Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

To: The guy that can't stop his eyes from rolling
Yes YOU can do whatver you want on your land as long as you don't violate TOS/CS. However.... YOU do not get to decide what is or isn't a vilolation. LL does. And Jack Linden has asked us all to contribute ideas of what we consider to be in violation.

JubJub. I've said in this thread that I think advertising done well can be good, and I'm not against it. But you are barking up the wrong tree with this. If a person erects an ad, then the person is blocking everyone's views - the ads themselves block views. You can't successfully argue that it's ok for ads to block the view of what's beyond, but it's not ok for a wall or tree to block a view of what's beyond (where the ad is).

People often erect walls, rows of trees, etc, around their land when there are no ads beyond, and they block views for everyone. You can't successfully argue that ads should have special treatment and not be blocked. It doesn't make any sense. The only thing that makes sense is for ads to be placed where they can be seen by other people, and if a the view of an ad disappears, move the ad somewhere else.

The design of SL sims isn't good for ads - a design oversight, imo, and I doubt that zoned sims will be any better, except that ads won't be allowed in residential sims (I think). But that's the way it is, and advertisers simply have to make do with what SL is - not what they would like it to be.

Ok, I'll say it ... no idea what either a sloodle or a moodle is.

Please do not answer here though as this is a forum about the problem of adfarms and it sounds like you probably have a more generic question. You might find the answer you want in the 'resident answers' forum.

Oh but as an after thought they put roads in just so we could have ads!

LMAO

It's a poor joke I know, touchy subject for some

I know it was a joke, but if they put some thought into it now, and designed future sims to accommodate ads, it would be a great improvement. By that, I mean ad areas - maybe part of a roadside or next to protected land. If such areas were few and far between the whole mess would be improved in new sims. It *could* be done well if LL has the will to do it.

The idea of selling different types of sims isn't outlandish. E.g. sell some as whole sims with ads disallowed, sell some in ready cut parcels (sell each parcel seperately) with ready cut ad areas, etc.

Agreed.

JACK:

The current initiative is 2-fold:- (1) new ad rules for current and future sims and (2) future sims - zoning. This suggestion is about future sims.

Zoning will help, epsecially if ads are not allowed in residential sims, but sims where ads are allowed could easily become blighted by them, so consider creating and selling different types of sims where ads are allowed. Some possibilities:-

1. Whole residential sims with ads disallowed.

2. Partial commercial sims with one or two ad plots cut out of them and sold seperately. The main sim's covenant would be no ads allowed. This would be similar to the partial sims you sell now (with protected land), but would have ads areas.

3. Whole sims with one or two ad plots pre-designated, and the owner can choose whether or not to sell those plots. They wouldn't *have* to be used for ads. The main part of the sim would have a no ads covenant.

#2 and #3 would need an 'ads' flag for each 4x4 area of a sim, but it could be done.

The objective is to limit the potential blight of ads. The new rules will help, but without a limit on the number of ads in a sim, we could still see many currently blighted sims pretty much unchanged, and many future ones being blighted.

Because we knew it was going to happen... it was mentioned earlier in the thread.

Look it's obvious that people like ROBO are going to scream and complain about free enterprise and how their land ownership rights are being taken, blah, blah, blah. The fact remains though that land ownership in SL is a priviledge and not a God given right. You abuse what you do with it, and/or harass your neighbors with it, then that priviledge will be taken away from you, period.

People who are intent only on making money off Microparcel sales or extortion are going to find out soon that it's a vanishing business. I don't have a problem with legitimate advertisers, anyone adjacent to my land (and not surrounded on 4 sides in the middle of my parcel) who is legit and conforms to LL standards won't have any problems from me. But anyone who is asking tens of thousands of Lindens for 16M inside my shop is going to find themselves very sad when Lindens seize it and resell it to me for 1$L per sqm. This is not a hard and fast rule and certainly won't be done without consideration, but it demonstrates how this will be carried out on a case by case basis.

Some people here are arguing under the false assumption that just because no licenses will be issued there will be no control or oversight. Jack was very clear that this is not what is going to happen.

Because some people will *always* seek to find a loophole, or a new exploit, or some way to continue to let their greed be their guide.



Where's he been, BTW?

SF and he just flew back to England. The theory yesterday was the trip probably messed up his time sense.

the idea presented by Phil deakins are very good.

This will be an evolution to Bay City.

If you are at home you will have an enviroment like the suburbs where you can find gardens and houses.

When you go to shopping you will be able to see ADV to help you find what you want to buy.

This will bring back the users that desist to have land because of the uglyness of the neighborhood, and will allow the real vendors to have their necessary adv.

One good Idea is to have a migration process where the user can give a land as part of the paying for a land in residencial only plot.

The residencial plot is created:

- LL contact the residents and they can opt to change to residencial plot,
- A fee may be charged by the change (a small price to pay to be free of ad farms forever), and will be a new income for LL cover the work it will have to do it
- In the event the plot has a different size from the original one (LL can opt to have planned plots with defined sizes as in tier fees (512, 1024, 1536, 2560 and so on to simplify) then market midian price can be applied
- LL can do this as a SIM by SIM process using recicled land so it is not necessary to invest in hardware. Ex.:

a) Get a deteriorated and abandoned SIM
b) Clean it
c) Define it as residencial, comercial or event themed plot.
d) Contact the people from a SIM that is half deteriorated and offer the change to then
e) who accepted pay the fee and change, then the half deteriorated SIM can become clean and LL goes back to a)

Gradatively people will change to organized plots clearing the deteriorated main land

The AD Farms will and extrotionists will go naturally, as the people goes away from the SIMs where they are. And if they want to by the land and transform then in giant ad farms it will be their problem, there will be no one around to complain or place four walls around

Since the change is optional who stays cant complain.

to people that live in the coasts there can be sea residencial or comercial SIM that can be conected by bridge roads and whater ways. an empty sea SIM can be used to it, so you can start the re urbanization of LL coasts without many problems.

I can imagine the plots as small islands connected by a bridge road. This will also give low work to the moles that will have to just plam the watter ways and the bridge road. Also will reduce the PRIM count used by the moles what will allow this land to have a hier PRIM count and perhaps this can be sell as a way to enforce the people to change and justify the payment of the relocation fee

The re urbanization will also have a positive side to LL and it relocate people to sims, LL will have a better usage of the servers, avoid then to keep a server empty with one or two users some rotating prims and tons of abandoned land.

Well this is my four cents

Try the teaching and education forum:

/208/1.html

Something like that. I've been saying that advertising space should be owned by LL and leased to advertisers... and even if that's not the end-game, it would permit going ahead with such a zoning plan until an "ads" flag becomes available.

I'm not entirely clear what the difference is or should be--besides advertising--between a commercial and a residential sim (and any other kinds... like educational or cultural, maybe?). Perhaps a thread on Resident Answers dealing with this question would be better? (At first blush, I'm thinking that residential sims cannot list parcels in Search... but that may be wrong.)

He probably ate a Twinkie and hasn't been the same since

There are several problems with that suggestion:

1) All Landmarks and Profile based on the previous locations would be broken. Getting LMs into people's Inventories and picks into Profiles is a non-trivial marketing task that many business owners have invested substantial time in.

2) Many people have builds that are designed for specific land configurations (shapes/elevations), and could not be moved to other areas. Again, time and expense would be born by the people forced to move.

3) All land is not the same. Many people have emotional attachments to the land they are one. Perhaps they've been there for several years. Maybe it is their First Land. Or perhaps a group of friends have bought up all the land in a sim.

4) This would devastate mainland rental businesses.

5) All mainland is not of equivalent market value. A plot in Nova Albion or the old "Color sims" are more expensive than an average plot elsewhere, for example.

6) This suggestion would be an immense administrative pain in the ass for Linden Lab. And cost them significant money to implement.

7) Finally, it would force nearly every ordinary mainland resident to pay (in time, land value, or lost business) for the actions of the adfarmers.

You can't have it both ways. If residents have to "buy the view" from adfarmers, then adfarmers have to "buy the view" from residents. If adfarmers have a right to an unobstructed view, then so do the residents around them. Either way, the adfarmer loses.

Couldn't agree with you more. When the new rules for ads come into effect your signs will be limited to an 8m height. Most of the issues of signs being blocked are because they spam the whole sim. I don't create signs that tower over everyone's builds ( currently 6m2 high). Or do multiple tri-cubes in the same sim as you and others have been doing. However what you and many others have been doing sad to say is trying to gain advertising visibility by spamming as much as you can. You may be ignorant to that fact that this is what annoys people and in your defense some people are going to dislike any signs no matter how small or large they are. Just as some do not like clubs next door to them.

I'm not here to argue your business model or care. "VALID ADVERTISING" will now be defined by Linden Labs and sorry to say you will not have the freedoms you once did.

If people now block in your single sign its the only SINGLE sign you have in that sim then you have the power to AR them.

What is the big deal here?

I think this is one of the larger issues. Half the thread revolves around whether we are allowed to block someone's build from view where our land borders another's parcel and to what extent. Three sides? 4? Can it be a wall, trees? Spengbab cubes? The commonly accepted stand is as long as it's within ToS guidelines it's your land, build what you want. I've heard there used to be a limit where you couldn't block all sides of someone's land made back when you didn't have site-to-site teleports because it would actually deny them access. That's no longer an issue though.

Jack, we really do need some clarification on this build issue. There's not enough information on LL's current policy so we just end up going in circles.

And you are claiming ther right to censor another's build so that you can pay virtually nothing and still guarantee visibility.

If you want to guarantee your ads to be visible, you can pay tier for the land you want them to be seen from, instead of trying to control the view from land that someone else is paying tier for.

Alternatively, you can negotiate with neighbours before you put your adverts up against their borders.

Whoops. Sorry, you already answered. I like your suggestions to Jack.

Ignore (That's interesting Phil. What differences in the design do you think would have made them better for ads?).

I admire your optimism, Shimada, but I have not seen anywhere where Jack said they were going to confiscate land or force it's sale. Have you? Of course if the owner is bad enough to get banned ....

Wait a second, first you said the adfarmers could do anything the TOS allowed, so all this debate was irrelevant, now you're saying that the TOS didn't allow everything they were doing.
Hold on, are you saying they violated the TOS or not?

Geeze, now I'm feeling like Columbo.
Friend, did you see who started the thread? You're complaining that people are responding to a request for comments from Jack Linden are... responding to a request for comments from Jack Linden?
Um, "market rate" isn't determined by "society", it's a technical term in economics, and it's determined by the market.
You really need to come down here to Houston. There's been a few gas stations cited for trying to do that. And all they were doing was "price gouging", not "extortion". You can get in *real* trouble for that... it's called "blackmail" and "protection rackets".

I'm not saying that adfarmers in SL are as bad as organized crime syndicates, but it's a difference in degree, not in kind.

Fair enough, Carl. I wasn't 100% serious there... more extrapolating upon out how the ad farmers and land extortionists expect us to suck it up and move on if we can't hack their jive.

And so he should.

I own land, and pay tier fees, but I suspect I do more for Linden Labs bottom line through the rent I pay to Alliez Mysterio than the tier I pay to Linden Labs.

In fact, now I think of it, I recall that debate. When you made that comment I don't think I had actually upgraded to premium... there I was, a "mere" basic user, doung more for Linden Labs than most of the premium accounts.

I don't agree with everything Linden Labs does, either, but I gotta agree with them here.