Feedback on the Mainland

focus on LL-streets would be nice and also a possibility to travel (sail, dive, fly) around the mainland on protected zones...

greetings from search and rescue
sl-sar.org

hardy

Second Life is not the USA. The USA represents around 30% of the total playerbase, so for the vast majority of SL residents, any 'cultural norms' that, as a US resident, you may be used to, is not necessarily true.

We have the potential to build something BETTER than the USA here... why should we be restricted to just what one country says?

I beg to differ here, When I first started in Second life, the first land I had was in a lovely PG sim all of the neighbors were very understanding of each other, we had banlines up, to protect our plots, but allowed our neighbours access.

All except for one neighbour trying to rent a few houses, his plot looked nice but always had the pay to enter lines up, which I disliked, but realised was a nessecary part of his business, the shame was the way they would bleed through plants and trees on my plot.
Much more annoying however was his badly placed tree which poked through the side of my home, I raised a trouble ticket which was never answered and then filed an abuse Report, after a few weeks I bought some more land in Seacoal and moved my house.
The point is LL dont seem to actually act on your complaints or anything unless you are a high tier paying member.
If they do then I am sorry but plain common curtesy would be to inform users of the actions they did take.

In addition to this I would like to point out, Seacoal was a beautiful sim, Electron and Kate two neighbors of mine had the most lovely of houses on two 8192sqm plots, Ramclan designs had a big castle on the hill, opened as a shop, with many wonderfull creations inside, the owner of Ramclan had over 16000sqm of land all landscaped beautifully, I had 8192sqm with my home and gardens in the end.
Our existence together was harmonious, and I now know how lucky I was to buy my first 512sqm in that particular Sim.

Unfortuanately about a month before the land price crash Ramclan's owner decided he had to pull out and sell his land, at which point he sold it to another lady who kept it nice but she only kept the land for a short time before selling to Sarah Nerd, as the area now looked empty, I decided to sell my plot to, unfortunately the next owner was much less thoughtfull and built a huge mega prim buisness area, this meant Electron and Kate both sold their land and moved away also.

Now Seacoal is just another messy sim like many of the others, If it had been zoned Seacoal would still nodoubt be a lovely Sim.

So zoning of future Sims I feel is a great idea, banlines have uses and can be brought down for friends and neighbors.
The main problems in the mainland are peoples lack of willingness to cooperate with each other, in circumstances like this we need Lindens Labs intervention when TOS are broken or exploited.
Please Jack act effectively against the small minority who deliberately make existance in Secondlife unpleasant for the rest of us.
Such as the small 16sqm plot extortionists, copyright theives, noob harassers etc.

It is that sort of hands on approach that will repair the mainland bring in new users etc.

I posted on the blog yd and I'm a bit dissappointed not to get more responses to the suggestions that I put forward...therefore I'm repeating them here and I'm asking for response/improvement on the ad rules suggestions - the idea is then to forward the suggestions to Linden to act upon - it's aimed at stopping Ad Farms (Visual Pollution) and the extortion, harassment etc that follows in their wake.
Pls add comments/suggestions...

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 (someone suggested a max height as the square root of the land area - that could do with a max height of 25 meters)
5. Advertizing for a 3rd party products is NOT allowed (Asian contact bureau's for girls, porn 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

That's an excellent suggestion, Dirjha...

Because they are a very serious issue, mostly for people using vehicles, Neptune. Ask anyone of the nautical community in SL what they think about ban lines. Or, anyone using flying vehicles.

They are so bad that a group of friends and I founded the Open Seas Project group with the purpose of distributing an info kit to land owners who block waterways. We provide info on how to reduce the problem and ask land owners to remove obstacles and ban lines whenever possible.

I think your idea of polling the residents is a great idea, as long as linden labs take note of the responses from all of the tier paying land owners who are most likely sick and tired of the constant harassment they recieve, and not whitewashing the subject by also adding in the response on non tier paying people who as such probably don't care.

And regarding the plot you would sell for 75L$ if this were to a neighbour who was genuinly upset by your advert, I could stake them the 75L$ if it helps

Thought and consideration is all I am asking for, why dont you make smaller less intrusive signs, if you already know they are upsetting people?

I produce some signs 4x4m on a short pole with tips on for people buying land, because if they dont know what they are getting themselves into its not fair for them to be abused by their neighbors.
These signs are placed on 16sqm parcels near extremely fragmented land, they obviously get noticed as I get comments about them, but never complaints, for more details visit my site developsl.com

Think you have some good ideas here but the problem is greater than adverts, as the thousands of 16sqm littering the mainland cause a problem in their own right, LL need to tackle that problem before any real change will be noticed on the mainland.

First of all Jack, you wrote and epistle that said the same thing over and over again, but it actually said nothing.

What exactly is Linden Labs going to do?

Are you going to fix the existing mainland properties before you add new continents.

The thing you have to fix is that:

- you have had over 13 million folks sign on to second life since inception. (0% of these folks are dead and gone never to return

- you have this premium membership that buys one absolutely nothing except the ability to buy land, and no tier on 512 sq m...whoop de do.

- all of second life is riddled with a lot of just plain ole crap. This is why many leave. When you folks come on, point them to the libraries, galleries, schools, educational groups, and things like that. They can always veer off to the crap later.

- the tier is too high for what one gets....and there are bigger jumps in tier (75 to 125). lower it a bit, and allow more tiers.


The current mainland is devastated with ghost towns, and junk. The value of land is crap...yet you own Bay City, and some people paid hundreds of thousands for small lots, and there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to it other tan the rip off of folks that think they will "make it big" in SL. There is NO making it big in SL.

I actually just visited Bay City. Really a Ghost Town of poorly designed buildings, in a moderately ok developed "neighborhood". Some small parcels are for resale for well over 100,000 for 1024 sq meter lots........ Has someone gone crazy!!!! There is no traffic anywhere to be found.

It does not matter where one decides to build an endeavor. Following some very simple rules of marketing, one can draw as many residents as they want without have to get fooled into buying these severely overpriced lots in basically a dead zone.

Linden Labs...I applaud you with creating the hype for such a project. The only one benefitting from the revenue is you guys.

As you embark on the Land plan, I cannot wait to see more of these types of projects that are very successful for Linden Labs.


Bay City...nothing going on there.

I see the problem they cause now in that instance, thankyou would love to join your group and help in anyway possible btw)my land is open for all to sail through although maybe one of my sculpty mountains might be in a poor position, I will look at it, I didnt realise it was possible to sail around the entire world so never thought about it before.

My point was to try and say yes banlines are a nuisance but they are a seperate problem to the main cause of mainland destruction, which in my view down to the freedom LL have allowed us all as adults, being abused in some cases by very few dishonest individuals. Stopping the use of banlines will have very little effect on the overall issue in my view.

The only way the mainland can be saved is if Linden Labs actively go after the dishonest few which sadly they seem unwilling to do

Jack Linden made a statement LL may in exceptional circumstances where no other alternative is possible compusory purchase back some areas, but no decision has been made as yet.

This to me shows LL will most likely not actually do what I believe is the only option if a solution is to be found for Adfarming on the mainland.

So for the time being we all have to sit back and see what if anything they do!

Zoning is a great idea for future Sims and should put a stop to further destructionon newly added continents, however Jack also stated the existing mainland would not be left behind creating a new/old divide.

So Jack how are you going to handle the existing mainlands problems? you have over 800posts now many of them holding great ideas to save things before it deteriorates further!

I agree to that, but I don't think we should just leave it to Linden.
I suggest a structure for concrete suggestions of what to do...there has been a lot of talking, but not many concrete suggetions. This is mine for Ads.

I suggest that we form some concrete proposals of what to do for the different areas of the discussion. One of the first thing would be to devide the problems into sub-items and put forward suggestions on each sub-item that can be commented/improved.

Anyone ready to do this? Is this your task Jack Linden?

In RL, signs are heavily regulated.

Imagine if they weren't... imagine a new neon sign appearing outside your bedroom window.
Suppose the authorities refused to remove it, the town hall didn't want to hear about it, and the only people who gave a care were the neighbors who had to suffer it as well.

What would happen, IRL?
I'd imagine that the sign would mysteriously 'disappear' in the middle of the night.

I'm not advocating vandalism, but I am pointing out that IRL vandalism can be conducted as a reasonable means for social change when all other official avenues have been closed.

QFT. There is a role for civil disobedience--the consent of the governed, and all that--and so far, that disobedience has been pretty much unintentional: who even knew that *visually* blocking an ad could possibly be against any sane person's interpretation of the ToS?

But pretty much every medium of communication with LL has been used to help them understand just what this ad/extortion plague is doing TO THEIR BOTTOM LINE. I believe, based on Jack's blog post, that the Linden decision makers now understand it (but god only knows what in the hell they've told G-Team!), and intend to do something about it.

I am concerned that regulating advertising first, and only later dealing with the extortion scams, is opening the door for yet another policy failure. The extortion can continue apace without advertising: there are many other means--some already in use--for extortionists to plague neighbors into buying, besides the threat of the microparcel being used by an ad-runner or ad-running alt of the extortionist.

The ads are the most visible way this unholy synergy system is destroying the Mainland, but not necessarily the most destructive. If LL waits much longer to introduce the inevitable anti-extortion measures, there won't be much left of the Mainland, and it will take years to glue the remnants back together into parcels usable for more than hosting a server and planting a fern.

Change is the only constant in life. I see changes in SL every day. Some good, some not so good. This proposed change and attention to much needed areas of repair on the mainland is welcome news.
I took time to read the comments posted by other members and was happy to see that many have put forward some thoughtful comments and questions. I would hope that the mainland issues will all be looked at, and not just to new sims.
LL has had to deal with growing pains, and not every day is a "picnic" or walk in the park when I sign in and deal with lag and other technical hiccups. But I also know that the good times I have and the friendships I've found along the way since being a member of SL have made being here worthwhile.
I for sure want to voice support on the comment that.. I hope more FT staff is added to focus on mainland updates. and rid us of the advertising blite that plagues us....

I had great hopes for this blog when it first appeared. Now I have lost that hope. Jack has not even managed to do on time what he promised on here, he set a date for closing the thread WITH ANSWERS, that once again has not happened
What hope is there that any promise made by ANY linden will EVER be upheld.

The blog preceding this was about VAT, there were a few Linden posts in reply , not ONE said anything new. The blog was just ended with thanks for your rants.

The only reason for this whole exercise seeme to be to provide somewhere AWAY from the main areas that the public can read for CUSTOMERS to let off steam.

I say CUSTOMERS rather than RESIDENTS. We are customers, I pay LL over $1000 US per month, for that amount I would normally expect a little service, I used to expect it, now I merely expect the grid to work sometimes.

To paraphrase LL start page questiom,

Has your Second Life expectation got higher or lower.

is there any chance that Katt or Jack will comment on this post ???

no, they will merely ignore it as usual.

I don't mind the idea of some kinds of zoning. However, I don't think mixing commercial with residential areas is the issue. I like having nice shops near my house and on my Sim. The issue for me is more two things, 1) Spammers and 2) really ugly looming building that blocks others views. My original purchase was on highly restricted land, which finally became too restrictive for me and my new SL friends, and so I moved.

Realistically, I can only relate to my personal experience of wanting a lovely shoreline home and then getting neighbors that want an industrial area along with huge structures to espouse their political views. This is compounded by being shot at while I walk on my property, or being deluged occassionally with visual advertising spam floating accross my property.

Since I live on protected ocean front, I like the idea of improving the look and usability of Linden land.

There are small plots of abandoned land near me, which if they were contiguous, might have greater value. I think it is too difficult to divide plots. Maybe it would help if residents could swap land without having to buy and sell it. I know I have bought nearby small plots just to add to my prim allowance on my main plot. Of course I am all for cheaper land and more prims....especially more prims, and I would buy up some of the small abandoned plots if it did not raise my tier to the next level.

In spite of these little complaints, I love my SL property and the neighbors just add another element of virtual life. I hope SL can allow me to maintain what I have, since I picked it carefully after much consideration. The really good thing is that so far, people have not found a way to steal my property or my belongings and for that reason, I have avoided ban lines, which I really hate.

I realize that a lot of people may not like what others are doing. But, I hope as Linden looks at these things that they keep in mind the rights of the minority opinion.

Bhakta Thor

I agree with you. I would get much greater pleasure from my vehicles if there were no ban lines. THere are other ways to protect your property from people that bug you...ban just them, not everyone.

If ban lines have to be there, then it would be nice if there is always an open lane, through every Sim that can be easily seen by everyone.

A better solution is certainly needed for ban-lines, however we shouldn't be so quick to strip away the rights of land-owners either. My view is that it is a land-owner's responsibility to think of their neighbours in everything they do, however, people on the mainland putting up ban-lines are PAYING to be pricks. If they want people out then it's their right too. The better solution I think is to give us better privacy tools so that restrictive ban-lines are no longer required, I mean, ban-lines are pretty useless anyway as they don't prevent a person's viewer receiver content on the parcel, so they can see anything they want.

There is a privacy meta-issue that has received woefully little attention from the Lindens and can be found here:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-241

My two favourite solutions at the moment are:
Privacy zones (flexible "zones" that can be used to block access/chat, hide objects and so-on, while still allowing you to keep your home at ground-level. The idea being for a seamless grid, rather than requiring public and private areas:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-99

Parcel basements; basically an area "under" the simulator that is completely private. You can't see into, or even download content from another person's parcel basement unless you're in it. It's a much simpler solution, but a lot better than what we have now. I still favour proper zones, but recognise the greater complexity of them:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1138

If you aren't sure about any of the proposed solutions, but want better privacy tools, then PLEASE vote for the meta-issue so it can get some real attention!

Thank you Carl I appreciate the offer; it is a little late now for that. I didn't purchase at auction and thought I had done my research well. I even asked the realtor and was told no the road would not be coming thru the land. Like an idiot, I believed her. The clearing for a roadway is at the edge of my sim even though there is no road built, and yes next door it already is covered with ads in that sim.

Now, at some point, it looks like this ugly roadway will be going thru my sim that I paid full old prices for. I will lose out on my investment, prims, and square meters but my tier will be the same. If ad farms aren't banned those little tiny chunks probably will not revert to me but sold by LL and ad farms will spring up and who knows what else for a roadway that will be nothing but an eye sore and won't even be used!

I mean let's get real here...who honestly uses these roadways? How often are they used? Oh, they might be fun to take a spin on occasionally but for getting around in SL most either fly or TP. Too many issues with sim crossings for highways to be really useful.

Again, Thank you Carl.

I am happy to see this issue posted. I would love to see a fix for this.
BT

Err No, you won't own the land the road is going on, check how much of the region you own, anything less than 65536 sqm (or just look to see how many prims you have 15,000 = full region) and someone else owns some of the land, most likely Gov. Linden.

So you haven't lost anything, you may have been conned by the person who sold you the region, but you have not lost anything that you once had.

Which has nothing to do with someone flying 30 meters over an empty house or cutting across between two diagonally connected parcels.

And email spammers say that they hardly get any complaints, either, if you don't like the spam you can just hit delete, and if you contact me you'll be removed, for sure!

So it doesn't matter who you are, how honest you are, it's too late... people won't believe you. People have been fed the same lies by con artists and spammers for getting on for a couple of decades now, and they know that if you contact a spammer he'll put you on more lists, and they don't care whether you're an exception or not... it's not worth the risk to try it.

For all they know contacting the adfarmer will lead to a bunch more ads in the area set up by his alts because now he knows they care.

The well has been poisoned. No matter how well intentioned you may be, nobody is going to believe you, because they've been burned too often.

That was my experience for years after they dropped out of the forums (when I started you left a message in a support forum here to get things like land recovery and troublesome prims removed), but in the past few months there have been major changes in the responses I've received from tickets. I'm not a "high tier" account, but I've had decent responses and prompt action lately.