Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

Did I say the product was unique? It was a line of Indian foods that I could zap in a microwave for my lunch. Sure, I liked them, but once they gave me the incentive to look elsewhere I simply found a competing brand that I liked too.

Random ads are not always a guarantee of attracting new customers and you can turn off existing ones.

What part of "unsolicited" do you not consider harassing or manipulative?

I only hope she told them that they quit buying their product and why, otherwise, they will never have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

What type of consideration are you talking about? If I have a 16m square of land... because I don't need anything more than a 16m square of land, because maybe I just want to put up one little decoration. Why should someone who bought their land around my land get more consideration? Would it be any different if someone bought land all around someone elses 512 plot? Should that 512 owner be forced to sell their land at a much lower price because someone elses land surrounds it? AT this point we're not even talking about advertising or... griefing. If I have a bit of land... that someone bought the parcels around it.. and suddenly they want my land... of course the price is going to be higher than average. Unless I'm just really looking to offload that bit of land. No matter the size.

Yes I agree clusters of 16sqm parcels are of no use for advertising they just look like a mess, Advertising is not a problem to most people, there are a few who just don't like it and they will probably never be happy, but the main problem with advertising in world are the sizes, poor design and placement.



Yes again this is the problem adfarming the clusters are not places that have any use for advertising they just have a pile of rubbish dumped on them and the prices hiked to unreasonable levels, the known offenders should just have their land removed, they have been allowed to leech from the other residents for far to long.
This is where auctioning of parcels would prevent overcharging, yet allow sellers to get the best prices for their land to.



Yes as I stated before limit the number of small parcels allowed to the same number as allowed adverts, this would allow reclamation of most parcels by either adfarmers relinking them rather than loose them, identify any old accounts with more than 50 left and then they can also be reclaimed.
Limiting the number of parcels allowed will also force people to be more careful with placement.



Me to

There *is* a difference and size *does* matter, but this example isn't responsive to the post quoted because the exemplary 16 is just not abandoned.

The problem the quoted post is getting at is that there are lots of microparcels that really are abandoned, but either LL hasn't bothered to reclaim them when the Premium membership lapsed, or the member has simply gone permanently AWOL without canceling their membership.

The reason size matters is that a 16sq.m. parcel is vary dramatically smaller than a standard build parcel, and just one of them can prevent the creation of a standard size and shape of build parcel. A stranded 512 in the middle of a sim may very rarely prevent development of a much larger build, but almost every 16 is blocking some development around it.

Of course, one big reason extortion is so virulently successful is that it take a miniscule amount of tier to screw up development over vast swathes of the Mainland. The point of the post was that even if extortion was not intended, the same detriment to the Mainland can obtain from effectively abandoned parcels, and the smaller the parcel the more disproportional its detrimental effect.

Again, though, that's for parcels that are for all intents and purposes abandoned. Nobody is suggesting that LL run out and reclaim not-for-sale 16s over active residents' objections.

There's a section of rail in the Hetereocera Atoll that I travel to see the effects of ad farmining. At the worst, some of these sims were all-but-abandoned to the farmers. One of the most farmed sims was Crumbi, right near a "Y" in the tracks.

Recently, I posted this picture taken in Crumbi:



This farm had been pretty stable for some time, in this configuration. The only thing that was different from this shot and previous weeks was an influx of "For Sale" signs.

Last night, I took a follow up:



As you can see, while some of the farms are still there, the majority have pulled up stakes. The ones that are there have been there for a long, long time. I suspect they think they'll be staying, too, or have not "gotten the memo" (the latters is my expectation from the huge grass-covered boxes).

It'll be one of the first places I intend to pop by on the 1st. I'll have to take a follow-up piccie in a couple weeks, too.

At any rate, I offer these to show that, yes, there are changes going on as ad farmers batten their hatches and/or shutter their operations. I think it notable that some of those who were oposing this move and were heavily involved in the previous thread have gone kind of quiet -- either banned from forums, or busy elsewhere, I s'pose.

while here in the thread - anything come out of yesterday's office hours with Jack Linden? What is their plan come 10/01 at this point? I heard somethign about a Linden "team" that was to be assigned just to this issue - any details?

At any rate, I'm encouraged.

I heard Jack said that he would try to post some (anonymous-ized) stats on the actions LL took, once the cleanup had been underway for a bit..

Anybody got a link to a transcript?

Jack said this thread would be closed. The meeting was pretty ugly at times and so getting something constructive out of it was difficult.

There was talk of some DPW sims, one a space station with a take on a Star Wars name, that was more interesting to me than the ad talk.

He did indeed say this, but it was in the middle of the burn the witch phase of the meeting. I'm not sure what those stats will prove.

A few others in this thread were there, not sure if anyone took a transcript.

I sure did!

Didn't Jack indicate that there would be an update concerning the rules before the 1st? If there isn't an update, what was the point of this thread?

You didn't say it was unique. You said it was your favourite foodstuff, and you certainly seemed to make the point that you gave up your favourite foodstuff because of an ad. Now you say you didn't. Shrug.


I don't consider anything that is unsolicited to be harrassing. For me, something becomes harrassing when it it keeps on and on. One unsolicited ad is not harrassment in my book, whatever it is in yours.

Yeah, well meeting can't get any uglier than the mainland is in places

Not unless I missed it. I think he thought the rules were clear enough. He also indicated that substantial discretion and judgement would be used so that over-specified rules could not be exploited with loopholes. This was also his response to a question about blocking, which was not given an explicit answer, presumably for the same reason.

At least he did make it clear that the enforcement would start on 1st October (his second blog had not confirmed that). He also said that extra people wouild start that day. Altogether, he give the impression of serious intent, not just for putting these rules into action, but for dealing with the whole series of problems affecting mainland. Maybe this thread will be used to educate the new enforcers?

PS - To be fair, he didn't say there wouldn't be an update either.

I'll be *very* disappointed if there isn't an update with modifications before the 1st. I don't see any reason at all for this thread if its content isn't going to be considered.

It's true that there are concerns here from "both sides" that could do with a bit of clarification, but we may have to wait to find the answers from the actions taken after the first.

I didn't say one word about whether it brings in business or not. I said that residents don't need advertisements to find shops. That's a completely different matter from whether shops need advertisements to lure in customers.

But if you go back and look at the message I was replying to before you butted in with your "no offense", that's what it said, that people need advertisements to find shops. Not whether shops need to advertise.

Maybe that's too subtle a distinction for you, but I think it's an important one. ADvertising changes the kinds of places that get income, so that people who spend their time and money advertising make more money, and people who spend their time and money on making the best products make less.
I run a business in SL, and do work for other businessmen, and when I want to find products to buy I use search or ask people... I don't pay attention to advertising. And I spend a lot in-world, and the people whose shops I patronize are doing well without advertisements all over the place.

Perhaps they just have better products?

Since I find things through search and word-of-mouth, I obviously haven't been looking for those things you find through advertising. Maybe you can give me some examples.

LOL Oh please. Keep your snotty insults to yourself okay? Name one CONSTRUCTIVE thing you've added to this thread. All I've seen is a lot of whining, incorrect assumptions, bad business advice and snide remarks. Now, if you don't have anything positive to add why not try saying nothing for a change?

`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'

Thanks for leaving out the "no offense" bit this time. I really appreciate it.

You din't say that people needed to see advertising to see YOUR shop, you said they needed them to find shops and places, full stop. When a user searches search, they may not find your shop, they may find someone else's, and they may spend their money at someone else's shop instead of yours. That's not their problem. That advertising is not something they need, as someone "looking for shops and places", it's something you need, looking for customers.

My point, which seems to be getting lost, is that you're mixing up what you need with what customers need. This is a common problem, in this kind of discussion, and one that leads to all kinds of irrelevant sidetracks like whether search should be ordered by traffic or picks or links or money spent on classifieds. It should be ordered by whatever the user wants. It should have a button that selects sorting by traffic, by money, by number of references, by all kinds of other things like the price of the matched item... but whatever it's based on is completely irrelevant to whether ads are necessary "to find shops and places" or not.

If anyone is keeping score, I'd say that Argent's contributions have so thoroughly and decisively trounced yours to be considered "righteous pwnage", but then again, I don't get the impression that he intended them to be a contest in the first place.

Trying to silence the opposition doesn't win you any points. Sorry to say. :-/

I know Argent's business and products very well, and know that he's a respected member of the developer community. Thus, I think his "business advice" is very sound and very insightful.

Any "snide remarks" have been a response to people attacking him over his opinions and assertions with same or worse (as can be seen in your posts).

As a BUSINESSMAN, maybe you should reconsider some of your own words in light of their less than positive tone.

There are many kinds of in-world ads in SL. There are ads in random parcels that provide no benefit to the people around them (the adfarms), and there are classifieds and picks, and there are products that spam their names when you attach them (yes, that's spamming), and there are ads in malls and stores and clubs that help pay for the build they're in, and so on.

The last of those is the one that's like advertising in websites. The adfarm parcels... that are mostly what's being discussed... aren't.

Do you mean Feel Good Inc? If not, do you have a link?