Feedback on Ad Farm post

Bye bye Ad Farms. I think Ad farms should not be allowed any sign on parcels smaller then 512m2. Also, like has been mentioned, only if they are licensed. One last thing, no sign should be more then 20 meters in height. Oh and to close a loop hole..... only 1 sign per 512m2... not 20.

My 2 cents!

Originally Posted by ROBO Marx
how about 1 ad per sim per avi?
how much to get licensed to advertise?


When I read this I must say I did panic a bit I think the adverts should be limited to a maximum number of adverts total per sim say 4 thats 1 per 1/4sim of land so they cannot all be bunched together to make a mess.

Not 1 ad per sim per avi, as this suggestion already rings of looking for a loophole, and yes LL should charge for the license to advertise in a particular sim 1000L for the four available plots that works out to be about a dollar per ad plot used and should be a one off payment for the duration of ownership this would stop people swapping av's and creating alts to cause problems again in the future as they would need to relicense again.

THANK YOU

Best blog post ever I think (perhaps to be superseded by the one about banning extortion griefing, /me suggests hopefully?)

I have been a member of the Arbor Project and owner of Mainland pretty much since I joined SL over 18 months ago, and have been hoping for this day for a long time. I echo what everyone else in this thread has been saying (apart from Mr. Marx) and look forward to seeing some of the mess in the sims around mine cleared up.

Rock on Jack!

Thanks for this. I think it is a big step in the right direction!

With LL being the only decision maker in the process of AdFarm identification and resolution far to many extortion situations will remain outside the narrow LL definition. When the majority of land owners (by sqm) agree that a parcel is being used as an extortion tool / adfarm LL should correct the situation. A large "Under Contruction" sign or a flower pot sitting on a small parcel (16/32 sqm) that is not set for sale won't meet LL criteria so they will ignore it. In fact if you contact the owner of the parcel and offer him/her/it L$10K for the parcel they will sell it and be quite happy. It doesn't have to be for sale or flashing to be an extortion tool. How about a spy device on such a parcel with floating text saying its recording all conversations in range? The list goes on and on. When the majority of the land owners define a specific situation as extortion (property value diminishing) LL should remove the problem/sign/object/barriers. Until your plan for cleaning up the mess includes resident definitions it will remain inadaquate. Zoned regions work not because LL determines zoning rules, it works because the region owners make the decisions about content.

I don't think any kind of scheme involving limiting ownership or trading in small parcels will solve the extortion problem. What WILL solve it is *per-parcel* parcel-level muting.

If all the landowners around an extortion plot mute it, so nobody can see the objectionable content, there's no more leverage for the extortionists.

When I see on some small parcell big ad more than 10 meter high that make me nervous.

Im going to throw a party on October 1st once they remove all the adfarms am so happy Thanks LL

-Master Nestler

I don't have any suggestions but just wanna say a big THANKS to the Lindens, I may even go premium again & buy mainland if it's cleared up! Great move =)

Recommend you post an addendum to the policy that states any attempt by a former 16m ad farm operator to circumvent the ad farm policy in any manner results in immediate no appeal permanent ban and deletion and forfeiture of all land, funds, and inventory of the resident's account and all accounts that are tied to that account (alts). That will cover the gaming these people are probably already planning in retaliation.

Restricting parcel sizes is an invalid idea. There are valid uses for small parcels that have nothing to do with advertising or classifieds.

Don't limit the amount of people who can obtain a License. Its not fair to have a cap on Licenses as people may not need one right now, but will in the future, using a sort of First Come system wont work.
It should be fair.

Restrictions of Advertising should be;

No use of Mega Prims for Advertising
No Mature ads in PG areas
Don't Advertise Banking unless the Bank is authorized
Don't advertise Gambling

I feel personally that openly using an ad to advertise sexual services of any sort is wrong too.

Don't allow use of advertising to direct people to other ads, where they could have more ads or ads that breach your policy.

Ads shouldn't be offensive to anyone.

I think scripted ads, spinning ads and similar should be permitted in certain circumstances.

I think that if you want to use an ad to sell a tiny plot, you should only be allowed to place a small Object on the plot that gives out a notecard when it is requested or directs you to a web page.

You should also promote creative and artistic ads in your mainland urban areas, it would be useful and constructive but would also be creative and pleasant to look at, bringing 'life' to the area.

Thats my feedback

You're doing a fantastic job, this is a great step forwards! But I am concerned about the work load this will bring on existing staff, staff already have a lot to do and are very busy, don't over work your teams : )

Oh btw I think checking peoples Disciplinary Record before Issuing them a License would be good idea too, but take into account what they were disciplined for if they don't have a clean record.

All in all, excellent news. My only concern is that the licenses not be used as a way of grandfathering in some of the current abusive ad networks. I know that we can't "name names" on the forums, but I would be extremely disappointed to see licenses issued to any members of "the Advertisers Guild" for example.

Issuing licenses to past bad actors (or their alts and associates) would be rewarding the very people who caused the problem. Let the "genuine advertisers" you want to encourage be a combination of new start-ups, established businesspeople with good reputations, and even outside advertisers. You will have discretion in issuing licenses. I urge you to use it wisely.

It's only @@@@ing brilliant!!

It sounds like a great start, and a lot of work, but well worth the effort.

Of course people will try to game the thing to the maximum possible extent.
Hopefully LL will have learnt from the less than stunning success of the original ad-farm policy.
LL need to be more forward-looking and put much thought into how any measure will be gamed.



---- and now that I've sorta kinda steered this in the direction of gaming....

I'd like everyone to note that I did not try to go OT by mentioning the perps who destroyed traffic as a search ranking measure or the perps who are destroying profile picks in the same way.
I didn't mention them.

Oh!
I did

This sounds like a great idea it could be used to mute bigger parcels to where the content of the owner is not in keeping with your own parcel contents.

But would probably take a long time to be developed, so a nice thought for the future.

EXTORTION should not be tolerated it is an unfair practice and should be an abuse reportable offense if a price is higher than 5* average mainland price then extortion is taking place and should be dealt with accordingly.
This could be via for sale price advertised on the land or given in IM response so eradicating the loophole of not placing a plot for sale.
Further more this should be the same for all plots not just 16's as we see many plots set for sale at stupid prices there is a 512 near me for 100000L for instance, an absolutely crazy price that nobody will ever pay.
So what is the point in allowing plots to be priced so ludicrously.

Here is something to follow up on a previous response. After October 1 have ALL ads removed from the Mainland say by November 30th. From December 1 to January 1 have Lindens and of course any citizen report any violation of the "take down" act. On January 1 put in to place the request to license space, based on my previous response, to responsible advertisers.

Me thinking again )

Sounds like a good policy, the issue on the licensed adverts is going to be location. How are you going to pull that off? People already own land, they're not going to want to find a licensed ad farm turn up on their doorstep anymore than an unlicensed one, no matter how much nicer it looks than the current ad farms.

My biggest concern is that the licenced ones do not get a free hand at advertisinf in the middle of peoples land, there is a ad farm in the middle of 48000 SQM that I own, and because I covered 3 sides that face into my store and that had porn ads on them I was ARed, the Lindens did not make me take down the walls so I applaud them.

1) Ads should only be in designated areas like along roads.
2) There should be a distance bettwen them.
3) they should be in a nicely done, not gawdy and please no sleezy porn. They can do it nicely.
4) Land owners should have the right not to have ads near them if they are surrunded on 3 or more sides.
5) no noise, giver scripts or particles.

I hope some of these make it into the rules.

GOOD WORK LINDENS!!!!!! It is time you took SL from the people that are trying to ruin it and we all know who they are.

...because just like the previous policy shift on ad farms, it will happen.

I did not see anyting in here about 16m +/- plots with ban lines, particle spewers, etc., or even empty 16 m +/- plots with over-the-top pricing. Likewise, I wonder what will stop a "network" from claiming to be "individuals" so as to circumvent the policy. What's in place to prevent the next way people will attempt to circumvent policy?

Mari

(I apologize for the few instances of caps, but since even basic BBCode is off, they were necessary in order to decrease the chances of miscomprehension)

I think you're making a mistake you (LL) have made before. You NEED to define what an ad network is, NOT "we believe it will be very clear whether a particular use is a violation or not".

It may be clear to you (LL) what constitutes a violation, but you will be expecting residents to report possible violations to you. What we the population may consider a violation can run the gamut. You can not handle and sort through the sheer number of reports you will get.

Declaring clear parameters for violations will cut down some on the number of reports, but more importantly it will give you a rapid filter to apply to them. That filter will cut down on time spent per report, and allow consistent feedback for why a report was or was not followed up on.

I think the point I'm trying to make is illustrated by the existing abuse system, which feels like shouting into a black hole. First, feedback is not given to the report filer (email auto response does not count). Second, any follow up action taken by LL is inconsistent at best. Defining clear parameters will at least provide a foundation for addressing both of those problems.

I know that creating those parameters is a difficult process, but it WILL save time and money, in addition to improving customer confidence in your system. They also don't need to be perfect the first time. Even imperfect parameters are better than none, and revision is perfectly legitimate.

To see such a knee jerk response tends to make me wonder the motive. For years this was hardly a concern of LL and suddenly a proposed move that retroactively changes how land managers subdivided sims they had perchased from LL.

Yes, sure, you all hate ad farms but there is a bigger picture here. Dispite how you personally feel about ad farms, keep in mind that many of the sims they reside in were sims that were origonally purchased from LL with the expressed understanding that it was their sim to do with as they want within the TOS.

I seen it, I am sure you have also, Sims that were sub divided with strips along the roads. Sure you hate it and I am playing devils advocate here, but are we sending a new message now that sim owners no longer have the right to subdivide a sim the way they see fit. I think clarification is needed here.

And now after the fact dispite purchases that were legitimate under the TOS, you will void out those sales without compensation? Hey, if you want to eliminate ad spots that all fine and good but someone sold those ad spots at up to 1000L for that little 16M spot. Now you want to penalize the purchaser after the fact that the origonal seller reaped rewards in a practice that was within the TOS. I say fine and good, but to be fair, LL should purchase those spots at their origonal cost.

As for getting back to the origonal knee jerk, you don't seriously think this is going to solve the land demand for mainland property when you have estate owners scrambling to get into the rental business and one does not need to have a premium account to rent one? You are not going to be able to compete in this competition you created for land unless you get serious about being competitive. You give no incentive to go premium account and if you want to sell mainland, you are going to have to consider dropping premium status and just stick with teir.

Excellent step in the right direction. Thankyou.

But you are missing the point completely.

The issue is not about advertising. Adfarms are about land cutting extortion.
Land cutters will simply move on to another way of upsetting the neighbours to extort money from them.
Any form of adfarms / land cutting is a clear breach of TOS and as such should be dealt with by AR.

With a little bit of will on the part of LL it shouldn't be difficult to deal with the handful of people that cause most of the problems.

By focusing on advertising you are in danger of making life difficult for the many genuine businesses that do need to advertise in SL.
Normal advertising is self regulating because it costs money. If it doesn't work, the advert comes down. Upsetting the neighbours is counter productive for a genuine advertiser.

Personally I favour the option to mute the visual output from a parcel. That way the extortion has no value ( and it also means one could mute that big nightclub / mall that just moved in next door ).
One off programming exercise, problem solved. No ongoing Linden time to support it.

I would not allow licensed ads to be light sources. Full Bright makes text and images easily visible without the need for any other lighting. Ad should not be allowed to use Glow or emit Particles either.. Strong restrictions on any spam-type scripts and and sound effects should be enforced as well.

Additionally, as part of this new set of policies, please ban the use of small plots for general harassment.



As shown above, recently a plot of land next to rental property owned by a friend of mine (who has been quite vocal in opposition to ad farms) was purchased and subdivided into 16m2 segments, and sold off with the solicitation of "For sale is 16m2 of land in Furness. This is your chance to own land next to the infamous [redacted] and do... well... whatever you want to!"

It's hard to imagine a clearer case of land harassment.

Great news. This is the first announcement I've seen in a long time that actually puts the priority on the user experience of the SL Resident. Bravo.

I've done some careful calculations and I have come up with the appropriate and prudent advertising license fee amount:

L$1,000,000,000.00

Per sim.

Per month.

One of the more notorious examples of why we need this policy has already announced his circumvention plans:



Some people just don't and will never "get it".

Obviously a prime candidate for the "1% solution".

Good for you LL. Bye ad farms!

Now just don't replace the same garbage with real life advertising garbage.

Catherine

PS: Guess you all just figured out why LL is adding them roads huh *snickers.