Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

I have not and still do not as yet even run a shop, I have just purchased in the last month or so three sites with a view to starting commercial business, mainly because I enjoy building and it would be nice to subsidize the tier currently being paid out.
I have never used small plots for advertising and may never do so, I hold 15 small plots with information boards on them, left over from many more my wife set up in the many months running up to Oct 1st informing people of areas containing extortion plots.
So far my wife and I just sink our own real life money into Second Life for our mutual enjoyment, we have certainly never milked SL in any way, infact my wife spent alot of her own time campaigning to make things better.
So that others might not fall into the trap she did and may I say we still have the extortionists plots in our home now and feel at least they seemed to have a purpose when adverts were placed on them, now they are clearly there only to harass and extort money from us
We both care very strongly about aesthetics.

You are another of the anti spam brigade, jumping on people who don't share your view of advertising, most of Talarus's points I agree with.
I would also have put far more stringent design constraints on adverts than the Lindens did.

Extortionists do not have a meaningful use for the land in the accepted sense, they have found an exploit and continue to use it.

Advertisers do have a viable use for the land as long as it is simply placing out a small advert for products or services they provide.
They should be very carefully chosen plots having only for minimum impact on surroundings, any Group or user has only 50 advert locations available for their use, so why would they choose to waste them.

Advertising and extortion are not the same, it is not a hard concept to grasp.

That seems to be the L$64,000 question of the month.

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for it; maybe Jack does.

I spoke to concierge last night and they said it is OK to block as long as you are not blocking entrances to shops and not placing prims on land not owned by yourself as far as they knew.
So blocking should be ok as long as those rules are followed.

Curiously concierge also said, AR it yourself and see if governance have any problem with it, making sure you fill out the AR to explain you are doing so as a test not wishing to fall foul of any future AR's. Which suggests they may not actually know themselves, how their own rules will be evolving.

Left hand, meet right hand.

They've warned and suspended people for blocking many times already. That's why I said it is the L$64,000 question. Concierge says this, Governance does that. No consistency. No standard. No clue.

Neptune, you amuse me. First you do this whole thing about being one of the residents etc etc and Sl is a hobby and if it makes anything okay but you arent busting your butt to profit - and at first it sounds like we're on the same wavelength. Then you go "you're one of those..." So far the "You're one of those..." types have proven to be in that "you're not one to talk" category. I guess type begets type. Let's hope that was an accident.

Well, there is a difference between advertising and SPAM. The only plots I saw regarding extortion editorial looked like these hipocritical taunt messages which sprouted shortly after the first adfarm thread on sale microplots. They certainly didnt do anything for the landscape.

So spam is good? No I cant say spam is good. Advertising? Well I pay for my experience here. I dont need it in my face and obviously if I dont want it in my face it wouldn't be profitable to have it in my face. If I need something, I look it up in search or in Onrez or SLX or whatever they call themselves since this week, and then hit the location for a first hand look. I am not a bling fanatic; most of my spending goes to uploads.

If I go to some mall or a commercial area - an area with shops and stores like an arcade - without the Lindens setting zones this already exists throughout the mainland by community sized groups - then advertising makes perfect sense.

It's the Lindens' land ultimately, and advertising should be arranged with them unless you're making a deal with someone on their property like said shop or mall.

Call me evil for it, and that's okay. I'm sick of people coming to SL with this "stand aside I'm here to make my million dollars" attitude. It's happened where some people got to quit their dayjobs and it's great, but it isn't what SL is really about.

The blight that was being caused by the tiny amount of genuine advertising being carried out, has been sorted out, hopefully to the satisfaction of most parties.
A few people will never be happy while any advertising is still allowed, you seem to be one of those people.

My point is Extortion of Parcels has not been even tackled as yet, the plots that previously were incorrectly identified as advertising plots due to fake harassing adverts are still all there, now sitting hidden out of sight and still just as much of a menace as they were before, waiting for people to come along and get stung.
Adfarming was miss termed, it was never about Advertising it was about slimbags extorting as much money as possible from other avatars using microparcels.
Nothing has changed and continuing to bellyache about SPAM advertising does nothing to tackle the real problem of these microplots, if anything I think it actually makes us seem to be unreasonable and harms our already very slim chances of getting the Lindens to tackle the real problem.

The next set of Harassing builds that appear, forcing microparcel sales will simply cease to be fake adverts, they will evolve into flashing sculpty statues or something that has not been identified as a problem yet.

The Lindens don't seem to have a clue what they do or don't allow on or around microparcels.
They are just as disorganized as ever, their intent to manage the mainland and make any real improvement is already showing to be a bit lacking IMHO.



I certainly don't think you are evil misguided maybe, I don't even think the extortionists which I despise are actually evil.
They are just greedy selfish wastes of space, destroying a game that I and my wife have grown to quite enjoy playing, there is enough greed in the real world without all of the scumbags being allowed by LL to continue leeching from the users of SL.

That's like saying 'advertisers do have a viable use for your email box as long as it is simply sending out small adverts for products or services they provide'. If it is acceptable to use unsolicited bulk email for advertising, at any level, the inevitable result is spam. I have seen no scheme proposed for microparcel advertising that will not lead to the same result.

The Lindens have set the threshold of 50 ads spread over 50 Sims set the size to maximum 8m in height from the ground, hopefully this makes using adverts as a harassment tool for extortion no longer viable, which was the whole point in placing most of the mess people considered to be adverts previously.

Under the new rules 8m is the maximum height and 50 is the maximum number allowed, the very small minority of people who choose to advertise in this way for whatever reason, will now have to think carefully before placing adverts and will IMO actually find it hard to find 50 acceptable locations where they can actually buy a parcel to advertise from.

If advertising done using microparcels was carried out with any degree of thought, then I doubt it in itself will ever have any significant impact on the mainland environment, only people visiting the local area of the advert will see it.
We are no longer expecting Sims to be filled with adverts as previously that issue has been solved, in the event of it becoming a problem, say higher than expected numbers of adverts appearing without any thought to impact on neighbors viability of the advert etc. Then Jack has already stated he will look at the problem again.

This can hardly be likened to SPAMMING the entire mainland.

In the meantime all of the plots previously identified as advertising plots, which never really were, are still out there holding prices of up to 19999L for 16sqm when a 512sqm plot without any cuts can be purchased for less than 2000L.

Q. What do you think is going to make those parcels sell?

A. Desperation of any larger land owners nearby when the next set of inducements arrive.

There is no indication of LL actually tackling this problem.
Which is far more toxic and real, than any future problems with advertising.

That remains to be seen, but yeah, for the moment at least, the more visible and pressing problem is the continued expansion and conversion of parcels to use for extortion.

I don't really think there's a rift between, on the one hand, those of us who remain skeptical of LL's resolve to actually enforce the advertising policy (and we have plenty of edge cases where G-Team has punted, effectively nerfing the policy in its infancy), and on the other hand, those of us--very much an overlapping set--who feel there's urgency in addressing the microparcel extortion rings while some undiced Mainland remains.

Well, if this becomes an endorsed method of advertising (as it seems to be), then there really is no limit overall. You can eventually find enough people who buy into it to where you *will* have it worse than it ever was before. Hell, even our good ol' buddy has now created a "BIG50 Advertising Program" where he will cut, set up, and sell 50 microparcels full of ads for you. Only L$40,000. Once the number of people buying into this new ruleset climbs into the hundreds, then into the thousands, there will be ads everywhere, again, and the mainland will look like crap, again.

There are more than enough non-invasive, non-parasitic, non-harassing ways of advertising events, venues, products, and services to satisfy anyone's need for advertising. Microparcel advertising is simply unnecessary.

The amount of spam in my inbox isn't from one source, it is from thousands of different sources. If it was only from a handful of them, I could manage it very easily, but it isn't. It comes from thousands of opportunists, many of them noobs to UCE and the tools used to send it, as I get plenty of "broken" emails with %VARIABLE% in various parts of the message, or missing some critical piece of information (like the spam content itself). In the end, the mainland will end up in the same kind of unmanageable mess as it has been.

I hope that Jack was sincere in his message about parcel ad spammers working with the neighbors, to the point that, for those that do not want ads anywhere near them, that they end up being forced to move. Otherwise, some form of blocking behavior is going to result.

On parcels smaller than 65 sqm enable a special set of rules


1 NO BAN LINES NO FLIGHT LOCKS
2 object control is also given to the largest neighboring parcel owner so that the "ads" can be removed by the targeted owner
3 teraforming should be limited to +-4 meters and any height rules should include hills made in this fashion


Also there should be a Special Land Council to solve problems relating to land issues
(doughnut plots corner cutting ect)

http://www.tourcart.net/tourmate/img/sites/photos/macys-herald-square.jpg_Thumbnail1.jpg

ROFL, obviously you've never been to Macy's, Herald Square. Besides the 4 story tall Macy's billboard, there is all sorts of advertising on the streets of Manhattan. Everything from hand posted banners to 20 story tall ads painted on the sides of buildings. Herald Square is FILLED with advertising in every direction you look.

Take Times Square, it's filled with flashing, 10 story high, neon signs and 100' wide billboards advertising everything from Coca Cola to Ugly Betty.

A lot of people would say it adds to the charm and atmosphere of the city, but I'm sure that some of you would find it an eyesore and petition the city to have it all removed just so you don't have to look at it when visiting.

Let's try to stick to the facts and maintain some perspective please? Just because some of you don't like or use advertising doesn't automatically mean that no one else does.

His proposal is not viable, he won't get away with it. As soon as he joins another group to setup these ads he's breaching the policy.

On one hand it could indicate the game is up and he's looking to sell his plots to some other sucker for inflated prices.

On the other hand it could indicate he thinks he'll always be able to sell 50 plots at a time, I simply can't see this working. There have never been that many people interested in this sort of advertising model, the market simply isn't there.

I don't live in Herald Square nor Times Square, but you can believe if I did, I would always have campaigned to have LESS advertising in those places.

I'm not worried about Times Square, though; I have no plans to move there. What I *AM* concerned with is Times Square moving to me, in principle, if not in actuality.

As I keep reiterating, I am not against advertising; I have done it and will do it in the future. What I am against is abusive, parasitic advertising. There are so many methods of advertising available to everyone for little to no cost which don't bother others who don't want to be exposed to it in their homes and places of business. Why people go out of their way to choose one of the most odious forms possible I don't get, but *shrug* as long as I have a way to "opt-out" of it, I can get by.

I think that position is about as clear and fair as it gets. Those who have no problem doing it, I have NO sympathy when their email inbox is spammed, nor when they have to pay to throw out literally TONS of junkmail and unsolicited crap every year. If they like it, then more power to them; I don't, and I will always keep campaigning to have the "right" to not be harassed by it.

At any rate, I don't think we're the ones having any trouble maintaining perspective here.

Perhaps, all depends on which Linden is looking at it and which way the wind is blowing today. I don't think he will get ganked for it, because when he sets them up, they will only be in that group, 50 at a time, and will leave it before starting on the next 50, so he won't run afoul of the rule.



Probably more like 10-20 someones; he still has a LOT of parcels left.



I hope you are right; I really do. One of the things I was concerned with is that many folks stayed away from the model because they weren't sure it was legal or not, or would remain legal. With LL basically putting down the rules, now the doubt has been removed, so that barrier to entry has been lowered, if not eliminated completely, too.

Well, for a few facts on NYC signage regulations, see http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dob/downloads/pdf/signbroch.pdf. Be aware that the actual zoning regulations are specific to districts and locations within districts. Note also that advertisers in NYC pay a substantial fee to the city for each sign larger than about 2 sq.m., and must submit detailed plans by a registered architect, licensed engineer, or (in some parts of the outer boroughs) a licensed sign hanger.

As it happens, Times Square has quite unique regulations for signage, requiring for example that every sign *must* be illuminated.

So, when SL advertising regulations run to thousands of pages, as do all the different district and location requirements for NYC... yeah, then we'd have proper perspective.

Because it's not for nothing that signage requires all that kind of regulation in RL. It does in SL, too... we just don't have it. Until we do, we'd be better off without any display ads at all.

I live in NYC, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Obviously you won't see billboards on Park Avenue buildings, but you can't swing a cat in most parts of the city without hitting some sign or advertisement. Every bus & bus stop, every subway car & station, every newspaper stand, every yellow cab even, has some form of advertising on it. There are even trucks that drive around with billboards on them for areas where billboards aren't allowed. People wearing billboards in places you can't drive.

If you don't like advertising or being marketed too, then you really don't want to come here. But then you'd miss all the other great things the city has to offer. Just like SL

If they decide some intersection in Bay City should look like Times Square, I don't have a problem with that, nor whatever new cities they're about to unleash (supposedly what's planned will dwarf Bay City by comparison). But the whole Mainland is not Times Square.

Rreally, it ain't for want of traffic that the Palisades Parkway doesn't look like Times Square--it's due to heavy duty regulation. For the very same reasons, if display advertising is to exist on the Mainland, it really does need to be very tightly restricted--I strongly suspect more stringently than the current policy. Except for those few spots where LDPW wants to build a Times Square.

If they can enforce that in the face of people using alts and "affiliate" schemes, it might work, but I don't believe they have the will. Spammers came up with dozens of workarounds for such limits in mailing list systems a decade ago.
Making advertisements less obnoxious is like banning porn spam and get-rich-quick spam, but leaving "legitimate" spam in place. There have been several state and federal laws like that in the US and they all came to nothing.
It won't take much o bring about a situation where you will still never be able to get out of sight of a microparcel ad or three unless you buy up all the land in draw distance (either yourself, or by arrangement with your neighbors). getting rid of 8x16 grids of towers is still going to leave an unacceptable situation.

I've seen this whole scenario played out before, multiple times.

Accepting microparcel advertising will make every part of SL into Times Square.
I use advertising, I buy things from advertisers, I have sold adspace on my website. There's a difference between acceptable and unacceptable advertising techniques. going back to email: I have joined mailing lists where the list management software included occasional ads in the list, as a price of running the server. There's a huge difference between that and supporting email spamming.
If you think turning the entire mainland into New york is acceptable, I don't think we can establish meaningful communication. Our thought processes are too alien to each other.

This is just another example of the money grabbers pushing their luck trying as always to make a quick profit from microparcels.
Most microplots are not in sensible locations for adverts, bunched together in the centre of sims where they are likely to never become visible to the majority of users.

40000L for 50 microplots badly placed is still robbery they simply don't have that value, where will the conman who thought of this new scheme find the gullible fools to fork out 40000L for 50 plots worth at most 6000L with current prices if the plots were all 32sqm ones?

Again this is an example of dishonest trickery and should be stopped this just adds further justification to my argument that microparcels and the low lifes that peddle them should be the priority of Linden Labs focus, not advertising.

Where are there any indications hundreds of users will even consider to advertise in this manner?
I just don't see it ever happening, limit the number of parcels that can be held by a single user, reclaim the current mess of plots and introduce new rules on cutting.
So we never see again 512 or 1024sqm fields of microparcels again and holes cut in larger plots to harass money from people.
Keep the intent of repairing the mainland ensure that any advertisers keep to the spirit of Lindens policy, this may mean Linden actions evolving to meet future problems as they occur, higher take up and thoughtlessness being the most likely problems, obviously the option of blocking should be available to all neighbors.

Ok first...GET OVER YOURSELF, then try NOT misquoting me or putting words in my mouth that I didn't say. THEN maybe we could have a "meaniful communication" that isn't based on crybaby entitlement, "Not in my backyard" selfishness, and a sense that only YOU are right and have a point. Stop the "Holier than thou" BS too, it really is laughable.

Most of you have done little more than whine about everything for 100+ pages. In RL, you don't get to decide for businesses how and where to spend their advertising money. It just doesn't happen.

And finally, if you want people to see your point and treat you with respect, you need to stop your hatefull attacks on anyone who doesn't buy into your delusions about what a perfect SL would look like. Advertising is here to stay, in fact without advertising you probably never would have found SL at all. It's a fact of life and it's everywhere. Just because a few of you want a completely ad free experience, doesn't mean everyone else does.

I'm all for limiting the areas where ads are allowed, and for limits on them. The few ads I own conform 100% to Linden standards and I don't put them anywhere but roadside.

If you're going to complain about being misquoted or having people putting words into your mouth, you could try granting others the same consideration. You have repeatedly characterized people who don't agree with you on the acceptability of this particular form of advertising as being uncompromisingly opposed to commercialism and advertising of any kind, despite multiple attempts to correct you on this point. You are doing exactly that in this very message. If that's just rhetoric, could you tone down the rhetoric, or at least don't complain when people take it seriously?

Most of my land is on a roadside. I've spent hundreds of dollars buying up land along the road and around our build to keep ugly builds out of eyeshot, without complete success. I'm currently blowing about 30 prims worth of our quota to *discreetly* hide an adfarm, each part of which is apparently OK by the Linden standards since it's still there after being ARed, from our land. At current primland prices, those adfarmers owe me a couple of thousand Lindens plus a couple of bucks a month in tier.

The only place where ads are acceptable is on builds where the ads are helping pay for the build.

Buying ad space on a panel in a popular club? Yes.

Parasitic ads on microplots next to a popular build? No.

It's like the difference between banner ads on a website, and banner ads injected by malware or by "deep packet inspection" by an ISP.

Pot, meet kettle.



Umm, that's pretty much what everyone has done. However, do note that this "whining" you are decrying GOT us this new policy, and its continuation will most likely get us the rest of what we have asked for, which is ALSO to your benefit: the end of landcutting and extortion parcels.

So, it's obviously more than "just whining", since it seems to be a) getting attention, and b) catalyzing change.



Practice what you preach. This is a discussion and debate. Not agreeing with your opinions and stating why isn't a "hateful attack". However, you have artfully demonstrated such with your posts several times. I've given you kudos and respect; you've yet to show ANY in return.

Advertising was never in jeopardy. PARASITIC advertising is and will continue to be. There's still affiliate advertising, Search, Classifieds, word of mouth, banner ads, the Showcase, etc. None of those are being targeted IN ANY WAY.

Again, I have never said I wanted an "ad free" life. I simply want the choice of where and when I am exposed to advertising. Regardless of whether it is a fact of life in Real Life, it doesn't necessarily have to be a fact of life in Second Life.



That's fine; just don't be incensed and spiteful when a neighbor to said ads asks you move/remove them or otherwise blocks them "legally". That's really all I have asked for; the "right" to "opt-out", and have that enforced for people who are bent on harassing me.

I think you need to ban advertisements that are:-

Not in a fully enclosed building
AND
not relevant to the parcel they're on
AND
within 10m of other parcels.