels must be addressed as well.

My questions are:

1.) If rejoining badly cut areas is a priority, can the rule on small maintenance parcels be changed to available if will be joined into larger parcels? Auctioning off 16m or setting them for sale to anyone so that the bots grab it in terribly cut over areas only continues the problem. If more than one person wants it, then base it on whoever is closest or whoever has the largest parcel.

2.) what will be done about the cut areas where people were trying to play the same extortion games, but do something like a 256m with a 320m circling that; both set for high prices and a 448m ring around that set not for sale?

3.) what will be done about cut over areas on mountain tops (like the ads can be seen that high). These are only to ruin the scenery with more banlines and high priced cuts that say things in the land description like "don't buy near ads, come live in our private sim instead"?

4.) what about cut over areas that are underwater? Again these are truly just to ruin the scenery with more banlines and randomly cut parcels. Even the group that tries to legitimise their use of ads have ads that are at the very least waterfront.

5.) Will you please not allow "licensed advertisers" to use full bright and glow to the point where their ads are not even visible?

Where will these licensed advertisers be? Will they be on parcels that make sense and which dont become holes in the middle of peoples land or out in the middle of nowhere like they are now?

Personally, I can see a whole lot of "not in my backyard" for people not wanting these advertisers there. Period. They have brought this upon themselves and have a VERY long way to make any good will whatsoever with the rest of us.

First impressions...

1) Abusive advertising is going away after more than two years. Yay!

2) These "limited licenses" concern me. What will they entail, exactly? Will they be for any kind of network advertising, including the situation where you run a responsible ad network that only puts advertising INside of venues? Does it only apply to specific Linden-sanctioned EXternal advertising (basically, Linden-sponsored adfarms)? Are you going to recover land in every region and set it aside for Linden-sponsored abuse? I think this is a gaping hole in your policy without the details of this licensing plan. I also am none too keen on giving exclusive monopolistic licenses to former adfarmers, either. It's basically rewarding them with the Crown Jewels for all the past harassment towards the rest of us.

3) In the meeting yesterday, I asked:

"Are we looking at the total solution to the adfarm/land extortion/land harassment problem with tomorrow's post, or is it just the tip of the Iceberg?"

and you responded:

"It's the solution Talarus"

Where is the rest that deals with those who are still harassing us with excessively-priced microparcels, banlines on same, reverse-harassment claims, and other general land harassment? All I see is only addressing the advertising angle.

If this is "the solution", then it's coming up a bit short, I would say.

While I'm not sure I completely agree with the rest of your post, I do believe this is a legitimate concern.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what they come up with as a policy statement on such things.

Perhaps the next step after "Ad Farming" would be to address the matter of obvious 16m extortion plots with no advertising on them at all.

I want advertising. Not those awful spinning, glowing cubes. Not the extortionate land prices set by the adfarmers. But I want people to know about MY business. I've used several forms of advertising, mostly the various rental agencies or free billboard prims donated by friends. I've never used an ad plot...but it's possible that someone's business model would make roadside billboards or small ad plots a viable way of getting the word out to the public.

Bravo, Jack. This sounds like a very good approach to the problem.

I would think pre-approved sized billboards along sim roads much like we have in RL would be a possible alternative.

Take the spinning cubes off the tiny parcels next to our peaceful properties and place advertising in restricted areas set aside by LL specifically for such.

THANK YOU Jack for making this change, which hopefully is just the beginning of making Mainland a place the majority of residents can once again enjoy.

I have just split off 32m plots to allow some market stalls to appear in search with their own descriptions etc. Each stall has a gap round it to separate it from others but there are 8 in a 32 x 32m plot.

Not allowing parcels below 128m would mean that I would not be able to do this.

I can't agree with that suggestion as I know that a lot of business owners split their land into smaller plots for things like classifieds or to allow tenants control of the settings on the parcel their house/store is on... Making it a min 128 plot size will make this alot harder for us to do...

I agree there needs to be something to prevent the ad-farmers but I don't think restricting parcel size will be the way to go

I / We Won!!

Thanks Linden Lab. You made My Day!
This is the best news of the week.

How will this effect advertisers inside other parcels? (Clubs, Stores, Etc.) I assume no/little effect but would like clarification from the Lindens.

First of all, let me just say that I greatly appreciate the initiative, as will pretty much anyone who lives or has lived on the Mainland. Apart from ad griefers.

Moving on from congratulations: there are a certain number of aspects which make adverts intolerable.

* Frequency - one ad may be tolerable, a dozen in a block are awful, and even half a dozen spread out across a sim make people move on. At the most, four per sim, one in each quarter.

* Size - not usually width as the parcels are small, but _height_. I have seen vertical megaprims used for ad griefing. Limit the height of position to, say, 20m above ground - and note that particles should count for this as well, some ads emit particles vertically to make them more visually irritating. Ads should not be larger than 5m in any dimension.

* Movement - this attracts the eye and makes a simple static ad far more distracting. Ads should not move, at all.

* Glow and light emission - this should be forbidden (full bright is reasonable I suppose). There is no parcel limit on light emission and on parcels this size it will mostly stray over onto neighbouring property. Glow is also unusually penetrating.

* Advertisements should never make noises - perhaps when activated by touch, only, and then just once.

* Advertisements should never give any inventory at all without a deliberate request to do so.

* Advertisements should never send blue dialog boxes or IMs, either, without a deliberate request to do so, probably by touch.

* Adverts should not incorporate full-alpha prims extending beyond their apparent boundaries to _attract_ random touches and collisions in order to get past other regulations.

* Advertisements should never ever sign you up implicitly for any sort of "mailing list" or follow-up spam without this being deliberately requested, with a description of exactly what will result.

* Any regulations that are written should include an "everything else that is irritating, distracting or offensive" clause, because I'm sure it will be impossible to delineate every possible mechanism by which people might be annoyed by so-called advertising.

Somehow regulate the sale of 16m plots to max <= 25 L$ (and same for under 512)
This makes it more interresting to join cut-up parcels again?!

This is a very welcome move which will go a long way in improving the SL experience on the mainland. Some details need to be worked out (e.g. what will constitute a "legal" ad, because what is welcome is in the eye of the beholder).

But in general, this is goodness.

/me doubletakes. (o.o) ... (>_> ... (O_O)

Ooooh.. That's soooo make the needed finishing touches for the region I'm in! XD

That's actually how my parcel came about... A buncha people, including my closest friend got a lot of the little bits of land here'n there and combined them to make a park/mall/hangout place. I got my parcel from someone who participated at first, but didn't really want to build anything or keep the land. (^_^)y

A very welcomed blog, Jack. Once all is in place I may consider owning ML again. As far as licensed advertising, as long as they allow a well covered common sense approach I wouldnt mind.

Well that finally means good bye to that ugly ad plot thing in the corner of my parcel (the only bit that doesn't belong to me) *waves*

My suggestion along these lines is to have a minimu parcel size for sale on open market. That is, if you have a parcel below, say, 256m2, you can't set it for sale to anyone. But you can still chop off that size, and/or sell it to a specific person if you want.

Regarding the new rule: Very, very good. Glad to see Lindens stepping up, taking on the responsibility for licensing. If this means I can AR someone for having a networked ad pole, and they might lose their license for it, then I'll be very happy. The list of licensees must be public, of course, as in real life.

Still, however, the new rule doesn't address the issue of small parcel extortion, other than indirectly. It takes away *some* of the possibilities, but leaves corner and donut parcels to just sit there. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: Extortion is a behavior, and behavior is governed by TOS, not by land policy.

I've also said (and will say again) that no one should ever buy 4x4s. Let them eat tier. Don't buy parcels next to extortion parcels, either. If you own a parcel next to an extortion parcel, and want out, just abandon it. Let LL lose the tier on that parcel until the problem is solved.

Ah, good point with individual stalls for search/teleport target purposes.

I still feel like a more automatic/economic solution could and should be developed, though, instead of having to get a Linden involved every time a new ad farmer pops up. It just seems like unnecessary bureaucracy to me. Otherwise it will require constant vigilance, intervention, squabbling, hurt feelings, and summary judgements from on high.

Regardless! I am super excited that someone wants to do something, any solution is better than none. I am thankful either way, not complaining aimlessly (for once)