Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

Any posters for other not-for-profit help, freebie, and educational locations at any of the NCI areas are free. We choose what goes there, where it is places, and who gets them. They are a service to our new resident users.

We also have our AdNode billboards at our campuses (as I detailed upthread) that we sell space on to raise money to fund operations. Those are rented out any PG advertisers we approve.

Can you give me a clue as to when we might see an end to unecessary ban lines ??

In my opinion these are far more unsightly and far more injurious to those who want to roam and explore than a few columns of ads.

They look awful on the edge of your property and they cause frequent jamming or crashing. They are totally useless and can easily be circumvented by cam panning.

The other land settings available make ludicrous walls of red writing unecessary and no one is telling me that all that red text doesn't drain sl resources.

I wonder how many property owners who complain about the unsightly nature of ad farms have their properties surrounded by an awful wall of glowing words - not seen by themselves of course...

Let them grin and see if the Lindens do act to save the mainland, hopefully they will piss the lindens off enough to throw them out of the Second Life once and for all.

Ban lines are ugly, but some people obviously like them they seem to be used a lot.

Why do we need to see them though? just a pop up notice this area is restricted you can't come in is enough.

Why stop at 100m why not go all the way up? Then they wouldn't need those crap orbs that blow you into another sim when you are just working on your own land.

Linden Labs being transparent talking to its residents, doing what they say will.

Yes that might just work.

Thanks for the comments so far. I'd like to step in at this point and address one of the common themes I'm seeing.

A number of you seem to believe this is a backtracking or watering down of the original thinking around licensing. I can assure you it isn't, this is about having a broad enough policy, that we can enforce effectively going forward. In some respects this is actually a stronger statement, but you'll be able to judge that for yourselves as we get to grips with things over the coming weeks.

Ignoring the specific issue of ad farming for a moment, the point that has to be understood here is that we, as estate manager, have an overriding goal which is to improve and protect the Mainland experience for our residents. So whether an activity is covered or not by specific rules or policies, if we believe it is having an unacceptable impact then we will ask for it to be removed or changed. That extends from controls like these on widespread advertising, to any activity which is clearly antisocial and negative.

A responsible advertiser who follows the guidelines well, will be able to have up to 50 locations. An irresponsible advertiser who doesn't follow the rules on his 10 locations will be asked to remove them.

Because Second Life gives such freedom of expression, there are generally more edge cases than there are specific examples; one could write a fair sized book on the many ways someone may try to circumvent this particular policy but we are still, as estate managers, able to use our discretion to deal with such uses as we see them. Policies like this one do not tie us down, they provide a clear framework that residents can understand and within which we can do what is necessary to improve the Mainland.


Jack

They can get written permission from Linden Lab to have more than 50 plots. That's in this policy.

@Ordinal: I'd like to call out your comment:

> If the regulations are not set in stone and the spirit is more important than the
> letter, we are far less vulnerable than if we have a set of rules the loopholes
> of which are then gamed into meaninglessness, as has happened recently.

@Desmond: Yours too.

> Clear enough rules, and if someone is finding a way to wreak economic
> damage in the area no matter how they do it, they are on notice that it
> won't be tolerated.
>
> Don't worry about the edge cases. People will 'get it' soon enough with
> some decent management decisions.
>
> Those capitalising on the misfortune of residents and the Company both,
> will discover that it simply doesn't fly any more.


Both excellent comments. I would ask people to think more about the intent, the spirit as Ordinal puts it, than about the many different scenarios that could arise. Where we need to, we will take action. Where it makes sense, those actions will inform new policies or changes to this one, to better inform residents.


Jack

Another vote to turn off full bright... the ads on the road that cut through my park are really not so hideous in the daytime because she kept them low and unobtrusive but at night they literally hurt your eyes they are so bright and they spoil the enjoyment of night time in a large area.

There are still many questions that still aren't really answered in either blog posting:

What happens to the 25 holes that I have in my land?
-At least 64m of which are dead ads owned by someone who hasn't logged in since March. The answer to my ticket from long ago was that there was nothing that could be done. I have my doubts that he will pop up and take his signs down by Oct. 1st. What happens then?

-What if the ad just doesn't work for the setting? How will this be settled, or will it fall into resident vs. resident and be ignored? Full bright pink on the ground in the middle of the woods... will I be forced to landscape around it so that I am not obstructing their "view"?

-If an owner of an ad just won't work with neighbors and has eloquent statements like "stick it in your ear", can I ban them from my land? Having LL ask them to stop isn't very reassuring that anything will really change.

The rest of us would like to start enjoying our land and not worrying about this anymore. So far I am still holding my breath.

Jack you are doing something and I thank you for the token effort.

We will see if this new plan of yours works, We will AR any areas of extortion we find near our group and any related activities.
Then watch for the action taken by Linden Labs if it is not to our satisfaction then I will just sell up for whatever price I can before 1st December 2008.

Holding onto a small area for personal use at basic tier price.

Hopefully that will not be necessary, but I will not pay for crap service, which leaves my wife unhappy in RL.

Not anymore. And you have yourself to blame.

Like I said putting a cap on the price per sq meter for parcels under 512 sq meters will not have any effect on the land economy and certainly will not affect the free market. Other than to deny extortionists their extortion game.

It is called price gouging and price gouging is illegal. So people that have engaged in price gouging ("ad farm extortion" should be dealt with as what they are and according to US Laws.

Jack,

I sincerely hope you're right. A big part of the reactions (including mine, I believe) is that LL has a LONG history of little to no transparency, little to no follow-through on promises to make things better, and YEARS of apparently turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to things that a huge number of residents were ticked off about (ad farms, for example).

At this, I'll switch my attitude to a "wait and see" / "I'll believe it when I see it" stance.

But I'll also be honest, Jack... you guys don't stand much chance of disappointing me, as my expectations (based on my comments about past performance on the part of LL) leaves little further down you could go. On the bright side, it DOES mean there's lots of room to go UP.

Nice to see that you are watching this blog Jack, but I still stand behind my original diagnosis. How can I beleieve that your "intent" will be any more effective than other Linden Lab policies covering mature advertising in PG areas like the sim my main shop is in

If they violate the new policies you should be able to report them again. Before there wasn't set guidelines so what LL could do was limited. Now what's allowed and what's not is better clarified so they can enforce it.


You should be able to ban them from your land. As for LL "asking" them to stop I don't think it's intended to mean just asking nicely and hope they behave. I'd think Jack meant it as they will ask first and if they refuse to comply further action would be taken as needed.

I would tend to agree that some clarification is needed here. Why not make the ads adhere to the SIM rating? It seems pointless to have a mature SIM with PG ads...

We could add so many caveats to this policy...I'm sure pages and pages of definitions could be written to be more encompassing, but we'll never be able to cover all cases; after all, there are no limits to our imaginations! So, to pretend to have an all-encompassing policy to govern limitless imaginations is a funny concept at best.

I believe the real point here is to exercise some common sense (remember that thing? ), a sense of community and respect for others (I know, now I'm talking total heresy ). If we're in the middle of a residential area and someone puts a sexually-explicit ad, most of us would agree that's inappropriate and an eyesore. But that same ad would be perfectly appropriate, welcome and even expected - flashing, rotating, neon- & glow-enhanced and all - in the middle of a "red zone" area. The point here is that the ad itself is not the issue - it's the inappropriate use of the ad, which leads to residents' discontent. And, that's hard to quantify. What annoys one person doesn't necessarily annoy another. There is no single rule that fits all, so let's stop asking LL to come up with the Holy Grail of ad governance - that's an exercise in frustration for everyone.

Perhaps, it's ultimately up to the residents of a given area to weigh in on the decision. Maybe LL can actively inquire in the areas of dispute what the "community standards" determine. [In RL I get notices from my town when someone decides to build an above-ground pool or build other high-visibility structures; if I have an objection, I can take it up with the town.] A system like that would prevent someone with different sensitivities to come into an area and disrupt the community. If the community is okay with it and someone is not, well, choose where you buy your land a little better next time. If the community is not okay with it, well, then the ad has to go. If residents of an area want to see it change in a particular way, team up and push for it - great community-building exercise! It's not a perfect system, but it is realistic.

SL is about building communities. And I don't think that one size fits all, even on the mainland. So, I see a lot of trial and error behind the enforcement of this policy. The good news is that LL are taking the matter seriously and starting to take steps towards managing it (note I didn't say resolve it). Some of the policy will work great, other pieces will need further definition, and others will need to be altogether replaced.

Last point... Let's not forget that the policy should not be the first line of attack when trying to resolve a dispute. Let's not rely on LL to fix all our troubles. First step is to talk with our "disruptive neighbors." It's amazing what happens when people actually talk to each other - often times compromise can be reached. Amazing! Who knew? After we've made an honest attempt and, unfortunately, failed, then we can rely on the policy and enlist LL's involvement to help us resolve the issue.

I think this is progress, overall. Let's give what LL has put together a try, and let's work together to amend as needed to fit actual scenarios. Going into it, I have no reason to believe that LL won't listen. We may not always agree, and it may take some time (after all, it did take LL WAY too long to deal with this issue to the detriment of the mainland and residents' in-world experience - really, really bad). But, clearly Jack and his team took the feedback that we gave and changed their minds to accommodate our viewpoints. That's great! We (LL and residents alike) will all learn from the experience, and that's what SL is all about!

-DK

I forgot about this, but it's kind of important: the ARs filed about land issues are handled by Concierge, not Governance, at least as I understand it.

I'm a little puzzled about this because, just prior to the "licensing" blog post, there was a rash of harassing ARs filed by adfarmers against residents, and a bizarre creeping of the definition of "blocking access"--itself an anachronism ever since point-to-point TPs worked, revived at some point for no apparent reason. But not only revived: suddenly not only physical access was involved, but *visual*, such that adfarmers didn't have to "buy the view" at all, and could claim arbitrary right to be seen from at least two of four parcel sides--this according to G-Team, but enforced (by Concierge???) in those ARs filed by adfarmers.

So, while I'd really like to get some rational re-thinking on this "adfarms get special access rights" policy, more important is the risk that adfarmers will be able to resume griefing residents with harassing ARs handled by G-Team without Concierge realizing what's happening--and vice-versa: G-Team actually acting on these specious ARs without realizing that Concierge has already identified the filers as network advertisers.

Now, this gets even murkier when we deal with all the "special business relationships" (ahem) between the adrunners and the extortionists, who may be expected to consipre to further harass residents with griefing ARs.

I urge that Governance be instructed on Concierge's list of usual suspects, so they know which ARs are just thinly-veiled ransom notes.

Im still in the wait and see camp, Jack. I also can understand why they must be PG. Untill people must choose to only be in PG or M sims the signs just as the forums and any Linden land must be PG. But I thought that had been covered in the existing TOS. 　I dont see why a M ad has to be M. Just have a little class in ALL ads.

To be honest Jack I have been here way to long to expect much but thanx for the effort

On the PG issue we're talking about outdoor ads here. If people want mature ads indoors then fine but all outdoor ads should be pretty much PG. It's just common courtesy.

This is a most encouraging indicator of where we will be going. I take it to mean that the 9999 L and the 1495 L and all the other extortion plots out there that are way over any reasonable price will be gone in the near future. These people have parasitized SL for long enough. And it will be good to see the land repaired to useful parcels that people can actually use. My question is - will LL be proactive about extortion plots, or will you be relying solely on AR s? I for one can provide plenty of LM s to cut up areas that have been sitting there for a long time. Any way i can help with this Jack, please let me know.

I hope not if it means people can't set plots for sale for whatever price they choose, that would be worrying on many levels. However the tools they use to sell those plots, banlines, ad towers, nuisance, will be gone hopefully which means market forces should dictate the price.

Well I can tell you from very recent experience that things have changed and it's good Concierge is handling it. The majority of the Chiron ad farm was reclaimed by Concierge this morning after numerous ARs and phone calls. Because my land surrounded it, I was given the oportunity to buy all of those tiny parcels for 1$L per sqm. 2000sqm of them. . I still have a few others to move out, but mostly small ones and extortionists and they will be actioned next, or traded out. So happy about it I decided to build a public park and free wedding chapel on it . How's that for giving back?

"Q. Does this policy include signs advertising Parcels for sale?
A. Yes it does."

Yessssssssssss!!!!!!! /me cheers and punches air! Woot! God bless you, Jack Linden! At last I can look forward to buying some mainland that won't suck.

I suspect this is also an extension of the policy that prohibits porn being displayed outside, even in a mature sim.

Jack

This is all I hoped for, It should clear up so many problems people are currently experiencing, thank you and all the other Lindens involved.



Wow! Finally we will see virtual utopia.