Feedback on Ad Farm post

What "free tier"? Are you talking about the premium bonus? That's not "free". That's part of a package that costs between $6.00 and $10.00 a month (depending on how you pay for it).

What consumers find goods and services from seeing a random textured prim in the middle of nowhere? I find them by hitting "Search" and sometimes notice classifieds there, or from ads that are part of builds that I am otherwise visiting. Neither of these kinds of advertising are going to be effected by this ban.

How do they cut a hole in a parcel you already own?
Why did you buy a parcel with a hole in the middle of it?

Ad Farming … what about Extortion?

1995 or 9999 or even 99999 Lindens for 16m2 or for 64m2?

Why not forbid the sale/transfer of parcels smaller than 512 contiguous m2?

All those “Prim Land”, “Prim Supply”, etc. would revert to Governor Linden and be offered to the neighboring parcel.

Call it a “leech” extermination measure.

Problem solved, “leeches” killed, >>> Leech Free Mainland.

There's a problem here. I--and I suspect others--have picked up some of these smaller parcels just to frustrate ad farming . . . and to pick up some extra prims.

With your "solutions", I'll get slapped in the face for doing this. Unfair, I think.

There's got to be a better alternative.

--- Rema

^^ (i have no idea how to make the quotes)

I've done this. I didn't buy the $L900-$L6000 plots, just the ones that were <$L180. I cleaned up a good portion and picked up about 1800^2M of land and the accompanying tier doing it. Yeah, I have a hole.

My idea from before was only meant as a suggestion to discourage people from cutting into tiny plots. It won't stop adfarming and land extortion, but would (imo) make it far less attractive and more difficult to do. It would still be possible to grab a 256 and spam the living crap out of your neighbors, but it would just be more difficult to do, especially since your neighbors would be snapping up those previously-existing 16M squares in order to prevent someone from doing exactly that.

As for how much LL could make from adspace rentals, well, that's up to them, isn't it? The idea behind that was that since they weren't getting the tier for the same land, they would still be getting the rental income, and they weren't likely to tear down the ad-hiding walls people put up. Conversely, a 16M buffer could be left ad-free around those. Ad board rentals at $L100 a week would not be too much imo. I'd pay it for an ad for my store / stuff.

Someone mentioned having a vendor on a micro-plot. A vendor, as long as it blends with the environment and adds to the view rather than clashes with it, doesn't sound all that bad. It's when it shouts on low channels (get an Omicron from The Omega Concern, then go to the Servo sim as an example.. I have never been spammed so badly on channels 1-20 before in my life) that it becomes a problem. It wrecked my land-owning experience there. I dumped my land at less than half what I bought it for there for that very reason. It was like a mosquito that I could not swat .. I ened up having to remove the HUD while i was there in order to keep my sanity. I now own land (in my main account) elsewhere without any such issue (someone came in and bought the adfarms and put up a park instead).

NO!

Ten thousand times NO!

Let the ad farmers buy parcels, like anyone else. I've spent a lot of time and money growing our land to the edge of the road along its length, including waiting out absentee owners and microparcels until they were abandoned. Now you say I should have to have to put up with new ads on the linden roadbed?

Yep. I have also removed all of my "accoutrements" as well as my landmines. They will stay gone unless and until both they and LL fail to resolve this issue once and for all. The war is still on; this is a "cease fire" until peace reigns, or the shooting starts again in earnest.

Now's their chance to fix things and become good citizens and neighbors. Failing that, it's time for the permabanhammer to fall on them.

/me rolls her eyes.

Because the previous owner went out of their way to make it non-obvious that there was a hole there.

Thank you for the sanity check, Argent.

I am bewildered by the expense of energy in here by people trying to design the perfect licensed ad farm that no resident will put up with living next to anyway. A billboard, no matter how pretty you try to make it, is still just a stupid ad that nobody wants to see when they are looking out their window or exploring the grid.

Put your ads where they belong, in malls or within the property you occupy, or just buy a freaking classified.

Yep, the only real safe way to purchase land is to disable rendering of everything around you (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-9 is a good quick way), then turn on viewing of property lines and landowners.

Way to go “Licensed Advertising” LOL

How much will the “License” cost?

Will Bay City have “Licensed Advertisers”?

“Licensed Advertising”, What does this mean?

— That a “Licensed Advertiser” is licensed to have a 16m2 plot in the middle of my land?

— That a “Licensed Advertiser” is licensed to extort me asking for 99999L for 16m2?

— That a “Licensed Advertiser” is licensed to spoil everyone’s view with a stupid bunny or some porn pics?

— That a “Licensed Advertiser” is licensed to surround any and every road with Ad Boards?

I’d love to see the “rules” for Licensed Advertisers”

They didn't. I bought parcels around them so that I could expand. They knew that it would happen, and planned accordingly. That's the way the scam works. They see a new place go up, one which will probably want to expand at some point, or "need more prims", and then buy any adjacent parcels to it. They then proceed to cut them up, sell off the "fat", and leave the adjacent holes in the land for either adtowers to go up, or just to lie there in wait with an extreme price for people to "buy them out" to get rid of the holes.

There is a psychological factor at play here that they prey on, and they have honed their skill at it very well. That's why people all over the place buy out those parcels, because they have done very well to place them where they are the most irritating.

I have two whole rows of stalls in my mall which are misaligned because of stupid holes. I'll live with it, as I will be damned if I am going to pay L$100 to L$1000 per sqm to get rid of them. Still, they shouldn't be there to begin with. They are serving no purpose other than to extort money from me (one of them is presently being used for reverse harassment).

They buy parcels in the path of progress SPECIFICALLY to target people who are trying to grow their homes or businesses. They present a "progress tax" which is completely unethical and should be made illegal as any other form of extortion. As a result, I have taken it upon myself to buy every parcel I can in my region when it comes up for sale, to prevent it happening to others, and to try and clean up the messes that they have made, reintegrating chopped land back into useful plots.

Boy, do I have a JIRA for you:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2390

If people can put their banlines around their skyboxes *instead of* around their empty house at ground level (that is, this proposal is for an option to put he banlines in one or the other place, but not both) then you'd see a lot fewer ground level banlines.

I agree. However, if that is what LL decides to do, I hope they give the region landowners a vote to allow or disallow Linden-sponsored ads in the sim.

It is also why I want immediate clarification from Jack regarding this very question, because if they are going to have to use their own land, they all will wait to release/dump it all until they know whether or not they will have a license. I would rather not make them wait, if possible. I want the ads gone, to be sure, but I also want to finish making my region adplot-free.

Well, since this is going to be mentioned I suppose I have to suggest the ultimate solution:

Stop selling coordinates. Sell prims only.
Have land continuity created by parcel owners specifying the "links" of their parcel.

Just in to say "Please ban Ban Lines!"

Is there really any purpose for these other than stopping people from flying/traveling around the grid, yanking vehicles out from under you, and violently tossing you into another parcel?

I mean, if people imagine they provide some privacy, don't they realize that you don't NEED to have your AV inside the parcel to cam around and touch things?

I see them as nothing more than a hinderance to those who want to explore the grid.

Ad Farms - I would think referring to them as "Extortion Plots" is a more accurate terminology. Advertising is essential in SL to allow people looking for the type of product you sell, to find you.

Calling Extortion Plots "Ad Farms" is like calling a sewage treatment plant an "Aromatherapy Factory".

What are you talking about?

/me pictures a mountain growing out of her home as the land owner (yeah.. I'm a squatter) acquires more land in the middle. Or maybe a valley as she tiers down.

They'd have to be pretty damn tricky, considering that selecting the land hilights it with glowing lines that show through solid prims.

If anyone slipped that one by me I'd file a support request asking that the hole be sold to me or the sale be reversed, right away. If Linden Labs balked on that, THEY would be in the wrong.

Lots of new people in SL. Lots that don't understand that there are people here who would like nothing better than to steal their money.

Putting trees or prims or whatever around makes it harder to see the holes.

Yet it happens an awful lot. Ever seen that yellow "for sale" placard? The one that's about the same color as the plot boundary lines? or the bush-and-rock clump that did very well obscuring lines on the pre-1.20 viewers?

Some folks have even bought a pre-fab house built on a plot like that, where you can't see the property lines at all under the house. Later, this mysterious glowing sign appears above your house that you can't get rid of, well, except by paying the scammer L$10000 for the newly-discovered donut hole.

Either way, whether they are placed there with subterfuge, or made obvious, when the large majority of the mainland for sale plots end up with corners missing or donut holes, what do you do if you want a nice, contiguous piece of land? Why shouldn't this practice be expunged as the extortion it is?

Whats the definition of an ad farm?

Sometime I see a nice plot i'd like to buy but what keeps me from buying it
is that the parcels around it have a huge "land for sale" sign. Would that be
considered ad farming? Eventhough the predominant purpose of the land is
NOT to hold advertising but to to sell the land?

To be honest sometimes surrounding plots with FOR SALE signs keeps me from
buying a nice parcel that I'd like to own. While I actually have a use for the land
and add to the environment I cant buy those plots because of the surrounding.
Thats not only a loss for me but also for the other land owners in the same area.

Other plots for sale have a decent sign on the floor facing up saying the land is
for sale. And its really decent while it still advertises that the ground is for sale.

I think you shouldnt focus on the advertising but just look if something is too loud
for the environment. If my neighbour would advertise in a decent manner it wouldnt
bother me at all wether he/she had a license or not. If they had a 30 feet glow in the
dark penis parked on their land just because they think it looks good, that would
bother me a bit. I think instead of focusing on advertising i think the focus should be
on is it too loud or ridiculous or offending? Would the environment be better of if it
was empty?

But if that is too far at the moment,.. i'll be glad to see adfarms gone but than again.
Is one huge spinning sing "LAND FOR SALE" also ad farming?

Well the good part is something is done about it so it can only get better.

OK, then go to the next question... why did you buy land with holes in it? I've been careful to avoid expanding around traps like that myself, they're really obvious, you don't HAVE to expand their direction. I *have* bought land between me and these people, but I've always treated it as a "buffer zone"... and I guess they can tell that I don't need their traps because my actual build isn't near them, because they eventually get abandoned and I can pick them up for cheap with a support request.

OK, then go to the next question... why did you buy land with holes in it? I've been careful to avoid expanding around traps like that myself, they're really obvious, you don't HAVE to expand their direction. I *have* bought land between me and these people, but I've always treated it as a "buffer zone"... and I guess they can tell that I don't need their traps because my actual build isn't near them, because they eventually get abandoned and I can pick them up for cheap with a support request.
It should, if you know anyone who's been caught by this, help them file a support request to reverse the sale or sell the "trap" hole to them.

And what I've had to do to get a nice contiguous piece of land has involved dozens of support requests, waiting absentee banline owners out, sitting on auctions... but after all that I STILL don't want to see limits on the sized of plots you can own.

Believe me, I understand what you're saying: I've been trying to do the same (without feeding the beast, which makes it a lot slower) between a road and a railroad, so I've got the same problem.

But here's why the ads just have to be on LL-owned land: otherwise, the license-holders will suppose they still control how advertising works, they'll still devote their energy to playing at virtual real-estate, and still imagine that "creativity" is all about how tall and obnoxious they can get by with building their crap on their land.

Contrast that with network ads as tenants of Linden-owned advertising facilities for the limited duration of their license, with the possibility of it being revoked prematurely--or if they're exceptionally good tenants, renewed. They are ineligible to bitch and moan about "land rights" since it's not their damned land to begin with.

And I expect (read: "insist" that the license restrictions on design and content be strict enough that I'll welcome the installation alongside "my" road or railroad, exactly where LDPW chooses the best possible location for it in their infrastructure design.