Feedback on Ad Farm post

Wouldn't residential and commercial zoning do away with all of ad farms in a residential zoned area anyway? I find this new announcement interesting.

Some ppl do not know how to use any tools (what so ever) and expect to be spoon fed any and all information. Not that I love the big flashing signs. I am just saying once they are gone there will be a drop in land sales. How big remains to be seen.

I can totally sympathize with people, and the love of the mainland, and the hatred of the ad farm. In 2008 I finally had a 3 year dream realized. I was finally able to get my hands on a sim of my own, on the mainland. This was the result of a tonne of really hard work, as well as a desire to literally design a whole sim that from in the middle you can't really see out of. With a lot of creative landscaping and placements, I accomplished this. Does somebody really have to buy a whole sim to make an enjoyable area on the mainland? Sadly I think so.

It is not the ad farms that I wonder about. I just don't think they are effective. People wander aimlessley yes, but I have yet to meet anyone who has clicked an ad farm sign in 3 years. I wouldn't have a problem with them if say somebody built a commercial area with a tonne, fill it up, I don't care. It is that they cut up 512's into tinies and scatter them everywhere.

Try building a themed or RPG plot of any substantial size, and you cannot be guaranteed not to have some TnA blasted above your themed site. Because for the most part they are for sexy shops, not full on porn, but still. Not even mentioning the spinny blocks that can drag your performance into the toilet.

I think amongst the first people to start this little notion of buying a license, it came from people that given their conduct in world we can draw some inferrences about their character. The attitude of what can I get out of second life, how can I make a quick buck etc is the attitude that has led us here in the first place. Second life is a living breathing thing and the more we put in the more we get out, constantly leeching the residents and the grids, finding every possible loophole to exploit is not the way to conduct yourself or your "business".


If that was tl;dr i can sum it up better here.....

Because you have no talent you think you can throw money at everything.

How do some of these suggestions (and ones in similar posts talking about small plots) help the cause of removing blight? They punish those of us who are trying to do so by grabbing these small parcels. I even have my house on joined parcels .... am I now to be punished because extortion plots carve up my 512 into several pieces?

Ad Farms have been the bain of my second life.

I often dabble in land buying and selling, deciding on what to buy has always been a case of "if there's an ad farm there, avoid" as it seriously reduces the land resale value, and the time it takes for someone to come along that wants that plot.

I hate them, and chose to avoid living near such things.

Personal thoughts are, any advertising that is allowed needs to be height restricted, or size restricted - currently it seems to be boxes floating pointlessly around, I know its second life and gravity doesn't play a part, but at least make it look like something. If I ever use an advert, eg for land for sale signs, I make it look like a pole with a board or something, and certainly not huge.

I hope the lindens can ensure the demise permanently of these things, after all we should not need to be subjected to it, if something is worth knowing about, use the classifieds, so we can search and find you if you're worth finding. Who wants to live next to rotating naked breasts... painful o.O

Excellent work Lindens.. I look forward to a new clean view of SL - especially as this should mean not so many ugly walls trying to hide adverts around too!

Mercury

Not before time, this is most welcome news. Could it be a first step in regaining some sanity in the way the Mainland can be developed. I am not suggesting rigourous planning laws, but some conventions about how close you may build to your bounderies without the consent of your neighbours, the erection of boundary screens, etc. might be good practice.

What about no licensing process period? The phrase "only licensed ad networks" does not imply granting such licenses.

Because it's pointless to own land and pay tier in the hopes someone will try and buy it. I think they mentioned other kinds of abuse using micro parcels as being targetted as well. So, if the land is for sale, but can't be identified by anything other than using the land tools or the land store, who cares?

Quite true. But I don't think that's the intent... and yet: it really wouldn't be such a tragedy if the world went ad-less for a few weeks or months. It's not like any of the existing network advertising installations are even remotely relevant to an acceptable license-holder (their dreams notwithstanding), so they'll all have to find other uses for their existing parcels anyway. And it's not like there are actually any substantial number of advertising clients whose ads will go undisplayed during the hiatus. And it may make the initial clear-out enforcement a bit quicker and easier if there were no extant licensed advertising to preserve.

So, yeah: no real urgency here at all.

just ban them all to hell!

Will there be stiffer and more timely discipline actions on those who grief licensed/ legit advertisers...ie. large tree over hang, prim cover ups and massive encroachment? How will this be handled after the change? I ask because currently the AR system seems to not be flowing so well on such issues. Filing 3 and 4 ARs over a month for each violation of our SL rights is time consuming and unfair.

On a side note, BTE Global looks forward to working with Linden Lab to make this transition as smooth as possible with our ad network within the confined abstractions of this virtual democracy.

Regards,
Cytherea Eagle

BTE Global Financial Group

I don't agree with not being able to build to your land boundaries without permission from neighbors as my tier should entitle me to biuld on the plot I am paying for, right upto the edge.

However if the Lindens are going to take a common sense approach to land management then when a huge brightly coloured wall of great height appears on the edge of a parcel or even close to it then the Lindens should look carefully into the landowners use for this walldoes it need to be there is it complimentary to the rest of the build on that plot, or is it being placed there just to upset the neighbor.

I would also like to see sky building stopped in the area upto around 200m above ground level of a sim. There is nothing worse than a big building at 50m above your land with no connection to ground at all leaving you to look up at a big ugly PRIM base.
In the main this type of building is just done thoughtlessly it is not a deliberate action but more just someone being inconsiderate.
Once a building is no longer on the ground it doesn't really matter what height its rezzed at, so common sense says put it up a little higher out of neighbors view.

Will LL take this sort of thing into account with their common sense approach to land management?


It has taken a long time for LL to reach this decision and intervene as managers of the mainland.
They probably thought we as users could be trusted to use common sense ourselves with the creations on our land and the way we deal with our neighbors!

It is a sad reflection this step has became necessary.

This is great news. Perhaps another concept could be implemented on prices?

If, on a given region or cluster of regions, land is sold at an average price of X per 16m2, that the maximum price for this could be, sans content, set at a specific multiplier M. The more desirable the land is in a given area, the higher the price. Capping the increase over that average price would not affect legitimate relators if the cap applied only to the raw land. Obviously, if there is real content on the land that can be transferred to the buyer, one can charge for that content over and above the land itself.

Bedenham, Fears Trebled and Gangwon are just a few regions where those "designs" were crammed right next to the ad farms.

I think you misunderstand the "free-512". The first 512 m2 of your holdings are tier-free if you have a premium account, but it does not mean every <512 m2 plot you own is tier-free. In other words, if you have a lot of land the first 512 m2 is not computed into your tier payments. This, along with the stipend, is the only real reason to have a premium account, so if you got rid of it you would instantly be devaluing those memberships by $60.

As a neighbor of ROBO Marx's (including group holdings by the Price Roux Trust, him, RE Price, HATENALLDEM Weezles and JR Roux) where he has cut land into 32 sqm's, priced land at exorbitant prices, and periodically puts up ban lines, I am suprised he didn't charge us for his opinion.

While I believe in less regulation, the ad farms have gotten out of hand. I applaud Linden Labs for trying to deal with the situation. Had ad farmers exercised some judgement and been reasonable in recognizing the ire that they would invoke for the sake of making money, they would not be in this situation and we would not see regulation. Now that we are here, its just a little late for suggestions from ad farmers on how to help them continue their trade ...and when the concern remains money instead of the havoc that ad farmers have created ("how much to get licensed..." I think the value of such opinions is decreased even further.

I think you have your work cut out for you, Jack Linden, but most of us are behind you 100 percent. Thank you for confronting the issue and good luck.

A tree poking into one of your so called AD plots, should not be something that is even necessary to AR.
If you had the common sense to approach the person inadvertantly MASSIVELY encroaching on your plots.
Then maybe they would move the tree for you.

If AR were necessary say person offline for days on end then the tree should be moved by the Lindens and a common sense approach to punishment taken.

But really seriously how can someone MASSIVELY encroach on even a 32 or 64 sqm ADFARM plot.

Oh and another thing if your Adverts were made to a sensible size the LARGE trees branches would probably be above them and not affect the viewing of your adverts anyway.

Common sense please!

Regards
Neptune Shelman

Another nobody in the big scheme of things just like you

I'll admit it, I'm not a fan of advertising. IMO, the only advertising I like in world (aside form classifieds, etc.) is sponsored stuff like the NCI ad nodes, or the old Resident Advertising kiosks. Like others have said, I expect any advertising to not "destroy the illusion." Ad plots do just that. A spinny, floating box with explicit ads pasted on the sides does exactly that.

I see those as more of the cart than the horse, though. the extortion seems to be the bigger deal to me. I hope to see that handled soon!



Careful with the nobodys and everythings. Some have put a lot of time into their Bay City parcels, myself included. Sadly yes, there is a large number of parcels that don't even attempt to it the loose theme of the place or deliberately attempt to drive the place down. There's a couple rather big, ugly intentionally unfinished skyscrapers by my plot, for example. They're also made of megaprims which we've been told before are a no no on mainland. Yet there they remain, until their owner can get what he wants out of that land.



Yes, there are a couple of cases like that. I like to think some folks got their just desserts, though, when they made the mistake of buying high -- hoping to sell higher. Huge chunks of Bay City have now sat on the market for months with six-digit price tags. They'll never make that money back.

Mari

I was very polite in my post. Common sense also entails you extending the same manners that are shown to you by others. My questions were directed to Jack anyway.

To clear any confusion if Jack may not understand, I do not refer to the tiny limb over hang etc. What I refer to is a large pine poking through my signage. If I am to sign a license I want to be sure I will be treated fairly in this aspect which is a legitimate concern.

Again, BTE Global intends to conform to LL guidelines set forth. If I lay my signature on the line, I want to be sure I am treated fairly. This is a legit concern in my opinion. It was also presented in this thread in a professional manner.

Manners please.

Uhh.. yeah, sure thing. So responsible and used, in fact, that there were never more than 8 ads in rotation, and often your 3-screen system SHOWED THE SAME AD AT THE SAME TIME. Real good use of the bandwidth, eh?



You're right about that.. considering that the vast majority of the now-empty microparcels from your ad network (listed here: http://www.ace-exchange.com/home/story/MAI/641 ) are at L$200/sqm. The one in my region was L$19200 for 96sqm. Oh wait! You dropped it 10%, so it's now only L$17280. WHATTABARGAIN!

Why can't you people stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution?



Clean up the remaining mess you've made, STOP BEING A MICROPLOT EXTORTIONIST, atone for your past, and maybe you will be worthy of consideration to have one. Until then, let's all hope not.

The new policy to deal with ad farms is welcome and appreciated. Thank you Jack and Linden Labs for living up to your word and your committment to the Mainland. Many people have been fighting back against ad farms, small plot extortion, and land cutting - some for a very long time and many have joined the effort recently. We who have been in this struggle have been called many things - a "small group of agitators" being among the milder of the labels.

Every Sunday afternoon for the past 5 months, we agitators have met at the AdZoo to form our strategies and stay informed of developments. Some of the groups represented at these meetings are: Arbor Project, AdZoo, PEACEnHARMONY, Unknowable, pave the world, Landscape Protection Network, and Direct Action Land Repair. Many people unaffiliated with a specific group have also come and worked equally as hard to resist the degradation caused by ad farming and price extortion. These meetings have been well attended, inspiring, and a great deal of fun.

This Sunday, Sept. 7 at 2 pm SL time at the AdZoo we will be having another meeting and would like for as many people as possible to show up. We can discuss things like - where do we go from here?, how can we help LL best apply the new policy, and where should we have the party?

So please, everyone who is interested in this issue and who wants to see the close of the final chapter of ad farming, price extortion and land cutting in SL, come and join us.

Sorry to have upset you

By being a little light hearted but seriously LL seem to be very fair, much more fair than I personally would be to people in your position and I am sure they would remove any trees quickly.

It is also unfair to have naked nuns on a poster near a decent and clean clothes store and being told that you cannot do anything about it by the very same person you kindly asked to change the content of their ad farm.

I find it AMAZING that ad farmers should feel deprived of their rights when they have done nothing but damage to other residents who tried to use a fair and respectful approach to commerce.

I think the best thing Jack can do is REMOVE ALL AD FARMS on October 1st and start licensing discussions from scratch, since there were none before (there is no such thing as a legitimate advertiser at the moment, except those who pay for classified ads).

So we are all even.

Sandor

I fully support this move toward controlled public advertising. As to placement of the ads, I think the Lindens should set aside land in certain public places where these ads can be placed. Pretty much any ad in an otherwise residential area will bring down land values and create ugly views. If there is an actual commercial zoning developed, that would, of course also be an appropriate place for ads.
Truthfully, I don't see the value of these ads in SL anyway. I can't remember the last time I actually read one, or followed the landmark to a place.
Maybe if the classified ads were made affordable and useful, more people would advertise there. As a merchant, I don't use the classifieds because it would eat up any potential profits I would make, and the chances of anyone actually finding me there are very slim. There are too many places listed and the list is prioritized by how much you spend for your ad.
I think Linden Labs should take this on as a major improvement project which would not only be very useful, but would also help with the advertising issue.