Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

Well, we will see, Esther.

Come Oct 1, I am simply going to AR everything around me I find objectionable and why, and we'll put this new policy to the test.

I do hope you are right, however, I'm keeping my rose tinted glasses in my inventory for now.

People should be able to set plots for sale for whatever price they choose, as long as the goal is to simply sell their plot, not harass their neighbors into buying it. Unfortunately, for plots <256sqm, that latter part is (and should be) very hard to disguise. People with holes in the middle of their land, regardless of how they got there, missing corners out of rectangular plots, old "ad farm" microplots, etc, even if the plot isn't for sale, it should be against the ToS. Now, some folks, plot swapping MAY be an option (Weedy, Elanthius), but the rest are simply there for the purposes of harassment and extortion and need to be instantly reclaimed and sold to the surrounding landowners at FMV, the proceeds of which would be paid to the previous owner, assuming they didn't get suspended or otherwise banned.

Eminent Domain is a very tricky body of law in RL, but it does have valid uses. In a virtual world, it's not nearly as tricky, and oh so necessary to put an end to the abuse.

But that isn't the problem. The problem is that you have now proposed explicit rules, stating that every premium resident is entitled to 50 adplots provided they comply with [explicit set of rules]. This is precisely the problem Ordinal raised.

How many small business owners will now be looking to acquire their 50 adplot entitlement? How many others will offer their 50 plots for franchised adverts from our old friends? Without licensing, how can this be controlled?

Small adplots have been explicily legitimised by these rules. The likely consequence is an increase in demand and an increase in realisable value. The likely effect on the rate of adcutting is not pleasant to contemplate.

The policy does indeed go some way to reducing extortion, but this unfortunate collateral consequence could have been mitigated had the original licensing proposal been retained.

I don't think it is necessary to have explicit adverts in a Mature sim. My land is mature but that doesn't mean i want to stare at pornography every day.



Yes I see your point but if the advert is in the middle of a red zone as you put it then that red zone must be privately owned as LL don't have red zoned sims yet.
In which case the adverts in this area should not come under this new policy at all and can still be of an explicit nature.
If this red zone is in a sim where other users own land and they have to look at the explicit adverts then LL will ask for their removal and rightly so.



This is far to complex to be reasonable how many Lindens would be required to administer planning permission requests, I think the number would be very high.
When a community buys a large plot in a sim, where someone else has lived peacefully on their small plot for a long time, you think they should just sell up and move because they don't Like pornography? No thats not realistic.
Keeping your explicit content inside your own area and out of site from any neighbors is a much better idea.



I like to think this is why the policy is vague in areas, so adjustments can be made within the spirit of this policy to improve the mainland for all users as a whole community.
Not for any individual community but everyone of us.



Here I fully agree with you, talk to neighbors, work things out for the good of all, acting fairly and responsibly, should negate the need for LL's intervention.
Coming to a mutual agreement should be easy with most matters

Good news Shimada. That bit of Chiron has been my classic example for the final stages of adfarm evolution. I can't wait to see it thriving again.

What? Are you serious. Where can I see that rule. I know of some extreme violations. Where is it?

This change seems to be a retreat, a victory for the advertisers.

No more than 50 ads, no use of alts to circumvent. Yet LL will rely on ARs for notification of violation. Are the residents supposed to count and document 51 locations before ARing? And since there is no way for a resident to identify another resident's alts, one person could have 50 ads in my region, each under a different alt, and neither I nor any other resident would ever be able to report it.

This is the most disappointed I have been in LL yet.

Yes, removing the ability for residents to identify and report is the biggest disappointment in these rules.

Crack out the rose tinted spectacles.

Trust that this is a time of new management, the like of something we have never seen in SL before.

Inform people where they clearly violate the policy and then if they will not desist then AR them.
LL are going to be busy come 1st October they will need our help, let's set them up to succeed, not to fail please.

I don't want to need my spectacles, I want everything to be rose tinted if you know what I mean.

It doesn't exist. The Community Standards merely state that such items must be contained within private land on mature sims. It says nothing about it being indoors.

Jack, you can say that this isn't a watered-down version of the original proposal, but unless you can tell us how a resident is supposed to know that the ad by his front yard is the owners 51st, or that the 50 ads in his region aren't all owned by one person's alts, then there is nothing I can conclude except that the advertisers have won.

I hope you're right, Jack, I really do. I will wait and see, and hope that if things don't get better, you reconsider licensing and other measures to restrict advertisers.

Under your current policy proposal, we could end up seeing MORE adfarms rather than fewer, since you have basically given approval for every individual to have 50 advertising lots, one per sim, no total limit per sim on how many adlots can be there and no restriction on where on the sim they are placed. I wouldn't be surprised if new people jump into the fray, since advertising on microparcels now has LL's written blessing, as long as certain conditions are met.

And, as others have pointed out, how am I supposed to know if something I see is the 51st adlot, or the 21st? Will LL be actively monitoring how much land an individual or group owns and checking those parcels to make sure they aren't going overboard?


Is anyone having any AR parties, since multiple ARs filed at the same time seem to get a better response?

For everyone's reference, there is a partial list of mainland sim parcel owners located here: http://landtracker.co.cc/mainlandsims/. While not perfect, it can give you an idea of how many microparcels an individual or group owns.

Editing to add this gem:
Yeegads - also check out all the crapland that was abandoned or reclaimed that Gov. Linden is sitting on here: http://landtracker.co.cc/mainlandsims/parcels.php?o=3d6181b0-6a4b-97ef-18d8-722652995cf1

Hi Jack....

I need to know if I will still be able to own more than 50 plots.

I have over 300 plots....many are small. All of them are for sale and none of them are over L$10/m2. I also have weekly "Square Sales" where I drop all my prices to bare minimum for 1 day.

Some have reasonable sale signs on them...some have a 1 prim vendor box. Some have nothing on them. But none have banlines turned on or any "adverts".

This is the first time I've heard of the 50 plot limit....

Will I be able to keep these or what?

Here's a link to all my land: http://landtracker.co.cc/mainlandsims/parcels.php?o=8a91807b-31c1-564a-02ad-2e10e5aca0e4

What do you think?

Thanks!

ZG

QFT

At the minimum, LL needs to add a limit for the total ad lots per sim.

Possibly there may be many looking to hold their 50 licenses, but Jack has tackled this in his statement

"I can assure you it isn't, this is about having a broad enough policy, that we can enforce effectively going forward"

I take this to mean if Adverts appear all over the place the Lindens will act and simply adjust the rules to combat this problem as it occurs.



Again I think the Lindens intention is to repair the mainland, Jack states

"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"

So clearly cutting up the land will have an unacceptable impact on the mainland and the Lindens will take a dim view of this sort of behavior.

Possibly the license idea could have been even better with regard to the number of free standing adverts in SL but that would have stifled small businesses opportunity to promote themselves cheaply.
I think we will find not so many people will choose to place them other than on roadsides infohubs and places of business anyway.
But if an advert appears in a back garden it will be of no use as an advert, so once owner is informed if they refuse to remove said useless advert unless a huge price is paid for the land then AR process can go ahead on that basis.

I really think the Lindens have done their best to meet all their users requirements

Maybe one of the other users here could help there, Zolen posted his database on the web with address to visit in the last forum.

http://landtracker.co.cc/mainlandsims/

Will that remain for the time being Zolen, I have used it and found it very usefull.
If it isn't going to stay for the distant future.
Does anyone know if there is something else like this around for residents to use?

Also if an AR were posted LL would be able to see if a Alt was being used to own more than 50 Adverts under any investigation.

It will just mean, LL will receive more AR's than they would have under the license system and have to do more checks to confirm no alts or excess advertisments are being used.

Try the sim Crumbi, near where the railroad track cross.

There is NO 50 AD LIMIT! Read the blog again, they can get written confirmation from Linden Lab to have more than 50.

Esther,

I went to that url, and it does not indicate if there is an ad on a plot. There is no rule against owning more than 50 plots, or putting those plots up for sale. That url will not allow a resident to find out if one account has set out more than 50 ads, and thus does not answer my concern at all.

LL *may* be able to tell if two accounts are owned by the same person, but residents can not. Surely the intent of this policy is not to have all residents AR ads in the same region on the suspicion that they are owned by the same person using alts?

Since residents have no way of knowing if the alt policy is being violated, and could only with massive expenditure of time and difficulty find out if the no-more-than-50 ad policy is being violated, this new policy seems to prevent the ARing of ads for anything but construction violations. Yes, that's something, but it is an enormous back step from requiring a licence.

Ciaran,


Yes, more than 50 ads without permission. There is no way to check if a person has more than 50 ads, and then ask LL if that person has permission.

I distinctly see it using the word LIMIT, hence:



Assuming it is a rubber-stamp process, then maybe. However, what's the point of even mentioning a 50 plot/ad "limit" in the first place? Who's gonna police it for those who don't have written confirmation?

Maybe try the community standards? I've long known that to be the case inworld. Surely someone can cite it.

Jack can you confirm that the number of written permissions will be very limited?
Will people with permission be identified anywhere?
Will these groups still be limited to one advert per Sim?

There is a risk that we could have sims full of 8m high adverts, the way people are talking.
Which certainly will not meet the objectives of managing the mainland and repairing the current mess.

I think you have stated the limit at 50 and one per sim per user, to limit the current numbers of adverts.

What will LL do if the advertising take up far exceeds your expectations?

I look forward to your answers and hope they put peoples minds at rest

It would be far easier therefore if nobody was allowed more than 50 ad plots full stop. This stinks in all reality, a nod to a friend, a wink to an acquaintance, a get stuffed to someone they don't like. It's really not professional.

If someone is doing something that means Linden Lab won't give them written permission then they shouldn't have any such plots.