Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

Its a great idea and we have something similar in our sandbox, but I really don't see LL advertising the fact to potential customers they allow this to go on.

Do you?

Absolutely not. That would completely destroy flying in SL.

And sometimes ban lines need to be more visible. They need to at least show up on the mini map, and you should be able to increase the visibility so when you're flying you can see them in time to avoid them.

If they don't call "llOverMyLand()" (yes, that's a real function) they should be ARed. If it was up to me they would have to have a time-out as well.

If they implemented the "skybox zone" that would kill the security orb market.
I doubt very many do. Why don't you start a tread with a poll asking that question, though? The results may be interesting.

I've been considering a land purchase and I've been doing a ridiculous amount of shopping, and I do use For Sale signs as guides, as I spend as much time hopping from blighted landscape to blighted landscape using the map as I would flying or walking around in areas that I like.

In order to catch my eye, a sign just has to be "iconic". For example, some realtors use the kind of sign that I recognize immediately from the real world (it looks like an upside-down "L" with a rectangular sign hanging from the horizontal strut at the top). I can recognize such a sign immediately and tell that the plot is for sale (or rent) even before the textures load. So a For Sale sign doesn't have to be garish, it just has to be recognizable.

I doubt very many do. Why don't you start a tread with a poll asking that question, though? The results may be interesting.

Ah: "Affiliate" is an overloaded term now. I was referring to the problem of adfarmers undetectably paying "rent" to get other microparcel owners to show their ad content, circumventing (perhaps by orders of magnitude) the 50 ad limit.Right, but why is that? It's because the SL Shakespeare Company does not perform nor advertise on a 16sq.m. parcel. So, I laid out a challenge: come up with a way to really distinguish between "good" parcel-owner place-of-business ads and "bad" adfarmer microparcel ads, without invoking parcel size--I honestly don't think it can (or should) be done.

What I'm trying to do in all this circumlocution is to get an explicit statement that little parcels are just different from big ones, and whatever "rights" accrue to landowners, they aren't all equal regardless of size. And then we can address the real problem that's shredding the Mainland and making it not just ugly but useless, sim by sim.

Only then will we have the ability to make the distinctions that really matter--and then it will be safe to allow the "good" advertising, because we can define it.

One slight problem there is no such thing as a free 512sqm a basic premium account cost 9$/month this allows you to have 512sqm of land.
So this is infact the most expensive tier.

Not so..

If you pay by the year, the stipend makes it work out to under US$2 per month. The next level up, 513-1024m2 total is the most expensive tier at US$5/month.

Ah with you now, this is why I think the licensing idea was a better idea than the white flag waving retreat we now have. I'm sure this will happen. I don't want to talk about it too much because I don't want to give them ideas, but it won't take long for that sort of "Solution" to appear.



I think it's pretty clear that a genuine advertiser, certainly in paid advertising terms, needs to have their adverts in locations that don't cause offence. There are very few suitable locations for microparcel advertising. If we could teleport around I'd see the point of this model of advertising more, but as it stands network advertisers should be working with malls and clubs instead of some strange notion that their standalone parcels are a feasible form of advertising.

Ok the RL/SL comparison is just silly... but what the heck, I'll bite. Would it be ok then in RL to have an electro-magnetic field surrounding your house that shocks me if I accidentally get too close and makes me... um... have to restart my heart? Oh yeah.. and it has to look horribly ugly too. But only ugly to your neighbors.

Security devices should always *only* work on people who are on or over the land, regardless of the range. Any that don't do that are bad, although there are times when the surrounding land is owned by the same owner. They should also give a warning that allows time for people to move on. I'm sure I read somewhere in LL's stuff that they should give warnings, but I don't know where it was.

To be honest I don't use either, I really don,t care if someone enters my parcels.

LOL

That sounds kind of freaky.

But from the relevancy to this thread I don't like to see the ban lines.
I agree that the banlines should be height adjustable to encompass skyboxes if thats what you mean.
As they stand they simply are not fit for purpose.
The banlines should be settable to any height though not just one, as this would mean all residents with skyboxes needing to be on the same height as each other give or take 50m, My guess is they have sky boxes to escape their neighbors.

I stand corrected, but its still not free

Not freaky. I don't like them either, especially since they extend past your parcel edge (turn on property lines and you will see what I mean). I did turn a limited one on for a short time, but that was because of a problem I was having and it got turned off as soon as it caused a problem for someone not responsible for the banlines. I actually consider it a compliment if people wander around and enjoy my builds (well, as long as they do not wander into my changing room).

Back to ads and such though. The ideal solution would be if nearby owners would work together to resolve neighborhood problems. Less headaches for LL. Unfortunately a few refuse to which is why we need some rules. Since we know people will find a way around any rule though we need an answer: are these rules the total set of what is and is not allowed or will they be added to when we see the creative ways people twist them? Closely tied to that, when can we expect to see things about related issues, like land extortion in general?

Its going a little off topic but the one that bounces me says a warning with one of the standard blue menu boxes popping up, which I had to click and then sent me to a church on a private sim.

Is this one I can AR?

If he hadn't made his business model depend on coercing people into buying his ad parcels he might.

The "home builders" you're talking about don't make a business of deliberately throwing up crap.His business model is not "advertising", it's "extortion". I have yet to see any 16m parcel "advertisers" that I'd call legitimate. There may be some, but I've yet to see one. Even the ones that try to look "nice" were set up with outrageous sale prices when they started, and they only dropped them when they were forced to.

No, read the JIRA. The proposal is for a zone 768 meters high just below the 4096 meter build ceiling... giving them as much vertical space as the original building zone to fit their skyboxes in.

Oh wow. That's EXACTLY what I need for a side projects, had no idea it was there lol.

Well, that's more or less what I have been saying for months. SL does NOT have to mirror RL in how advertising works. There are PLENTY of opportunities for in-world advertisement and promotion of business without having to resort to parasitic advertising models. Symbiotic advertising and self-promotion, along with Search, Classifieds, and outworld advertising will work just fine to get your message out there, and NONE of those methods interfere with other residents' SL experience in a negative way. NONE of them. At that point, microparcel extortion and harassment will have absolutely NO hold, become entirely pointless and profitless, and will finally go the way of the dodo with a little help from a wooden stake pounded through its heart by the Lindens.



It is easy enough to allow for identification and self-promotion. If you are advertising YOUR place at YOUR location, then there is no argument. As long as it follows all other rules in the ToS, it shouldn't be a problem. Edge cases for this are really easy to discern intent and negative impact.

You are confusing your SL with your RL because you are one big L yourself.
What is next? Are all the cry babies going to ask that LL set up the RL team and go arrest people in RL for SL violations?

That was a stupid statement.

Blah Blah Blah "Both are RL felonies" Blah Blah Blah

Go change your diaper, I smell crap coming from your direction which is a hygiene violation.

Which should actually be called "Sexton's Law", because the guy who came up with it was Richard Sexton, not Mike Godwin.

They don't get tier from abandoned land.

hahaha...wow. I haven't been to the sl forums for a while. Things have changed!

Jack,

On September 4th, you said in the blog: "The good news therefore, is that Network advertising (Ad Farming) will no longer be permitted on the Linden Mainland unless you have a written agreement with Linden Lab (essentially meaning a license to advertise). Anyone currently operating such a business inworld will need to remove their adverts by the 1st October 2008." The majority of people thought and accepted this as the best thing LL has done for its residents in all times.

But, 8 days later, this all became obsolete in the newer blog on September 12th. You recanted and said that now, Ad Farming will be addressed under clause 4.1 of the TOS. You did not say anything about an October 1st deadline. So technically, as it stands right now, all ad towers out there that do not meet the guidelines posted in the newer blog are violating TOS 4.1. What is the delay in taking some action now? Are we waiting for another reversion of this policy or is there going to be some immediate action by LL to start responding to the violations and reports that already exist as well as the violations that have since cropped up in spite of LL's new policy?

To me this reversion is so fluid that it violates itself inward if ad farming is considered a violation of TOS 4.1 unless the parcel and its contents meet certain requirements and its owners follow certain guidelines. What this new blog says to me is that ad farming and the likes have always been against TOS 4.1, and now, we are going to make an exception to ALLOW ad farming under certain conditions. This new reversion actually gives exceptions to the rules to the benefit of the ad farmers and disappointment to the majority of your residents that flat out do not like their world ruined by a small minority.

It is unclear if the new policy is a differential of the September 4th blog or entirely a new policy.

What needs to be done now is to take action against the violations of TOS 4.1 as defined in this latest blog now, or set a deadline. Right now it seems there isn't one and this can go on forever in circles. Address the extortion issues by defining them exactly and include them as a violation against TOS 4.1. Even better, be more definite by adding a new clause to the TOS to specifically address advertising on mainland.

LL already knows who causes the most trouble in all this matter, so what is the wait for? Two more changes in policy before the end of the month? This issue has been going on too long and is still spinning in a circle and doesn't look like it will ever go away.

While I think "for sale" signs are silly, I believe there could be room for "for sale" signs flat against the ground for people flying over to see. If the sides are transparent they shouldn't be objectionable to neighbors.

AFTER the ban goes up, and IF it works, THEN perhaps people's tempers will drop to the point where it's possible for people to treat you as the legitimate businessman you're claiming to be. But right now... I have yet to see an ad-spammer in SL who behaved like a legitimate businessman. Right now... the onus is on you to prove your claim.

If you want to change the way people perceive you, then you need to actively work to solve the problem that people are upset about.

Yes, that means taking up arms against the illegitimate advertisers. Otherwise you'll be just as hosed as the folks who tried to run genuine opt-in only email advertising lists (yes, there were some of them) in the face of spammers... including spammers who claimed they were ONLY sending mail to people who had explicitly asked for it, but kept sending spam to honeypot accounts that never signed up to anything.

How about "sell the parcel and buy another one that isn't near someone who's so pissed off about advertising (real or not) that he's not going to compromise with you". That's a hell of a lot better option than *we've* had over the past two years: it's a lot cheaper, it's a lot less time consuming, and a lot less frustrating. I've had to buy several times as much land as I actively use just to get enough of a buffer zone around me to keep the extortionists out of sight. YOU'VE got a 16 square meter parcel at stake.

So pardon me if I don't feel your pain.