Feedback on Ad Farm post

With all due respect, what you are arguing about is not communism. You are arguing totalitarianism versus anarchy. Unfortunately, Second Life seems to not (now, or arguably, ever) be communist, anarchist, or totalitarian. Rather, it would seem far more democratic, with a tendency towards capitalism.

LL has set themselves up at the Governor of this virtual world, particularly in regards to mainland (even using the name "Governor Linden" as an account for land management and other duties). The course is primarily guided by LL and their bottom line, with some influence by Second Life's user base. That we're seeing this change in policy is monumental, and speaks to the democratic process and the market forces (mainland sales stagnating, some areas "virtually unlivable" due to blight, etc.) at work.

While I have been fortunate: both my home sim and the sim my store is in have been unaffected by ad farming or similar tactics. Nevertheless, I do travel elsewhere on the mainland, have other friends making a (second) life and livelihood there, and have not bought land in some areas due to the same blight issues.

The issue of personal liberty is a good one, but LL *is* a business. It costs them money to run those servers that comprise the mainland. Not making money off the land there because people have abandoned the area due to blight does not help them. Having a mainland full of ads does not encourage people to join or stay within Second Life any more than spam makes people want to read e-mail.

Those who did opt to get into ad farming went so so far over the top, and forced this situation. If they'd have worked harder to maintained a "livable level" of ads (though I prefer none, myself, I also am aware that I share this world with a lot of other people with differing opinion), maybe we'd not be where we are today.

Mari

P.S.: Both the posting of Chat or IM logs and use of non-PG language is disallowed in the SL Forums. Just felt you should know.

You say that, but you mean only adfarmers should decide, since adfarmers are quick to AR people who try and block their objectionable ads.

By the way, reposting the exact same message over and over again is what is commonly referred to as "spamming". Spamming is a problem because it saturates communication channels and prevents them from being used for their original purpose. It has become notorious because of its use by so-called advertisers who frequently sell non-existent commodities and pornography, much like the ad farmers. Spammers have also harassed people by spamming them directly or by broadcasting spam in their name (aka "Joe Jobbing"... adfarmers use similar tactics. No legitimate advertiser engages in spamming, though there have been people who claimed to be "legitimate direct email advertisers" and the like, yet engaged in the same kind of address scraping and "opt out" tactics that unabashed spammers employed... another similarity with adfarmers.

Food for thought.

Thank you for posting that Luke more proof that we need to enforce the basic use of principles by all users.

Oh and Fire dog I hope any Linden reading this along with any abuse report filed by Luke will have the common sense, to see why you wish him to be nailed by a EFing Truck.

This behaviour isn't against the rules Luke but thats only because the Lindens never thought anybody would be such a Toss*r as you quite obviously are.

I understand some people have been receiving notices to remove ads, So far I have not received one. I own roughly 6 ad lots ranging from 16M to 64M, so I'm not sure if I would be catagorized as an Ad Farmer. Currently all my ads are roadside or over my own shops and none reside in "ad farms". All are small and tasteful, no rotations, nothing over 20M, no glows, or noises. I only advertise my own stores and do not sell advertising to others on my billboards. Do I need to remove these as well before October 1st? Just looking for some clarification on this Jack. Thanks

You going to Ban all them. Or just a guy with a 16sqm plot u want real bad(whos the extortionist?). Whole new can of worms for LL if they pick and choose who can charge what. Bad enough were discriminated against using prims we pay for! And Im sure Bay city owners wont be to happy with say 10 per sqm. So what new communist policy to you propose!

I'd suggest either the Governance office hours in Kremer @ 10:00 am SLT, or Jack's office hours in Linden Estate Services @ 1:00 p.m. SLT

They like throwing that around like were in High School.

...but never honest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vya5aFki_xk


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHS6392MzEs


Maybe we should be developing our loyalty to this planet and this Earth, our future, our descendants more than we should be governing political systems that have created all these problems. Most people are trying to find solutions to the problems but they are trying to do it within the confined abstraction of democracy.
~ John Trudell



Lets all get a grip and remember this is a virtual world that is not tangible.
You argue over pixels on a screen like two dogs over a dry bone.

If it didnt we would just see posts of the anti-business community gloating. See how strong people feel on both sides LL.

LOL Just so everyone knows I purchsed a larger roadside plot afew weeks ago, the only cut in site was weedys 16 on the roadside. Come to think of it I run into quite a few of weedys roadside 16s anyone care to add on this. Scanner sounds like a good cover up for future ad network.

In fact I reported him

LL will have a lot of evidence for our case

I would like to mention that Weedy Herbst had a single 16sqm plot in the centre of our group land, when approached, she moved it for us to the edge of the sim.
There was never any mention of cost involved there has never been any form of advertisement on her plot and that has always been the case.

In fact Weedy even allowed us to build over her plot when it was in its previous position!
as long as we made sure she could gain access to it.

Weedy owns many 16sqm plots, in many sims and uses them for her own unique purpose.

I am only mentioning this as it appears Mr Marx is attempting to take down other legitimate businesses, as his own rather distastfull empire faces collapse.

Secondlife is not a country. Secondlife is a commercial operation for profit wholly owned and operated by Linden Lab currently headquartered in the USA. All decisions regarding Secondlife are and will be the sole domain of the Lab (Linden Lab).

This debate is about ad farms. This is not a debate about government or skewed understandings about governmental philosophy.

Begin temporary divergence to show recent history somewhat related....

I remember the debates regarding traffic future. These occurred after the Lab had already made a decision on traffic. Nothing brought up during the traffic debates was acted upon. All that happened was people venting to no avail. The decision regarding traffic and search had already been made.

Instead of doing the ethical thing and removing traffic from search relevance we now have traffic and profile pick abuse. So the residents wanted to get rid of one unethical behavior and in return we were presented with 2 forms of unethical behavior followed by a formal series of debates that were bit bucketed. The cure for camping bots is and will remain the removal of traffic and now removal of profile picks from search relevance. Nothing changed. Things are now worse than before. The most successful businesses operate camping farms Should all businesses begin running 20 camping bots in a box to compete? This will result in at least a doubling of concurrency. The grid will no longer be functional forcing the Lab to ban all accounts with a camping operation.

It would be nice if the Lab would deal with this issue in an ethical manner.

End temporary divergence...

So basically all this venting is in regard to a decision that has already been made.

I am wondering what we are going to get as a result of the ad farm decision. There will still be ad farms and I suspect we are going to get something worse to back it up and reinforce unethical criminal minded behavior.

But by all means vent all you want. It is nothing but bits anyway. Eventually all this debate will be forgotten and people will still avoid the ad farm and land extortion infested areas.

Interesting hypothesis. If it were true, then I guess we'd know who's the more astute businessperson.

Watching the rearranging and fire sale of another extortionist's parcels, I suddenly realized that removing the ads first also removes the excuse for exorbitant prices: "My plot is special because an advertiser might buy it." Not anymore they won't.

These Lindens, dumb like a fox, they are.

She's been running the scanners for over two years now, which is a bit bloody long for a cover-up. You can search the forums to see exactly what Weedy's scanners were doing, back then. You'll see, also, that I had some sharp words to say about her scanners at the time, so it's not like I'm covering up for some old buddy of mine, and we've both been around too long and on opposite sides of too many topics to be alts. We just happen to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

Which is certainly more than you and your spammer friends can say.

ive had one of weedys 16's next door for nearly two years.
its never had an ad on it, never been banlined, never been terraformed.
in fact, if i hadnt turned property lines on i would never have known it was there.

I have to defend Weedy here too. While trying to reclaim the ad farm in Chiron, Weedy was very friendly and easy to work with on it. There was never any mention of high prices or extortion, she simply did the right thing. Kudos Weedy!

You know that posting chat logs is against the rules here right?

I agree that virtual land owners should decide pricing, what they shouldn't be able to get away with, and what they have gotten away with for way too long, is to be able to devalue the experience of their neighbours.

If you want to sell 16M plots then I have no problem with that but good luck charging those prices when you can't use banlines, spinning cubes and eyesore towers to twist arms.

well its about time you finally came to that realisation!

The new policy is still a very welcome development & deserves our praise - and a big Linden hug. However, I sadly tend to agree with Loosey.

The original forum debate was comprehensive and well informed, so I'm surprised LL dont seem to be looking beyond the surface. Ad farms are only a front for extortion & the underlying greed and malice will continue to blight us all.

Malicious, non-ad builds WILL be where the bad actors go next.

Quiet you!!

If he wants to do such a blatent violation so soon after Katt warned us to behave, let him.

Hmm. That is ambiguous. It could mean [Failure to clear adverts from the mainland will result in your account being suspended] and [your account will not be considered for a network advertising license.] i.e. those who are being warned are already excluded from future licensing;

or it could mean [Failure to clear adverts from the mainland] will result in [your account being suspended and your account will not be considered for a network advertising license.]. i.e. Only if you fail to remove specified content will you certainly be excluded from licensing. In fact the grammar is incorrect for the second meaning, but the construction is unlikely for the first. Something for Jack to clarify, maybe.

By the way, where can I find this Virtual Communist group. I would like to join it.

I would like to know about this "Communist Vision". That sounds rather good. Can it be used to burn through brick walls and melt steel? (Assuming that the bricks and steel are being used to oppress the workers and so on.)

No, but it can burn through bull**** and melt fake facades.

oooooh! That's twice! I'm counting!