Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

I agree completely, Esther. I have no doubt that is their intention. The point Jack asked us to discuss is whether the steps outlined are going to advance the realisation of these intentions. (at least that was what I understood). This is an oft repeated refrain, but all my back garden is roadside. So perhaps you will forgive me if I do not share the common view that roadsides should be left to go to hell (along with the good intentions?)

Maybe you should read this part:

"unless you have written permission from Linden Lab to exceed this limit"

When is a limit not a limit?

I was disappointed with the revised policy but kept reading to see if you had any words of wisdom on the obvious problems with it that others have pointed out.

So, okay, Jack, I'm willing to focus on "the intent" and give you and LL the chance to prove you really mean what you're saying. I hope you realize that LL's reputation is on the line and a lack of action on this may be the last straw for many. I'm still in "wait and see what happens after Oct. 1" mode and I fully support and applaud your intent to be active estate managers for the mainland.

Be that as it may, a couple of suggestions on the revised policy (if I'm repeating, just consider them additional "votes":

1. Please consider disallowing full bright - it's pretty annoying in my opinion.
2. The 8m height limit is better than I expected. If possible, please consider a width limit as well.
3. I know LL is defining networked advertising/ad farms in a specific way, but please consider the detrimental effect of clusters of ads within a particular sim owned by different individuals - maybe a per sim limit, as well?
4. And finally, could you extend the "no rotating" idea to "no movement" - rotating is not the only distracting type of movement possible, I think.

Thanks and Good Luck!

Petronilla

Find an advert, look at the name of the land and search it in the database.
Then when you find that plot look at the owner UID
It will bring up all other plots by that owner and the Sims they are in.
Then just visit a couple of the sims if more than 50 small plots show up, to make sure the adverts are in place before putting in an AR.
The information isn't easily at hand but with a small effort it is easy to get what you need.


The intent of the policy might not be to get residents ARing every advert in sight but if it is still necessary to do so, then they will do just that.
I would if it was the only option left to me, and I am sure everyone else will to.
LL state on their Abuse reporting help page that if you think an offense is being committed then put in the AR don't not put one in because you think it may not be an actual offence.


LL might have been better to license advertising, as that would have lowered the number of reports coming in, but they didn't so they must be expecting plenty of AR's to work through.

Hope this helps

@Esther: re. the 50 limit, allowing someone to exceed that would be very much the exception and if we do allow it, we would probably need to be transparent with the community about who and why. Realistically, I can see few of the current advertisers for whom we would consider allowing more than 50.

Quite apart from the types of advertising that have been a problem, the sheer number of adverts has also been a factor. Hence there being a limit. We can see from our data when someone exceeds that limit, and take the appropriate steps. And just to reiterate, advertising itself is not the issue, it's the way it has been done that causes the problems (along with them being used to push land sale).

Jack

Esther,

I apprecaite that you are trying to help, but tracking down the land ownersip, visiting 51 locations, photographing each one (because without documentation, an AR isn't taken seriously), and then ARing, asking if the account in question has permission to go over the 50 ad limit, is not a small effort in my book. Especially when the original plan would simply require the one-step process of asking if the ad owner has a licence.

If you stick to the limits there's no need for the grey area. There's also no need for the accusations of bias, or mention of FIC.

If you wanted responsible advertising and the scope for people to have more network advertising you should have stuck with the license idea.

If the current advertisers aren't good enough to get more than 50 plots, why are they allowed any?

Something stinks about this.

People are annoyed because they dont want ads near their homes - they probably object to shops too... why not identify regions as commercial or residential dependent on the current predominant use....

and if a region is deemed residential ban shops and ads there. Those who move into commercial zones know what to expect

...seems so much simpler than all these current rules youre putting into practice.

The problem with this database is that it only lists maybe half of the mainland sims, and the bot does not go to each sim daily, so much of the info is out of date. However, to my knowledge it is the best that we non-Linden staffers have access to, and I appreciate that the poster has made it available to us. Also, we do not have access to information about who is using what alts to get around the rules, or who has permission to have over 50 ads.

Therefore, it is completely unreasonable to expect residents to try to determine how many ads an adfarmer has up at any given time. The Lindens have access to the accurate data and they absolutely have to be the ones monitoring the number of ads any given individual and their alts are using. This policy simply cannot be enforced solely through the use of AR's. If Jack and his crew are committed to checking their databases regularly for changes and TPing out to the locations to investigate, they will be able to keep up with it, and that's the only way the policy can be enforced.

Part 5 of the CS..

The can be (and has been) interpreted as meaning that adult bits must be walled off or otherwise non-obvious to people who are just flying around.

We have always been moved on to find new plots by filthy, lewd aggressive advertising. put in situ by morons that don't give a damn about the creative content of the SL game, as in the tell you to rack off if you ask them to calm the sexual nature or tacky colours of the ad.

Perhaps SL should do what most major cities in RL do, have a red light district and let these advertisers put their tack there? They could have hundreds of ad's then wouldn't bother me. I am guessing much of the *over* advertising in SL is counter productive anyway I am guessing most folk like us condemn it and not use it. I guess someone is making a buck a somewhere from it though - hey ho.

.. On to my next bain, those freaking moles that build roads and put trees!!! sheesh..

Puppet,

You are right. The new policy demands that residents trust LL to track and enforce the regulations. I hope it works.

The change from something as transparent, open, and obvious as licensed or non-licensed advertisers to a new policy where compliance will be a secret known only by LL, with residents unable to varify compliance for themselves, makes that trust difficult.

I went to the G-Team meeting this evening. They point out that they are reliant on AR's. How on earth can this be policed? Linden Lab simply don't have the resources to do it, nor would I expect them to.

However licensed advertising plots, heck that makes governance a lot easier. Just who was arguing against licensing, because from where I'm sat it wasn't the residents who complain about ad farms and extortion plots.

Thankyou Jack for the quick reply.

Jack

You said probably regarding informing people about groups being allowed more than 50 adverts and then few of the current advertisers being considered.

Does this mean a few are being considered and you may choose not tell the community who has been allowed?

I only ask because people will pick up on the wording I am sure, also using Zolens database, and no doubt there are other similar ones these groups would be quickly identified by users after October 1st.

Please make it transparent when groups are given consent to exceed the 50 advert limit.

Taking a route of transparency from the outset would help to grow trust between the users and Lindens hopefully


I think this policy is going the right way btw without restricting legitimate business and keeping the policy open enough to act on any violation loopholes as they appear.
I am sure other users will feel the same way as they begin to witness the action of Linden management taking place across the mainland.

The extortion racket has always been my main concern, so I can only thank you for addressing it and wait to see the results for myself

Jack, Can you really? Can you tell whether a plot contains an advertisement, as opposed to something else, without visiting it? Can you tell that instantaneously in real time to deal with scripted intermittent advertisment? If so, some of my concerns will be eased, and there would be no need for ARs as you can detect transgressions automatically.

The proposal looks very good! I am particularly happy about the "clearly PG" statement. You can get a quite tired of having to stare at boobs and butts every day. Perhaps you need to specify what you mean by PG though? Or is that already specified elsewhere?

I think these rules will take care of most of what is disturbing in my neighborhood and surrounding regions at the moment. Except the adds that are inbetween resident lots... Perhaps you should add in the rules for ads that they are only acceptable by roads?

I am also glad to see you have added roads on the old Linden land. I have waited for those roads for 1,5 years.

All I have to say is... THANK YOU LL!

My main concern is that I worry what people will complain about! At Burning Life, someone asked to move parcel because they were next to the Porta-Potties!

This revision of the ad farm policy is somewhat ambiguous.

Our group owns thousands of plots. At present, we have no plans to use any of them for the purposes of advertising. However, let's hypothetically say we do advertise on 50 plots, does this mean because our group owns more plots, we are in violation of the TOS?



Global warming, poverty, human rights, over-fishing etc are issues that concern me very much. Requesting they stop seems rather futile.

Enforcement Linden: Hello Mr. Extortionist
Mr Extortionist: Hello Enforcement Linden
Enforcement Linden: You own a 16m plot surrounded by Ms. Average Resident and is listed for sale at L$9995.
Mr. Extortionists: There are no ads, scripts or annoyances on the land.
Enforcement Linden: It's for sale at L$9995
Mr. Extortionist: I can sell my land for whatever I want.
Enforcement Linden: We request you stop.
Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.

I don't think they can tell an advert is there Drongle.

But I bet they can tell prims are placed and scripts are in use, this coupled with owning more than 50 small plots, should make it easy for the lindens to track people down.

Ask yourself

How many avatars/groups hold multiple plots of any sort?

I would think it is a low number.

How many of those hold multiple small plots?

I bet its a much smaller number.

LL must also know how many avatars a user has as well and when these combine to hold even more small plots.

Couple all this with Abuse reports that are bound to be flying around, it shouldn't be to hard for LL manage the situation just the way they said they would.
They have stated they will firmly discipline any people caught violating the new rules from now on.

Lets see what they do come 1st October.

If advertisers play by the rules and lock ads to ground level... what will Lindens do about those who deliberately block the ads by surrounding the land?

Well probably the same they've done previously, it's a very sore subject.

Ooookaaay...

Let me see if I get this right:

1) The Governance Team says they will be relying on ARs

2) We, the average residents, have no idea if an ad plot we're looking at and which belongs to a particular person or group is #1, #21, #51, or #10,561.

Probable results: We, the average residents, not being able to know if the ad plot at which we're looking is breaking the "limit of 50" rule being bandied about, will most likely AR any kind of ad plot on the principle of "better safe than sorry" and/or "Let the Lindens sort it all out." This leads to:

A) The Lindens being swamped with ARs, and consequently getting almost nothing done

B) The Lindens, in an effort to get SOMETHING done, adopt a "shoot first and ask questions later" policy and simply disintegrate anything that gets AR'd, leaving lots of innocent, angry residents in its wake

C) Perfectly LEGITIMATE advertisers, working hard to stay within the new rules, will get caught in this crossfire and blown to pieces along with the guilty ones, since though they have 50 or fewer ad plots, the average residents have no way of knowing that and AR the law-abiding advertiser's plots along with everything else.


...does that about sum it up?

Right now, I would guess at least a few hundred, including all land dealers. Jack can tell us. I have multiple plots myself! After store owners start collecting their entitlement for advertising their stores and the big advertisers start franchising, it could become several thousands, mostly of the inccrease being small plots.
If everyone ARs all the adplots they see even though they can't possibly have real evidence of transgression, then perhaps a well-prepared pooling of all the data might allow effective action. Personally I will not AR just anyone who I see has a few ad plots, without convincing evidence. I would regard that as harassment.Let's not just wait and see. Let's actively try to help them make the most effective possible decisions before October. Or at least help them to be ready for the consequences of the decisions they have made.

Jub who cares, nobody wants the advertising do they? surely this is what is all about... I/we advertise stuff but we don't get up anyone's noses about it. We do it by paying on searches. If peeps want our wares they do a search on them simple..