Feedback on the Mainland

Give your feedback on the Mainland blog post to Jack Linden

-- Text of the blog post

This is a post about the Mainland, and more specifically, about an exciting and necessary change of direction we're taking. I'm also going to talk about why we think the Mainland is important, what we feel the issues are and some of the ways that we intend to transform it for those of you that live or spend time there. This won't be a short read, so grab a drink, make yourself comfortable and join me after the cut..

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We have come a long way since those first 16 or so regions appeared back in 2003. These days we have inworld parties that are larger than the original mainland. At nearly 5000 regions the Mainland represents around 327 square kilometers of virtual land. If those regions were placed end to end, that is almost 800 miles to drive through and in terms of area the Mainland is now bigger than Malta. The Mainland is important, it has a history, it has roots. Many of you had your first experience of Second Life on the Mainland, you may have bought your first parcel, accidentally attached that first prim to your head, or added that first name to your Friends list there. These are the largest contiguous land masses we have, each of them incredibly creative and dynamic in their own ways and home to some wonderful communities. All of the Mainland Residents deserve as good an experience as we can provide.

It has always been a diverse and exciting place to have your inworld home, but in recent times it has also become a challenging and frustrating one. We have long had a policy of noninterference, instead applying the Terms of Service and Community Standards via abuse reporting. This made sense during the pioneer period of early adopters and rapid growth, but to echo Mitch Kapor's recent speech at the Second Life birthday event, as our audience widens we have to take a more active part in guiding their experience. Unfortunately with the wonderful freedoms and creativity the Mainland offers have also come substantial problems that are unique to this area of the grid and so the time for change is now.

As Estate Manager for the Mainland continents, Linden Lab needs to become more involved. Much more. We have to actively work to provide the best experience for our customers just as the many wonderful private estate owners do for theirs. You can expect to see Linden Lab proactively resourcing, planning and taking action to better support the many mainlanders on our estate; we have a responsibility to our tenants and we take this role very seriously. We feel that this change is critically important and feedback from you tells us that you agree.

This change has actually been coming for a while. You can see the early signs of this new commitment, with projects such as the Dept of Public Works and the more rapid recycling of abandoned land. Both initiatives will continue to grow.

The problems on the Mainland are many and sometimes complex. We have Mainland land values that are less stable than we would like so we need to be more open, earlier, about how we intend to manage supply and what metrics we care about when making those decisions. We need to help you to understand why we make the decisions that we do. I'll be blogging much more about that topic soon. We need to address issues regarding highly fragmented regions and areas of problem terrain, especially coastline. And then there is advertising..

It is hard to talk about the Mainland without talking about the issue of advertising inworld; it is, without question, one of the biggest issues we face. Through office hours, emails and notecards we have been gathering feedback from all sides of this issue ever since the initial change of policy earlier this year. That change helped but it didn't go nearly far enough. Current policy allows adverts which ruin the view and depress land values for nearby Residents which is just not acceptable.

We need to professionalize all aspects of advertising inworld. This includes our relationship with the advertisers, the conditions under which advertising (especially by large networks) is controlled and the guidelines that we wish advertisers to adhere to. In many ways this is no different to how real life cities approach this problem, and our principal drive here will be on improving the quality of experience for our Residents. You can expect a much more thorough explanation of how we intend to handle advertising very soon but rest assured that this will change, because it has to.

Whilst many Residents love the ever changing aspect of the Mainland, for some Residents living there is just too dynamic and too unpredictable. We intend to provide more choice in the kinds of new Mainland continents that we make available because just as our customer base is very diverse, so are their land needs. To meet those diverse needs we plan to create different areas with different covenants in place that are actively enforced by Linden Lab; basically this means Zoning. This may include commercial areas, or residential only, or areas with no advertising. We hope to be talking more about how this will happen towards the end of the quarter.

Governor Linden owns a very substantial amount of land, and there is a lot we can do to make these parcels more attractive for the Residents living alongside. Obviously that will be a fairly long term project due to the high numbers of parcels involved.

I should probably wrap up at this point, before this post becomes a novel. But I'd like to get much more feedback on this post than the blog comments would allow, and also be sure that Residents in all timezones get a chance to give their views. So we have created a specific Forum area which should be available a few minutes after this posting goes out; so please take a look and let us know your thoughts there. To reiterate, comments are disabled for this post because we'd like your feedback on the forums please.

Excellent, it's time for change.

yayzerama! I approve!

*APPLAUDS*

A move to Mainland covenants and LL covenant enforcement is a most welcome change, as far as I am concerned. The "hands off" policies of the past have led to a lawless anarchy in many areas of the grid, that have caused many residents to avoid much of the Mainland like they would avoid a rat-infested sewer. And that is a pity, because there are many truly beautiful places on the Mainland, and many others that could be beautiful, if only some degree of order were enforced, and the ad farms and land-griefers reined in.

I do hope LL plans to hire many more staffers just to handle the in-world enforcement of these new covenants. It's gong to be a full time job for a number of people, and not just something you can throw a handful of part-time staffers at.

Thank you, Jack.

Advertising is something that does need to be professionalized, and I agree in general that it should not be banned outright. Advertising in the form of the blight that are ad farms and 16m ad plots in a point-to-point to teleport world, however, is ridiculous and there are issues with banlines too. I'm sure you will hear a lot more but basically it's going to boil down to more enforcement of the policies you have in place and a further refinement of the policy, as well as some regulations governing advertisements.

I *like* the anarchy. Except for the advertising. And perhaps, except for the hogging of a sim's resources by unusually large clubs.

Suggest, take the Linden labor you're thinking of for reorganizing, and redirect them to scan each mainland sim once a week or so, with High Justice power, to on-the-spot remove the advertising.

No args, no appeals.

Glad to see this is taking center stage.

As far as advertising goes, you need to come up with specific rules of acceptability. Take a look at how some of the bigger island chains are managed if you haven't already. Things like size, location, is it connected to the ground or free floating, number of signs, effects placed on signs (spin, particles, glow, etc). When enforcing you need to take the approach that your word is final, and then you need to be consistent.

Zoning would also be a good idea, but you'll have to do it a little at a time of course, because you're going to have a lot of areas that can't simply be labeled as the zone that they already fit into. You'll have to figure out what to do in cases like that. Grandfather existing parcels but apply the new zoning to new buyers, or offer compensation or land trades to a zone that someone's parcel will fit in. If you do go with zoning, a way to see zones on the main map would also be a good idea. It would certainly help out explorers who are looking for certain types of places.

I hope you (the Lindens) are prepared to make a significant effort in this. At this point you would need to make a herculean effort to make much of an impression. Good luck!

Will increased mainland regulation come with increased tier fees?

Does this mean land search will return results based on approximation of location, based off of different zone criteria? For example we could search for land only in or around Commercial areas or residential zones.

Funny this post should come today, I was AR'd yesterday by an ad plot/extortion person because I hid their ads. (see another forum post of mine, or my support request both filed yesterday)

Anyway you need to do something about existing mainland, not just the new stuff you put out there.

I "own" around 65K of land spread over 2 sims, thats $195 a month I spend on tier alone, the AR yesterday was basically the straw that broke the camels back.

I don't believe I did anything wrong, I am going to continue what I was doing, and if I get AR'd, Suspended, or even banned for life I don't really care.

LL is happy to take my money every month, but they aren't happy to give me the experience I expect, eg no roads near my place, no help with Ad farms/extortionist who work "inside" the rules.

LL haven't helped, and probably won't, but I put it to you this way, who is of more value to LL, some ad farmer or a normal land owning resident?

I'm a bad example, but I'll use myself.

If an ad farmer was to pay as much tier as I do, they would need to own 4096 16sqm plots, how many do?

Besides the $195 a month I spend on tier I also usually spend several hundred on buying new stuff, do ad farmers?

Basically I feel the only way I can make an impact on you guys is in the standard consumer method, take away what you want, which is my money.

I'll be sad to see my place close, everyone who visits/uses it loves the place, but I'm annoyed enough to do just that.

I'd like to see LL ASK before running a road through a wholly privately owned mainland region. I spent a lot of time building one of my regions into a beautifull renaissance village only to have SL run an ugly modern road right through the middle of it. I understand the need and value of roads and I knew it was possible a road would someday be placed through the region, but maybe you could make an alternative texture such as cobblestone or pavers available when running roads through privately owned regions.

Huzzah! on the upcoming zoning & regulations on ad farmers. They are a blight.

I saw this coming with the success of the Bay City sims. Obviously it's all about the bottom line. New sims that are zoned, advertising-free and have some creativity and thought put into them are going to fetch a premium at auction.

My biggest question is what's to become of the vast amount of existing Mainland? It's too big to police and most of it is blight...even the sims that are free from the curse that is ad farms. Are there plans to clean up and repair the existing Mainland or is it a lost cause in LL's eyes?

I'll hazard a guess as to the answer: The focus is going to be on the new sims, where there is profit to be gained. There is no real incentive to raise the value of existing Mainland. It does nothing for the bottom line of the company.

More info on traffic would be great too, Jack.

In particular, on what LL thinks about mainland land owners having traffic bots to increase traffic on their land. Camping (and camp bots) is another similar-yet-different topic that I also wouldn't mind hearing more LL thoughts on. (residents thoughts I've heard plenty of!)

Yes, I would like to hear Jack about the plans for existing mainland.

Well, it is nice to hear about "some progress", and that it is "coming soon", but it is the same song and dance that we've been hearing for months, really.

Now, we have the Governance Team removing our "protections" from being subjected to harassment and spam, citing that we can't block it, even from our own view, even though nothing we are doing is patently against the ToS. We are told "If you have a problem with someone's content, file a support ticket about it, don't block it", except that we HAVE done so, REPEATEDLY, and STILL get no response or action AT ALL. I have reported a bona fide ad farm abuse several times now, for WEEKS (others have done so for MONTHS), and NOTHING happens. NOTHING. Yet, the ad farmers/extortionists make one call, and our response to the LACK of response from you all is "dealt with" in under an hour. If you are TRULY trying to do what you are saying, then WHY the response disparity? WHY do the people CAUSING the problems in the first place get preferred Linden attention, and everyone who is suffering from their harassment getting IGNORED?

Don't tell me that it isn't happening, or that it is a rare fluke, because that is PURE BS. We have a significant number of people reporting this, *I* am experiencing it first hand, and you, as usual, are mouthing platitudes, referring to some nebulous policy change which will come into effect "in a few weeks", which you keep repeating every few weeks for the past couple of months.

We're beyond sick and tired of this situation. We've gone to WAR over it, and you are leaving us with no choices other than tiering down and giving up and/or civil disobedience, which will amount to the same thing once you ban us all for it. Yes, you will have to ban us for YOUR GROSS INCOMPETENCE. It has gone beyond a joke here, and we're the butt of it. It is beyond pathetic, and I hope it serves as an example (and a warning) to the company who will replace LL at the forefront of virtual world technology because you better believe that 1) they are coming soon, and 2) people will leave in droves from the HORRIBLE and GROSS mismanagement they have had as their "customer experience".

So, enough mouthing about "what we're gonna do", and EFFING DO IT! Not tomorrow, not next week, not "in a few weeks"; TODAY.

Wow, this is pretty neat...

As a 5 year mainland resident and co-owner of one of SL's oldest theme communities I can say that I do love the mainland, and we have made it work, but yeah, getting a bit more linden help at times would certainly not hurt.

Some of the problems we have seen have come and gone, others still stick around...

We have a 'lifetimer' plot in one of our sims which has been effectively 'dead' since 2003 (the owner has logged in i believe twice, for a total of maybe 5 minutes, since then)

There are multiple advertisers all 'around' our sims, i.e. they buy up little plots anywhere near luskwood, and make sure big bright flashing signs shine in on our residents and guests.

We've also had our share of extortionists, people who come in and buy a plot before we get a chance to, and then set it back for sale for 10, 20, heck 100x what they paid at times but with things like auto return turned off, land tortured and made ugly, direct hate signs (thankfully those are dealt with quickly generally) etc..

But yes, it would be nice to have a better and more active role from LL in helping make the mainland what it has been for us, for everyone else... (especially those who don't want to or can't throw untold years 'out lasting' the problems, one at a time)

This is very good news. As part of an online growing community at Chilbo, I see lots of things that get in the way of "organic" expansion. Maybe the "zoning" idea will help both residents and businesses.

I look forward to an end of those endless "ad farms" too - modelling on real-life urban planning sounds like a good way forward for the lab to approach it. The big question though - how long will all this take with so many legacy builds in place already?

I like the zoning idea. It's both enhancing the experience for the inhabitants/shop owners as well as working like in FL.

And on top on that, it will put some ice and needed pressure on the biggest island owners as there will be more of market competition between similar zones on mainland vs. islands.

Split zones into residential/shopping/entertainment/camping so that there is some kind of concistency, and preferably theme some sims too, for enhancing the experience.
urban/rural/coastal/old style/... you get it?

And lastly YAY for finally doing something on the unrestricted commercials

/me wants to see special sims for adfarms and commercial free all other places

If this means more unsupervised greifer hang-outs, no thanks. The abandoned infohub project from 2006 continues to be a blight on the mainland. The Linden Lab Community Team refuses to address this issue, and in fact encourages mass unsupervised gathering in these areas. To say you are going to create more of these sim resource abusing areas all over the mainland is irresponsible.

When will there be a plan in place to make these places work as originally intended? OR remove them completely and put up LEARNING CENTERS supervised by Mentors. Places with purpose (as we were told they would be in 2006) would be happily welcomed. Mainland residents do not pay tier to have dimished access to the sim's resources intentionally caused by the Service Provider.

.

A lot of ad-farming would go away with the simple enforcement of a minimum plot size of 512m as it would make the practice non-economic.

However, as long as LL mean what they say then it certainly gets my vote!

Don’t want to piss on your kebab here but I have a really nice commercial/ residential village in Imprest, so try and zone me. You cant move the goalposts morally but morals and LL well who knows?

How about just maybe using existing TOS/ Community standards regarding mature content, you know, maybe give us a little bit faith in the stuff you have ignored for ages before we get even more guidelines for you to ignore and leave us in a mess.

Sorry for the negativity but the last few days support have drained the life out of me with complete inaction over the issues that effect us on mainland. I have lost confidence in LL, please give me back the enthusiasm and well love I had of this world.

My wish list:

1) A steady concise interpretation of guidelines carried across the board, its like a lucky dip when you contact support just now.

2) Transparency with the process of reporting abuse (and things that bust the rules but have no malice but we still call abuse) and swifter action being taken on very obvious "abuse" like parcel encroachment. And not using parcel encroachment as an excuse to not officially support megas, cos it’s mostly normal prims and trees.

3) Some way of stopping people who cut land up so they can profit on tiny over priced pieces.

4) Dealing with the very obvious cutting cartel that work together, you know BTE and slBay aye cos they do work together to rape the mainland, they just do and someone should stand up to them.

5) Observing mixed use areas that are sympathetic to their surroundings, you know maybe taking a look and using some common sense to decide if areas are not causing any problems to people who actually live and work there.


I can but dream.

Love the sentiment but please don't disappoint us any more, please.

As has been said at least a thousand times before, there are legit non-ad-farm purposes to having parcels smaller than 512m2.

Sounds highly welcome - the end of "ad farmers" (despite rarely actually advertising anything, making the term something of a misnomer) will be a relief to mainland residents and visitors alike.

It also feels compatible with the earlier aim of SL becoming a platform, beyond the current "walled garden" model. When there's eventually a choice of grids, that kind of diligence in maintaining an extortion-free place to live will provide an incentive to choose Linden Lab as their provider. (Of course, it remains to be seen whether additional grids are all going to be OpenSim, or open-sourced or commercially licensed LL server code. Naturally, it'd be preferable to see the server opened up as well, with the revenue stream aided by fees to permit access to the LL grid asset servers)

Hopefully this additional attention can arrive without raising tier, given the costs of SL land remain distressingly high, at $200/mo for a mainland sim, and $300 for islands. Perhaps LL will be content to remain, in a multi-grid world, with the "premium" end of the market - but I'd love to see LL move as vigorously to expand larger-scale land ownership (on the scale of one or more sims) to a much broader audience.

Okay, ramble over. ^_^

Hello,

Take this question as it is, just curiosity Who buy lands on Mainland with such prices going on. I've been yesterday on Bay City and a 1024 sqm can cost as much as 200000 $L. Nearly as much as a sim. When I see the prices in private sims compared to that sort of prices, I don't understand what interest people find in spending such an amount of money for something which is not, at first sight, really more interesting than anywhere else.

Thank you....

After reading this news my first thought was about upgrading my account to premium. If this creates significant improvments on the mainland I may possible decide to live on a LL residential estate. I'm sure I can't be the only person that would be willing to upgrade to premium if this turns out to be as good as I think it can be.

I have to admit, Ad free and shop free residential zones on the mainland sound fantastic. But then comes the problem of people surrounding their parcels with huge billboard trees that just look awful to anyone on the outside. But this happens on private estates as well so I guess this is a minor issue.

I think the main question for me at least is how long will this take?
I know the entire mainland won't all be instantly transformed overnight, but will there be significant changes before year end?