Feedback on the Mainland

Like the guy I just kicked from our residential only estate for building a casino/mall/store. Or the other guy who is about to get kicked for wanting to also build a casino.

That's the point really isn't it. Linden Lab can't even manage to make the rules clear "casino's are illegal in Second Life" much less enforce them, themselves. How in the world are they going to manage 5000 estates worth of zoning.

*Trin

I wonder Katt. One thing I can't help but surmise is that LL has lost touch with the residents. One only has to look at Mysti's posts to realize this.

Mysti is one of SL's best citizens, yet she is not "big enough" to get personal attention from the gods.

For all you oldb's that posted under your real handle, don't 'cha think that much has been lost never to be regained? It's not anywhere near our world anymore.

Katt and other Linden's will pay lip service to our posts, but I am beginning to suspect that they have become so far removed from the real SL that they can not comprehend just what it is that we are saying.

The issue for me is not about restricting people's freedom in any way or determining what you can build on your land. Rather the issue is to do with residents being considerate to other residents when building items on their land. People's taste may vary widely, but there is a general concensus about bad taste and ugly design. The idea of building objects that are not a blight on the landscape is not a bad one, since it could be seen as part of the learning curve of skillful building, apart from not undermining local resident's SL experience by offering them an eyesore too look at. Like it or not monstrosities dangling in mid air for instance are rarely pleasing to look at.

Interestingly Mitzy, your arguement for the right to build whatever you want on your land as if this is some kind of right of freedom, seems to me to be the exact kind of argument advert farm owners have been using. Of course there has to be some kind of consideration and respect to all residents when building on your land, and if people aren't capable of demonstrating this for themselves. others like Linndens are inevitably going to do it for them.

Believe it or not, I'm actually optimistic that things will eventually change for the better. Linden took on a massive amount of resident growth over the past couple years, and residents & Lindens alike were unprepared for it. Resident happiness took a big body-blow as a result, and there are sore feelings to this day. That's water under the bridge now, and every day is a new day.

If there's anything I'm saddened by being 'lost', its the personal relationship Lindens once had with their residents. But I don't see that as something that has to be gone for good. 2-way conversations like these are a small step in the right direction.

I would like to apologize in advance if I am repeating someone else's opinion, I haven't read all the posts.

First, I think it is about time LL did something about the mainland and some of the solutions Jack Linden mentioned seem to be going in the right direction.

I have a couple of suggestions, especially at a time when some private owners may perceive LL as a competitor, not knowing perhaps that the first examples of Covenants and Zones were created by Linden Lab and are found in early regions like Boardman and Brown at pedestals placed at every intersection. The problem with these early covenants is that LL or the owners have not always enforced them fully. I am sure this is going to change now but it should change for better, not for worse. Sudden shifts of direction are never perceived as positive, so please take the following into consideration:

1. Collaborate closely and respectfully with private island owners, especially those who are experienced and reliable and proved to be not only profitable for Linden Lab but also fair and helpful to their residents.

2. As I suggested many times, allow parcel owners on mainland to have more power against griefing. For instance, you could organize groups of landowning helpers/administrators who might take care of things like ejecting and banning people from regions and restarting regions when needed. These administrators could work voluntarily and perhaps get some form of monetary consideration if their performance proves to be efficient and beneficial to the residents. To avoid problems like stress (which occurs, I was an admin so I am aware of it) or abuse of power (another danger when you realize you have powerful tools at hand), these administrators could work for a definite amount of time, such as three months, six months or a year, then be placed on a waiting list until they are needed again. This would also allow turnover.

3. Whatever change you wish to apply, experiment with a selected group of regions first, then extend the new solutions to the rest of the mainland after verification.

4. Translate covenants into other languages. I am Italian and when I translated English-language covenants for the benefit of compatriots, the number of Italian residents in SL increased. Everyone likes to feel at home.

Thanks for reading this.

Sandor

Jack, the first tool in dealing with this in my experience is communication, individual land owners may not have IM to email on, and group members may be supporting land they are unaware of. Only the Lindens have the ability to communicate with these people that someone is interested in purchasing their land. Like I said, we have made extremely generous offers with no response at all.

This may be a little off-topic because it is more about how we are discussing this rather than actually discussing this.


I have been monitoring this thread regularly and it's now got to the point where even after 12 hours there are more new comments than I can catch up with.

My gut feeling is that the brain storming stage is nearing completion and we now need to close this thread and summarise the topics so far. We could then resume the discussion on different threads which would help everyone see what has gone before. Just in case include a thread for new issues.

I just had a thought about the Mainland as it applies to auctions.

Two sims are won at auction. One is bought by an end user who wants to try his hand at a rental sim. The other is bought by a land flipper who quickly carves it into 2048 plots and sells it off for a small profit.

The first sim is a rental for a while with Heart palm trees, waterfalls and tiki torches and eventually is sold to another end user who turns it into an urban city with rental high rises. A year after the sim first sold, it is still intact, still attractive and devoid of ads.

The second sim's 2048s are bought by various residents and most are divided again and some of them end up in the hands of ad farmers. A year after the sim first sold it's a bloody mishmash of a mess.

I don't know what my point is, other than I wish more people would buy full sims with the intention of keeping them. Hmmm, maybe my point is I wish they would lower tier.

I've made the suggestion before (also in another world for similar reasons), but I think there should be a sell lockout for 30/60/90 days after a piece of land is bought. It would seriously damage the land flipper/resale folks, but it would promote end user purchases.

Yes. When they are flooding sims to the auction, flippers buy and sell as many as they can in a given tier period to maximize profits. If there was a lockout, this practice would cease. But LL would lose a lot of there biggest tier contributors (although I guess they have to lose these folks temporarily from time to time anyway when they put a freeze on full sim auctions).

I don't know if anyone spoke of it, but please provide infrastructure on new continents (roads and walking areas between the individual plots. I have some questions too: how do you plan to avoid what had happened in Bay City where the prices of the few available plots sky rocketed in auction? Will it be possible to exchange the land owned elsewhere on the mainland for equivalent plots in the new continents?

That does sounf cool, making 1/4 or even full sim sized city blocks with 4 lane roads running along edges so you only sim crossed when you went in doorways.

oh I like that idea.


Sims with Info hubs should not contain any privately owned land.

Yes it does appear to be a contraction to some of the things I have been saying, but in reality it isn't (at least to me)

I'm a resident of the region, unlike an ad farmer, I'm not building to be a problem or fleece anyone, unlike an ad farmer/extortionist.

While I can see what your saying about consideration of others, fitting with a theme, I think thats a by agreement kind of thing.

In Ezquerra (wont talk about Stanlee, thats my ad farmer problem area) there is a few varied builds, a stately home, a steam punkish hamster cage thing, a nice beach house, a tropical beach with a tiki hut, a guy with a friends only club, and a tent to name just a few.

None of it really fits with anything else, but you know what? We are all happy, we all get along, and there certainly isnt a theme or flow....

I'm a valid advertiser with 12 brands to promote(my own). I use 300+ ad blocks as one part of my marketing. My blocks aren't for sale and not used to harass - just plain ads. I get good click/response rates from them - proving they are not loathed by everyone, and have a valid use. I have a few suggestions based on what i have read here, and my own experiences.

1/ a maximum price on small parcels, and perhaps a standown time on reselling.
2/ the ability to visually mute anything you want, added to the SL viewer. Don't want to see ads? Vismute them. Don't want to see banlines? Vismute them. Don't like an ugly build? Vismute it. Individual choice - not "impose my Vismute on others".
3/ better rules and response on harassment - ie; people actively encouraging harassment of other AVs/land owners via profiles, signage, etc to be censured
4/ a maximum amount of "divide land" actions per day/per account, based on land size.
5/ no ban lines on small parcels

I haven't yet figured out a way to make this work in practice, but I think Adz has the right idea. As many people have touched on, there's simply too much mainland out there for LL to adequately police, and even if they could the opinions of the landowners involved should be considered as well.

Some kind of system where landowners in a sim can form a mini-government, and be able to enforce zoning would help a lot, I think.

I'm envisioning something where each landowner would have a say in sim-wide decisions based on how much of the sim they own. And then, for example, the seven landowners who hold 90% of a hypothetical sim could return objects placed by someone who owns 1% (ie. 16sqm). Unfortunately I haven't yet come up with how that would be implemented.

And yes, I do see the potential problems with this idea and how it could be abused. But I still think the basic idea has merit and hopefully others can think of ways to refine it into something workable.

I'm with you, Raymond. I feel good, though, that the Adstortionists are all POd. Maybe now they'll know how the rest of us feel when we have to see their crud spread all over the mainland and next to our properties.

I have spent a huge amount of time, running into more than 1,500 hours in the last six months creating, managing and monitoring a sim on the mainland. Our intention is to move to islands, but we need a more sound method of raising money in order to do that.

However, the last thing we need is an imposed change which puts us to a lot of extra work with fair notice. This should not be just, "from next Saturday blah blah". Changes which may change our operations substantially need to receive notice measured in months, not weeks or days.

Stability is important, both in the stability of the grid and viewer, but also in the stability provided to people creating content. For example we have spent over 400 hours working on just one new game we intend to introduce. If you change the rules on our operations on the mainland and make that game unworkable it would be very damaging for us and for your own ambitions.

Please take a very measured approach to anything you change and if it does not involve infringements of the terms of membership, consider if you really need to change it at all and how it may affect operations in sims which use similar methods without causing problems to neighbours.

Thank you.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spectre/53/168/49

About those Ad Farms...

I was told by a longtime member that they came about because 4 years ago LINDEN LAB made 16m squares to put up election promos, then just didn't reintegrate the pieces back afterward, and the 16m parcel began.

Is that true? Did they start it all by spamming Mainland themselves?

I've read the artice and it sounds promising...

ADS
-----
Especially the part on the Ads - I just recently had to use in all 7900 L together with my neighbours to get rid of two AWFUL LOOKING Ad Farms (in all 64 sm of land at the prize of 123 L per sm) - an Abuse Report has been filed!!!
.
My suggestion is:
1. Adverticing is allowed on OWN land in connection with OWN business on that land
2. Ads are NOT allowed in residential areas
3. Ad signs may NOT contain any bright lights, neon or flashing lights
4. Ad signs can have a max height of 10 meters above ground
5. Advertizing for a 3rd party products is NOT allowed (Asian contact bureau's for girls or what ever...) OUTSIDE your OWN building/structure and may not be obviously visible from outside the building/structure
6. The term "Visual Pollution" is introduced and can be used against Ads, Ad lookalikes and other structures that are OBVIOUSLY in CONFLICT with the surrounding area

Governance
--------------
Whenever a community in Denmark makes changes in of the infrastrucutre of the community - new building(s), parks, roads, parking restrictions etc - the suggestion (The Local Plan for the affected area that has to be made for any changes) is sent to public hearing with a deadline for response.
I suggest that Linden uses the same approach - description of the changes to come are sent to general hearing in the affected area(s) with a deadline for residents in that area to respond.
This is a more bureaucratic approach but has at least three obvious advantages:
1. Residents in affected area(s) can have their say on the development of the area
2. Linden uses more structured approach for any changes
3. Linden gets an approval of changes from residents

On buying land
-----------------
The selling process of land could be changed in the way that an offer can be delivered directly on the land in the selling process (the land costs 10000 L - I offer 9000 L if the owner agrees to the offer the land is sold to me at that price). This will simplify the selling and bidding process.

A dedicated SL user
Dos Yumako

But so could two landowners with 26% each force a third with 48% to demolish their home, cut down their trees, force them to sell out, etc., etc. It does sound nice, but the potential for bullying, especially of the small new landholder, seems just too great.

Heres what Im getting from all the recent changes LL has been making with regards to land.

They have done everything they can to sell private islands EXCEPT lowering tier, which they will only do once there are other options avaiable (other grids) and Island sales fall off completely, not in response to any pleas by the community because they are losing their collective butts. Thats all about the bottom line for LL, how much can we make, regardless of the effect on the economy or losses to residents.

The shift to mainland focus is inline with this attitude, in the near future there will be multiple grids, private island owners will have the clear option to exist on another grid and LL's private islands will be very nearly worthless. around that time LL tiers should start to fall for private islands, or else they will just maintain them and accept the fact that private islands will lose their investment and hop to one of those other grids. They are already preparing for this in a few ways, although its not in the blogs.

That leaves LL with mainland, where they are the sole estate owner, it will be the only reason to own land in sl, it will have to compete with other grids, but it will be the established "place to be" - so they now have to start paying attention to it in order to prevent a wholesale exodus form both private islands AND mainland to alternate grids.

Cleaning it up is essential to this and is the only good thing that will come of it. But in any case the value of the mainland will also have to decrease because of the additional options of living on a different grid. If you own islands now, expect to lose your shirt within the next year or so. Frankly, unless you are operating a successfull business that covers your entire land investment, the best idea is to stop investing in land until the bottom drops out.

After that it will be almost free I expect. Or at least you will have almost free choices, including hosting your own island on your cable connection

So now the adplotters can take US$ 14 of your money in profit AND buy another 1024m to make 64 more adplots! You have all my sympathy, but please people, do not play into their hands. Do not give in to extortion. Please Lindens, stop these people NOW.

Actually, this is an exaggeration because they do have to cover tier, but this means there is an achievabe level of resistance where their "business" model becomes unsustainable.

if you want to end these extortionate ad cutters bussiness model simply beat them at their own game. LL will have to respond eventually. if an adplot appears next to your property, dont buy it, sell yours at a slight discount to theirs, break it into 64m chuncks and sell it off - put ads on it, do what they do. take the money and either, dont buy anymore land or... go to an established communitiy and try again. let the wasteland become a waste and eventually LL will have no choice but to step in and fix it, for now you are funding the profits of both LL and the adcutters by buying the plots and paying the tiers - why should they bother?

Below a summary of some useful tips to improve the relationship with your advertising neighbour.

(1) Welcome them immidiatly as soon as they appear: approach them in IM, send a friendship offer and tell them you feel honoured having them next to you as a neighbour. Its better to have a good neighbour instead of a foreign friend.

(2) Create a buffer between your land and his ad space.. In that way his ad keeps visible to all residents passing by. If you dont own all the surrounding sides then ask the other residents to coorporate as well. The Advertiser must feel welcome..

(3) Ask the Advertiser to put up banlines in order to protect his property, you dont want your friends walking onto his land damaging his wonderful creation dont you ?

(4) Tell all your friends about your new neighbour, invite them, plan an event and show them the ads and promote his business. It will boost the Advertisers income/web traffic so he can expand his business : The helping hand

(5) Ask the Advertiser if he knows some more advertisers .. With some luck he is connected : the more souls, the more pleasure and your view will improve too. More view . same tier !

(6) If you really want the neighbours parcel to be rejoined with your own property then make a friendly offer but please be very cautious you dont insult him/her. Current average price for a 16m2 is about L$ 3500 so by offering L$ 5000 you have a good change he/she ll set it for sale to you. If not call dr Paypal or loan some of your friends and offer the double. Some really put a lot of time in them ad spots and you dont want your neighbour to end up with losts..

(7) Ignore all indoctrination from protesting newbies ! Avoid land protecting groups: true TOS violators.

( Inspect the Advertisers creation. Some have forgotten to enable the "full bright" option so they cant be seen at night. Help them out, they certainly will appreciate and you ensured yourself of a good nightview as well.

(9) Dont put down trees in your garden. Advertisers really hate them ! Put down spinning boxes or sky reaching green particles : much more appreciated.

(10) If a 3rd party approaches you about extortion then answer quite simple : There is no extortion !

I think this should work , feel free to add some additional tips.