Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

What do you think of my post Talarus??
/346/9a/281807/23.html#post2149652

Shimada, you seem here to be expecting LL to confiscate empty plots, owned someone else before you surrounded them, simply because you have subsequently surrounded them. Do we have any indication that this is their intention? What are you going to AR them for? Being surrounded? Refusing to sell?

It seems to me that success in this endeavour would unleash a whole new means of obtaining land by force, although I am sure that is not your intention. Please tell me I am wrong and set my mind at rest.

By the way, you have worked a miracle of reclamation in Chiron.

Take it to the Resident Answers forum. It doesn't belong here.

Take it to Resident Answers. There are many threads there on the topic. It doesn't belong here.

Oh, thank you Phil. I was afraid they would entice you into your favourite subject and the thread would be lost forever!

It depends how it's done. Placing ads on microparcels isn't bad. How it's done can be bad though.

Nope

?

Someone is just holding them for no real reason but to be troublesome.

?

Surely the Lindens would see this for the harassment it is.
I will be putting in a AR as well on the plots in our group land that are priced at 14999L.

It will be the Lindens proof of intent to stop extortion or carry on and ignore it.

Right: not alts. That would be far too risky (and unnecessary).
Well, but all the small-timers aside, the serious "advertisers" don't care about any money they're making from advertising. Advertising is really not the business they're in. But they've done a bang-up job of destroying any margin in-world advertising has now, to the benefit of their other, slightly more lucrative scams.

That doesn't make them clever, however. It just makes them slightly bigger small fish in a small pond. If they had half a brain, they'd be trying instead to make the pond larger. But that would be expecting a lot of a fish.

...

Wait, but weren't you the one... something about... ah, yes:No offense, but seriously: you were very, *very* lucky to get any of them to give you the time of day. At least not without lying about it, and adding a "ROFL" at the end.

If there is extortion (as indicated by price in your case), yes, but we were not offered any evidence of this. I have a nice ravine that I don't want to leave. Are you suggesting that anyone who buys the surrounding land should be able to force me out with an AR? That seems to me to be a recipe for bullying. Of course, if this is a known extortionist, that would put a completely different complexion on it.

I intend to AR for the floating, lighted, floating text "Survey ad" that he left on one of the parcels. Also, what part of "Ad Farms will not be allowed after October 1st" don't you guys get? I didn't surround innocent folks in their homes, I surrounded an ad farm, and this resident was resistant to even take down his 4 floating, rotating, beer ads for the October 1st deadline. Same person told me he's got 300 ads all over SL, but vehemently denied being an ad farmer. Well, if it walks like a duck...

Concierge was clear that they couldn't do anything now, and I didn't ask them to. But they told me all bets are off after the 1st. They very well could seize this land and sell it to me simply because it is a 16M lot inside my land. Seems to me this is very good incentive to only buy 16M ad lots on Linden protected roadside and not in an ad farm 60+ meters off the road in someone's backyard. You forget that LL actually owns all this land, not us.

Do you think these 16M lots should be allowed to stay in what is becoming a public park? Right now they're dead center in the park and the only reason this person wants to stay is because his ad land is no longer blocked by other ads. He thinks he has valuable ad lots now and no doubt will try to sell them at some later date, or rent them to another ad farmer.

Thanks for the compliment, everyone is welcome to come see when it's all reclaimed and finished.

Yes but is you ravine the size of a postage stamp?

No but seriously, I get the point but what reasonable use is their for the five 16sqm plots?
I may be wrong but intuition (yes I know its a dangerous thing to go by) tells me that this person is likely to contact Shimada with a rather large price tag for those plots.

In the instance Shimada quoted it did seem he had no real basis for complaint against TOS but that doesn't mean everything smells quite right.
Then he stated five adverts left there only one allowed per Sim so four have to either be sold or taken down, not sure about the chat with concierge but it sounds very promising

What does happen in these cases? the land really becomes useless, as long as neither party can reach an agreement.

If there is further reason, known extortionist, ad rule violation etc., which you convince me of here, that's ok. But I would not accept that simply owning a piece of land, before you surrounded it, can be grounds for confiscation. That is too dangerous a precedent.

Also, note that Jack's "rules" said nothing about confiscation of land. They only said they would ask for offending content to be removed. Something worth asking him about at Office hours, maybe. (Of course, repeated offences leading to banning would release the land).

Yes. It is likely a patience game, but then that would be the time for Shimada to pounce. Meanwhile, as the rules stand, the 16m owner would seem to have a legitimate right even to put a compliant ad on one of the plots as part of his 50. I'm not suggesting that is a good thing, just that it seems to be the consequence of the suggested rules. Blocking it, provided that is not outlawed, would encourage the owner to give up.

Being a public nuisance? Seriously, microparcels in the middle of other people's land, either through scam, or by being subsequently surrounded by another (single) landowner, should be subject to Eminent Domain if they fail any kind of good faith negotiations with the surrounding parcel owner.

Lone <256sqm plots have little purpose other than to harass and extort, and anyone who has one that wouldn't consider a fair market buyout or transfer to another part of the sim NOT in the middle of someone else's plot deserve what they get when LL condemns and reclaims them.

I am all for that kind of policy.



I agree.

I didn't bring it up, and was responding to *you*. If you are concerned about derailing threads, don't start it.

Give me an example of how placing an ad on a microparcel isn't parasitic advertising and, thus, bad.

Seriously.

I think the crunch is this fellow has 300 adverts five in that area, so new rules means minimum four have to come down along with 246 other adverts.
Hopefully when the time comes he would sell reasonably Shimada

And I was responding to someone else, who actually brought it up.

When the micro parcel is situated accross the road from your shop and just points people in your direction that may have missed you otherwise.

I can't, but I can imagine a nicely designed ad along the side of my land, for instance. I wouldn't consider such an ad parasitic.

Agreed and Shimada contacted him fairly first so was more than reasonable to begin with so he would have blocked as a last resort.

Well, let's see.

You are a major landholder in the sim, and thus, pay a significant amount of tier so you can enjoy your Second Life in a way you see fit (within the ToS, of course). Since you have owned a store in the past, I presume you may still have one there on your land. Even if not, let's say for purposes of argument that you are.

You are selling X product. Someone comes in and puts a very tasteful ad on a microparcel next to your store for their cheaper version of your product. People come to your store, have their eyeballs (and pocketbooks) subverted by said ad, and promptly leave to go buy that product.

You are paying for people to come and enjoy / shop at your home, and someone is using a postage stamp ad to subsume your customerbase.

Beyond that, let's say that someone putting advertising near people aggravates them severely. Who should have more right to enjoy their SL in your region? You, or Mr. Advertiser, who ads NOTHING to your region, except his very tasteful, yet still spammy, ad.

How is that not parasitic?

You are cheating you mentioned a specifically parasitic example, to get your point across.

While it's nice to see so many people 'concerned' about my 'attitude' I feel there there is some facts ya'll should know:

1/ I have only ever advertised my own shops/brands...mainly an Art Gallery (for RL artists), a sim called Garden World (self explanatory), One Prim Plants, and various minor shops. I do not sell anything sex related, nor BDSM, nor anything thats not PG (i want my 62 year old mum to be able to look at all my products without feeling ashamed)
2/ My ads were 4x4 cubes.. non flashing, non-particle, non-rotate...their sole function was click to get LM and notecard. User choice.
3/ I chose locations mainly one per sim, mainly roadside - they were not set for sale (i am not in the business of land re-selling). Mainland, mature, uncovenanted sims only. I bought primarily on price.. and did have plots that were not roadside
4/ Where a resident approached me reasonably to sell - i asked for an offer.... if they offered too much i talked them down. In all cases i sold for less than $400LD (about $1.50 for all the hassle) - i was offered up to 2000LD. Several times i swapped - but disliked that cause to me it seemed a bit two-faced of the resident ("it's ok as long as not by MY land". Several times i simply gave the land away - if i liked their attitude or intent. In one case i actually bought other ad plots and donated them too (value of approx 3k).
5/ Where a resident approached with abuse, demands, extortion, or unreasonable requests - I declined to sell.
6/ The ads were highly successful.... a one week half-price sale generated an extra 57k in turnover in one shop. It's why i know there is demand, and it's why i am still interested in putting ads up. I do all other forms of advertising as well..current highest classified is 35k, group notices, etc etc
7/ My ads are currently removed - 'cause i believe in the spirit of the law rather than the letter of it and instructions were all ads to be removed (were). My ad plots where they are not roadside are for currently set for sale (well 99% of em). I am keeping roadside to see what eventuates.
8/ In 4-5 months of building up and operating the ad network (330 plots when this rule change happened) I had thousands of clicks and only 8 problems/complaints. 2 of the problems were from anti-ad people who took it upon themselves to harass on behalf of everyone else. I had 15 people approach to buy - 12 I sold to.
9/ I do not like extortion nor do i support any of the people involved in it. My ads existed solely to pull people to my shops where they would hopefully buy something nice.
10/ I loathe bullies... i will lose money/time rather than give in and encourage them. I admit sometimes i have thought it might be easier to give in.

I do not write this to defend my practices - i don't think they need defending. I do not write in these forums to defend extortionists or harassers. I am not trying to say "i'm a nice guy" I am just pointing out my practices to hopefully stop the false accusations.

I will point out hypocricy. I will point out illogical and unfair arguments. I dislike name-calling and false accusations. I dislike sweeping generalizations and exaggerations like "all ad farmers are extortionists" or "they do criminal behaviour". However i do realize people get heated and say umm silly? things.
Finally, I will ask questions to get clarity on rules because i want to play this game by it's rules...it's not as much fun to win by cheating. (not that i can 'win')

//end rant