Feedback on the Mainland

Supposedly Jack was asked personally in IMs about this today and said : "we rarely change protected land, though sometimes we may beautify it with trees etc"

Now all this land claims to be protected even under the new names: Stonijier etc

I am still looking for an answer from a Linden whether or not this is going to go up for sale. It effects the income I use to PAY for the land. I will want to move, I need to inform my slip rentals. Besides, there is great number of businesses off this area that were purchased because of the water access.

I have yet to get a straight answer from anyone.



Mentors were told by George Linden that open space water was going to be auctioned. Support told me the same after checking on it for me. I personally just want a simple YES it is or NO it isnt from someone in the KNOW.

I know it sounds like alot to ask .. clear concise answers, given the way this forum seems to be running.

I am glad that LL is talking about doing something about the ad farms. No one wants them so why are they there? other than to be an eye sore for others, they have no use when most people use the search and TP everywhere.
As for builds, not much can be done about that. What one person considers art another considers blight.
I would like to see sim owners on the mainland have more control over there parcels like an island estate owner has including texturing the landscape.
Other than that, thank you for listening.

we can learn from RL that zoning is regrettable but inevitable. In the US, one of the key values protected by zoning is the historic past. Historic District zoning is now common in most large cities and often in the small. The RL Preservation community has a 40 year track record of experience in historic zoning and quite a bit can be found on-line especially at sites maintained by State Historic Preservation Offices.
I teach Historic Preservation at New Mexico State Univ. and this Fall will be offering that class completely in-world. We will concentrate on identifying historic Second Life places worthy of preservation. The start of my in-world Register can be found at my web page:
nmsua.edu/tiopete

I am a firm believer in Open Source, Creative Commons and Open Courseware so what I post for students will be accessable to all, residents those who have yet to venture into the virtual.

all should fee free to contact me about this topic.
don't hesitate to use my real life email: [email]tiopete@zianet.com[/email]

make friends with the past and protect the future

tiopete

Thoughts from another newbie (basic membership, a few months old):

Zoning appeals to me. I wouldn't mind seeing some mixed light business/residential/park zones. That might even help some who'd like to open small shops in a "neighborhood" type of setting. I'd consider upgrading in order to buy a 512 lot in an area like that.

Some of the posters brought up the thought that zoning would kill off imagination/freedom. I don't buy that.

Oh, and put me down for not liking those ban lines. I almost considered buying a nice little lot but I noticed what looked like police tape across an otherwise lovely view of the sky from one side. That killed the sale for me.

I got hit with the same thing, I appealed, got some insane answer which I still don't understand.

Sick and tired of it. I have changed my invisible prims to a nice platform I'm building a house on, it goes from ground level to about 100metres up. So far it hasn't been returned to me, I keep expecting it to be.

I am kinda pushing the issue, if I *CAN'T* build what I want on *MY* land that has *NO COVENANT* because some damn ad farmer has a 16sqm plot nearby, then LL I want all of the tier I have paid since day 1 back, because I am not getting what I pay for.

I've trudged through most of these 32 pages of posts and I wasn't going to post myself but it seems that LL and Jack are saying they are listening to the limited number of people posting on the forums and jira instead of just putting up surveys to ALL residents of SL to get a more truthful answer of the wants/needs/complaints of the entire population instead of a vocal "few" (My opinion wholly is that a small fraction of the users of SL are represented by those who post on open forums. I'm not seeing 60,000 posts per day average when there are stated 60,000 avg daily users logged in).

My opinion, being a mainland owner is this; ***Don't bring in a bulldozer because you spotted a dandelion in the middle of your yard.***

What seems to be the biggest problem with mainland? AD FARMS, ADs... Period. Define this? The use of any plot solely for the purpose of stealing the attention of someone ELSE's hard earned traffic.

This is not the same as having small plots all over for people to live, build, entertain, etc. This is just what it is.... making a plot of land for the purpose of using YOUR traffic to make THEM money.
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Next 'opinion':
We buy mainland BECAUSE we can do what we want on it, have a modern build, have a medieval build, have a fantasy build, have a cloud city, have an urban city, and most of all, because we can change out minds or try something different if what we have built is not going strong.

Change our minds...Meaning that if the zoning is in force, we have to move? Why? We have invested our hard work and money into your system and helped you grow. Based on what you promised, and the guidelines you set when we 'bought in'. The few that think this is a great idea because they can somehow profit more by seeing 300 meters away without incumbrance, on mainland, will not outweigh others who will end the bleeding of funds and just give up on this whole system.

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You aren't going to be able to do any kind of revamp without thousands of people getting angry no matter what you do. The way you set it up, they bought in. Now people want to 'govern' what others do. What is pretty to someone, will be ugly to someone else. Noone has the same tastes and noone will agree on what their 10 sim area around them 'should' look like. Be realistic. If you implement zoning on existing mainland, you will have riots.

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Another problem area? JIRA...
Have you looked in there lately? Have you seen items that are there for months and months without ANY attention at all? Hardly anything in there is weeded out, old things that don't apply aren't removed...it's impossible to find the right place to post any additional information without spending literal hours scouring it? If your users were all programmers, the kind that wrote the jira itself, maybe it wouldn't be such a mess as it is, but you wanted ALL users to use it, and it looks like they did and for lots of us, it's a waste of space. Again....even there, you are listening to a select few who spend all their time posting in it.

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Lastly....I don't really agree with putting forum posts up as a way to get a good sampling of the 'majority' of your users. You're reading every post , which comes from every heart who posted it. But, You'll find a LOT of people don't want to put their name out there in a public forum to risk being chastised/ridiculed/confronted or even mildly rebutted. But those same people will likely put their vote in privately on one thing or another. So if you are going to stick with this method of communication, at least give the shy ones a way of putting in their 2 cents in their own way. Try posting more polls either on login or here in the forums.

Actually, group ownership with group contributions allows us to get away from having to buy huge swaths of tier, by filling in the gaps with premium accounts bonus tier. We rarely have as much as 512m free tier.

This model would be fine for Lusk, but it would hurt smaller groups.

They already nerfed the ban lines so you have to be right next to them to see them... and that really sucks for vehicles because by the time you see them it's too late to do anything about them.

Make "ban line visibility" a preference, OK, so people who would rather walk into them than see them can hide them completely, but I want to be able to increase the range I see them at.

I could go for this , but do have concern for people like ------- names removed by Katt Linden ------ people who if they advertised with sensibly sized billboards and followed their own webpage promises, would not be so bad.
If the above idea were implemented.

Time is for action now Jack you have seen the posts, ban lines everyone seems to be against, many people put off using your mainland because of the extortionists.
------- names removed by Katt Linden ------ and the rest of the robbers out there.

If there is a preference to treat large extortion group owners with more help, when they make a complaint and the evidence certainly seems to suggest there is.
Then I would like to know why, it makes absolutely no sense to me as surely small tier payers with 512 sqm plots actually benefit your company more in the long term.
a sim full of 512s would make LL more money than 5 sims owned by one user(if i got my maths right) approx 126 x 9 = 1134 where as 5 x 195 = 975
Where is the logic in treating these criminals Robo and friends with a softly softly approach when they are stopping LL attracting new users to buy mainland property.

Do us all a favor and either make their type of activity impossible to make profit from, so they give up and go looking for their next scam elsewhere, or just confiscate everything back into your control including their ill gotten gains, making it clear if they try to start up again they will continue to be dealt with in the same manner.

Surely if the later idea were followed everyone becomes a winner except the perps !!!

Yahoo Esther jumps up does a little twirl dances around a bit actually thinking for a second LL might put a stop to adfarming.

Then she sits back down knowing it was only a dream

Averave the per 16m2 sale price for all Mainland Property Sales.
This constitutes "Fair Market Value"
Limit all land sales under 256m2 to sell for The Averaged Mainland Price.

I was just going to post the very same thing.

I also support the idea of being able to set the "ban area" above ground level, so that people can have a false sense of security in their skybox at 3254m altitude, and allow free access everywhere else in their column of 3d virtual space.

OK, I don't like jumping down LL's throats, but that is just ludicrous. That's a redefinition of "access". We *need* http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1017 !

Have to agree. Ad farms are the biggest gripe. A few simple rules and a small amount of resources would easily handle this.

As a company, rather than putting out restrictions, jumping in and creating more mainland content (taking away from the creativity of individuals ... "our world", remember?), and increasing company costs with possible extra costs to implement changes, costs to prettify mainland, costs to have to have employees do things such as monitor this very forum. It's far from efficient. It's a huge waste of time, money and resources for LL.

I also don't think people care. We want our land and to have a decent view if possible. How many people would care if roads all over SL disappeared tomorrow? I doubt it'd be 2% of the population, so why bother?

All these things add up to cost, cost, cost and don't solve the biggest issues people care about in a way that can be quickly and simply implemented. Make a rule about ad farms, call it done .... NEXT! (wasn't that easy?)



Agreed also. People that spend enough time to get this involved in forum posts, office hours, and jira are either highly addicted, which is fine or the even bigger issue ... 95% of them have an AGENDA. This is NOT a sampling of the community in general, but rather a sampling of a hardcore group of users who all have their own agenda that they'd like to see carried out. If you really want to increase user experience, then ask the USERS, not the land barons, merchants, etc.

Perhaps these events are symptomatic of a certain naivety in the investigative approach of the Governance team. It sounds as if they treat each incident in complete isolation, failing to take account of patterns of behaviour by certain frequently involved individuals. If they were to step back once in a while, and look at these patterns, it would surely shed light on the real sources of harassment. An enforcement team interested in optimising its efficiency and accuracy would do well to be using this sort of analysis.

{PS I am neither a land baron nor a merchant.}

That's true, except that a lot of new land goes through a phase of showing up as "protected land", that seems to be a default... I'm sure he's talking about real long term protected land, like roads and waterways, not sims that are in the process of being set up.

There have been big exceptions, like old telehub lands, that were originally protected and then were released for sale.

You really can't depend on it.

That's awful, so the extortionists ban everyone which limits a legitimate parcel owner from doing much because everyone is banned on the other three sides. So the person who gets the warning and their objects returned is the person trying to use their parcel for legitimate reasons because they put up screens to protect their view and all the time the ad farmers are laughing their heads off.

Is common sense too much to ask for? If someone has screens up and the parcel next door is full of ban lines and set for sale for L$9999 it's not hard to work out what the issue is.

This "being blocked on all sides" policy has to go. The person can always tp in on their own land. They don't have a right to the view, and they don't need the right to access others' land to get to their own. There is no need for easements. That is a policy change you can make pretty swiftly and easily, and would eliminate absurdities like what Mitzy and Esther and others have spoken of.

Sad but true .. Yesterday a Resident got ARd while saving his view

[15:56] Mr Linden: Hi .....
[15:56] Resident: hi whats going on mr Linden ?
[15:57] Resident: all those panels were on my land
[15:57] Mr Linden: I'm returning a great deal of walls that have gone up between properties.
[15:57] Resident : why?
[15:57] Mr Linden: If you have issue with what is on the other side of your parcel, please report it rather than block it.
[15:58] Resident: was i just too close to the line?
[15:58] Resident: but cant i put what i want on my own land?
[15:58] Resident: everyone else has that right
[15:58] Mr Linden: not to the point that is surrounds someone else's on 3 sides.
[15:59] Resident: why not, they still have acces to their land what part of the TOS does this violate?
[15:59] Mr Linden: if you have issue with the content on someone's parcel please report it rather than putting up walls.
[15:59] Resident: at part of the TOS have i violated?
[16:00] Resident: what
[16:00] Resident: please explain
[16:00] Mr Linden: Residents may not use land as a means to harass other residents, restrict the freedoms or movement of another Resident or disturb the peace in a region with visual spam.
[16:00] Resident: i am not spamming the ads are and i dont restrict movement and i am not harassing
[16:01] Resident: i just like big green walls
[16:01] Mr Linden: If the ads are, then report them
[16:01] Resident: that gets no actioon i dont know why you limit my freedom and not those of others i am constructing on my own land
[16:02] Resident: this is highly unfair can i appeal these actions of yours?
[16:03] Mr Linden: Yes you can go to http://www.support.com/secondlife and file an appeal.
[16:04] Resident: thank you is this your personal policy or that of LL, many of these panels have been in place a long time
[16:04] Mr Linden: We respond to abuse reports, if they have never been reported before then we have never seen them.
[16:04] Mr Linden: I will double check any reports on the objects that are in other parcels
[16:05] Resident: i am not abusing anyone i am just trying to make sl a more pleasant place to live and you should be doing that too
[16:05] Mr Linden: You may add that to your appeal.
[16:05] Resident : i have recieved many words of support from neigbors who hate looking at those ads
[16:06] Resident: your policy here will make the mainland a wasteland
[16:07] Resident: i am so sorry that you and LL are taking the side of ad spammmers
[16:08] Resident: you will ruin this place so many have left and i may too now this is so unfair
[16:09] Resident: are you still there?
[16:09] Mr Linden is typing...
[16:14] Mr Linden: Resident, if you have any more questions I'd suggest you include them in your appeal.
[16:14] Resident: ok, you have done a great diservice to second life today my friend

Note: to protect the Resident and the LLC Employee i did change their names

I keep an eye on what remains of TWO 512sqm Add Farms in one of the sims where I own a substantial amount of land. Let's see....

Size Extortionist Price Content
64sqm C. E. NFS A Very Ugly Garden
64sqm C. E. 2500 4 small rotating forsale signs, 1 ground plaque
32sqm R. M. 5000 Empty
32sqm A. H 1995 Empty
16sqm N. T. 7999 Empty
16sqm H. T. 999 Empty
16sqm T. S. NFS Add Tower 30-40M tall
80sqm R. F. 14999 I am Banned, public is Banned, Scripted Object
16sqm A. H. 1495 Empty
16sqm T. S. 999 Empty
16sqm A. H. 1495 Empty

Totals:
368sqm 7 A-holes 32,981

It would only cost me 32,981$L to get rid of it! What a deal - why, that is only about 90$L a square meter! But, that 30-40M tall add tower would still be there. With that money, the extortionists can go buy lots of 512sqm and setup all new add farms and perpetuate the problem that LL needs to stop.

Why should a small handful of extortionists get away of ruining it for the masses?

um... wow.

Could it be that this policy change on walls is to make us grumpy?

Make us scream for blood so that when LL do whatever it is they have in mind they can merely say it was because the residents demanded it?

Naaaah, LL wouldn't be that underhanded....would they?

That's quite small. Go and have a look at the northern edge of Chiron, and see the end-stage of current mainland evolution . I think we could do guided tours. Jack, you should go there too.

I agree that this jira is very important for many reasons beyond the advertising problem, and voted for it a long time ago. But it is not available today, in the current released version of the client. And today, good residents are being grief-AR'd by adfarm scum who are not content with poisoning the Mainland experience, but are now given a green light to poison the accounts of owners of adjacent land.

This must stop *now*. G-Team must get unambiguous marching orders that no access-blocking ARs are to be acted on under any circumstances until the new adfarm policy is in effect. There is no excuse for this.

Thank you Esther for your kind concern.

It's my my worry too, that I will slip between the cracks again. One can only endure this sort of thing once or twice without becoming jaded.

We have spoken a few times in-world about these very issues being discussed here.

I can be gruff sometimes in the way I manage things, people and land. As you know, the word "adcutter" included in any sentence pertaining to me, raises some hackles. Again, I feel stuck in the middle of all this mess, which has little or nothing to do with us, despite our best efforts to be good to our friends and neighbors.

Jack, please accept my apologies for painting you with broad strokes. It's not geared towards you personally or professionally.... I'm just very, very frustrated at being a whipping post for the masses. It's my only hope, that my experiences are examples for how things should or could be.

That said, it's probably prudent of me to write all of this down and submit it to you in report form as opposed to ranting. In the very least, please read it. Likewise, I'm only too happy to assist you in whatever plans or actions undertaken.

Oh, be sure to send all your outrage to [email]jack@lindenlab.com[/email] so he can promptly "get to it", like the last email I sent to him was "handled".

At least, that's what he told us all to do today at his office hours.

Be sure to include AR numbers, ticket numbers, chat logs, whatever. Everything. Inundate him with not only the information but your outrage over the stupidity foisted upon you.

If it were me running the G-Team, there'd be a few reprimands handed down, and the rest would get a stern warning to put this situation on hold until the new policy is released "in a few weeks".

This behavior by the Lindens will do nothing to help, and will seriously inflame the situation prior to the solution arriving. A point which I tried to get across to Jack before he directed me to /dev/null/email.