The Question of Land Cutting

I never said it "looked cool". Might be bright pink, with lots of glow, so every alpha texture on your plot is washed out. Who knows? Doesn't take much to find a combo of things that would annoy most people.



I'm sorry, but didn't I just say that we thought the current ToS should be able to handle it back last year? Why, yes, I do believe I did! When Jack said "no no, we will have to draft a new policy for this!" is when we started writing up suggestions for potential policies, because that was the track that LL wanted to take.

The "extra policy" isn't for our benefit, it's for Jack's and, by extension, LL's.

The problem is that LL let the situation go for so long that the practices had become firmly entrenched and embraced by a fairly large number of people, to the extent that no one believed it to be against the rules. As such, while a whole new policy was not necessary, something had to be drafted that basically said "oops we messed up and need to clean up this mess that we allowed to happen", without actually saying it, but instead burying it in policy language so LL could save face.

In the past, it wasn't specifically against the ToS to adfarm. However, it was beyond clear that adfarming was harassing and abusive. Did LL take the tack that it was against the existing harassment policies and nip it in the bud? No. We had to go through TWO policy iterations, spaced EIGHT MONTHS APART, to finally get it under a semblance of control. However, we told Jack then that it was but ONE FACET of an overall harassment and extortion problem that needed to be addressed in totality, otherwise, the people behind it would continue on simply changing their tactics, and the ones who were already using other tactics would simply continue on with business as usual.

Guess what? That's precisely what happened, and now we have them trying all kinds of new tricks in preparation for what may come from this policy. LL takes months to get to a policy. The parasites can change their tactics in DAYS.

No, you can maintain 32 griefing plots and keep the pressure up on 32 times as many people.
It's profit that makes it a major problem instead of an occasional annoyance.

NO MICROPLOTS, NO PROFIT.
None are addressing the problem, so far.

*plonk*

One person is one person too many.





Yet, your suggestion isn't to remove microplots. Thus, you're not going to achieve the "no profit" part.



That's the one thing we're definitely in agreement on. Hence, a VERY GOOD reason to change to a kind of policy AND enforcement that is going to GET RESULTS, for a change, I would think.



Yeah, neener neener to you, too, pal.

I've given an argument for every reply. As far as getting my way, this whole thing wasn't my idea. I've never even suggested it on the forums, but I applaud it in its most draconian form.

And frankly the whole discussion is ad hominem, in a way. There's really no argument against it being presented other than "How dare you! Dictatorship! Unfair! Rhubarb, rhubarb!"

This is about abusive people doing abusive things and users having to tolerate some inconvenience for it. It's hard to address moronic behavior without calling it moronic. The only hard data to me would be the land values and overall level of disgust with the mainland as it is. Beyond that we're talking reigning in the uncouth and unscrupulous among us punitively.

If we could assume the best of people we wouldn't have to tweak the system. Do a fly over and see how well that works. If a small minority weren't without care for this world or their neighbors this wouldn't be necessary. I really don't know or care to know you, but if my description above hit close enough to home for you to be offended, well, I feel for ya, I really do.

If you happen to own 50 little 400m parcels on the mainland that are too far apart to consolidate, that really sucks for ya. Sorry ; ;, but I weigh the viability of the mainland way more than the bad business choices of a small percentage of individuals.

Make anything smaller than a 512 unable to be sold for more than 0$, and you remove incentive to abuse without weighing LL down with more and more investigations. People can still cut small spots, they can still have their rentals. Eventually, the orphaned plots will be abandoned and it won't be an issue at all. In the meantime give people whose land is taken a bit of credit toward a full 512 in an area that all these plots are consolidated, and call it a day.

In general, I feel pretty much the same way, with the exception of caring about others who are innocent bystanders or victims of this problem.

I've seen more than enough of the dark underbelly of the mainland to know just how disgusting it can get; there are some REALLY lousy, soulless people out there. Even though it is just a virtual world, the levels that they are willing to stoop to for a few measly dollars, putting others through all kinds of hassle and torment. It's disgraceful, but for humans, it is par for the course.



There are several major flaws with this.

1) Screwing over a LOT of people who are doing nothing wrong to get at a rather smallish group of miscreants; the "gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette" approach. If it was the ONLY way, perhaps it would be considered, but LL is likely going to shy away from anything that directly devalues ANYone's land holdings right now, with the OpenSpace fiasco just off their bumper in the rear-view mirror.

2) Making small plots unsaleable via the land sales mechanism doesn't address harassment at all, and will likely only slightly inconvenience the parasites. Yes, they won't be able to make LL their "bagman", as Argent put it, but quite a few of them are ready to act as their own "bagman", and they have every incentive to follow through with sales. In addition, a number of them are quite willing to change their tactics to suit the policy. It is not beyond the pale for them to do something like "pepper plotting", combining multiple microplots all over a region into the minimum necessary to sell at an even more exorbitant price, probably aiming to hit the bigger landowners in the region, or the majority of the owners together as a group to come up with the extortion money. Don't think it won't happen, either; there's already hints on the wind of similar tactics.

3) Diddling with the land sales mechanism on a technical level requires the development team to get behind the changes, get them implemented, get them tested, and get them rolled out. It's most likely not going to be a simple "few lines of code fix", as there will have to be some action taken to address the thousands of existing microparcels which are already set for sale at a non-zero price. As such, even if LL is willing to adopt such a plan, it will likely take many MORE months for it to work through their development and vetting processes before we actually see it rolled out to the grid. To me, that's another X months too long. With a policy, it can be implemented *NOW*, or as soon as it is inked, and the team is given their playbook and trained on it.

Just an idea, not sure if it's been suggested (or rejected) before. This is a long thread and I'm coming in at the current end.

How about LL reclaiming all microplots in a sim and setting them to no-build, etc, and offering them to the landowners adjacent to them? If the landowners don't buy them, then they simply sit there, doing nothing and not really annoying anyone too much. Perhaps paying the owners of the microplots an amount of $L equal to average/fair value? The odds of a high-priced, 16m or 32m plot selling seems generally next to nil, so the microplot owners are getting something reasonable now, rather than possibly never getting something exorbitant sometime in the unforseeable future.

Perhaps also offer the owners surrounding a microparcel the opportunity to absorb the plot for free, giving up an equal amount somewhere else on their property so their tier doesn't go up. After all, a 512m parcel with a 16m microparcel digging into its side is probably going to be oddly shaped to begin with, and many might be willing to "trade" one patch for another to regain a "normal" parcel shape.

While I agree that having tiny parcels is a problem that should be addressed, I have some reservations about HOW it is addressed.

I think the act of cutting a parcel into smaller parts should not be proscribed, but there should be limits on the sale price.

I would propose that if the parcel is SMALLER than 512 a formula be applied to what might be an acceptable price for that parcel.

A quick look at the land for sale shows that about 10L per m2 is close to the average going rate for 512s.

So, to "encourage" people to not chop land up into smaller sections, cap the sale price, but not at a fixed rate. Try something like:

12 (L per Sq M) * Size of the plot * Size of the plot / 512

Yes, the factor is 12, giving a base price of about 20% over the average for 512s.

This would cap the price of a 496 plot at 5766 L, but cap the price of a 16 plot at 6 L.

Or, it would limit the price of a 496 plot to 11.63 L per Sq M, while the 16 Sq M plot is priced at only .38 L per Sq. M.

This would instantly take any profit incentive out of cutting up land.

Second thing is don't make this limit a hard and fast thing in the software. Make the act of selling tiny parts at a price over the calculated limit be a violation that someone can report. (e.g. you have to actually TRY to buy the land at the fixed price. If you buy it, then it would be assumed that you consented.) If someone wants to sell the land at a higher price and another party is happy with that price, then it is a deal between consenting adults and LL should keep our of it.

This would allow anyone to chop their land up into as many small sections as they wanted for whatever reasons they may have, but selling that land would certainly not be very profitable. It would require no new software development. Of course, if LL wanted to extract information from the database on land for sale smaller than 512 to produce a report (and be proactive about the problems) that would be fine as well.

So many comments, and now another.
!. LL should buy back all 16s to 511m at mainland average price, excluding parcels at or larger than 512m2, currently about 5Lm2.
2. Plots smaller than 512m should be consolidated to that minimum contiguous usable size.
This may mean relocation of some, well within LL god powers to do.
3. 16s to fulfill the 512m or smooth a border should be added to landholders account and billed to the account at the mainland average price. This also applies to "doughnut holes." If the 16 was used to add prim,and on a road or sea, attach as many as needed to form as rectangular as possible border to that 512.
4. If the land because of a road or sea is cut off from the rest of the sim, and is under 512, let it be absorbed by LL as a public sandbox area or as parkland.
5. Let land cutting be permitted within a 512 or greater for media or scripting uses, with the provision that if the land is sold, such doughnut holes are automatically joined to the surrounding land.
6. Let the SL mainland lot size be no smaller than 512m2.
This may take some time, and when done, each sim should be marked as such until the process is completed.
This is as necessary a piece of zoning as PG and M, to ensure the long term best possible tier revenue for LL, and to make mainland attractive to all player levels. Island "owners" will certainly complain. Only if they provide a service that is above and beyond the mainland experience will they be able to draw renters to keep their sims. Frankly, until now, that bar has been set so low as to make mainland more a second slum than a world.

That's my view, too.

I think that solution has the virtue of not creating a labyrinthine thicket of exceptions and labor-intensive enforcement requirements---something that certainly would be created by a policy based on prohibiting cutting.

But there will be great resistance, among the Lindens themselves, to anything resembling price controls (even if they are linked to market prices).

It's a philosophy thing. So there will be great angst among them.

Hmn, posts that are that limited seem to be.....well, I haven't seen any, really, let alone seen that type as being the norm. If they're the norm---and, as you claim, no other argument has ben presented---then you should be able to give us, I don't know, the numbers of 80 or 100 posts, which contain only 'unfair!' as the argument...right? Out of the hundreds of posts here? Should be a pretty simple task, if that type of post is the norm.

(I don't mean that no one has posted the exact words from your post [though I don't think anyone has], but rather that I haven't seen those sentiments or the 'how dare you!' idea presented as the one and only argument. But from what you say, that should be the case with virtually EVERY post! Yet we don't see that...odd.)

Instead, I've seen people stating actual reasons for not prohibiting the existence or creation of parcels smaller than 512--and there have been quite a variety of points made in support of those positions.






Interesting tactic (accusing someone of being offended). Has it ever worked?

There are problems with price controls as the only way to stop land cutting and extortion. Requiring parcels smaller than a certain size (256 and smaller? 496 and smaller?) to be sold at average market value will go a long way to remove the incentive for cutting and extortion, and should be part of the policy. But, as has been said, the highly motivated miscreants will find a way to get around this. Either by joining separated parcels to larger than the maximum size for price control, setting their cut land as "not for sale" (until you communicate with them in some non-recordable way), or some other means we haven't thought of yet. That is why the INTENT to use land as a means to harass or extract an excessive price (extort) must be clearly defined as a violation of the TOS. Both elements need to be in place if this is ever going to make a difference.

I do agree that land cutting needs to be a violation

One thing that’s cool about land cutting is using it to make a message or pattern that will be seen in yellow on the world map when viewing land for sale. Just saying it’s cool.

This one is a little complicated. Sometimes there is a need to subdivide land and sell several plots to the automated bots in order to accurately gauge the most current wholesale land values.

Set a Fixed Pricing schedule for land sales of parcels that are less than 512m when the land is set for sale to Anyone. The price should be a fixed rate. 1.17 Linden dollars per meter.
For land sales to private individual’s transactions would remain the same.

Something to consider is setting a limit on land transactions per month before a resident would have to register as a land seller. In my state you are only allowed to sell seven vehicles a year any more than that and you need a dealer’s license.
A seller’s registry would be good for buyers and sellers. A simple page with seller’s names, ratings with two choices, positive rating or neutral rating. There would be a fee and it could be like a classified.

Have a huge reunion sale that would use the regular viewer to change the color of all Linden land that LL wants to sell to adjacent land owners and a follow up sale for legitimate land restorations groups then registered land sellers.

Then forced merger to any adjacent linden owned land. If none is present land will be merged with the nearest adjacent land owner. That resident will be added to a linden group. The land added to that parcel will be set to LL group to prevent massive over billing due to any possible tier increase.

Notice should be sent to all residents if possible informing of issue. Any known offenders have 30 days to conform to new guide lines.
Create a separate https that has a list of the mainland regions and residents can help by selecting a region and then entering a name.

When setting policy it is important for LL to consider its own land holdings be it abandoned land or other acquired lands.

Any alleged cutter deserves some time to adapt to the new changes and to participate in the land reunification process.

Land that has been cut should be rejoined.

Knowl Paine

First let me express that i am glad someone is thinking of making mainland more enjoyable.
I have read most of the posts here before answering to not repeat too much.
I found that I totally agree with Kim Anubis here!
Since the ad board problem is solved, and also hovering annoying objects are covered, the rest of the "annoying" 16sqm parcels could disappear on their own. All legit uses should not be influenced and have a chance to continue.
Agreed though also to a limit on terraforming on these parcels, maybe also object entry restrictions and ban lines, since that could be a tad annoying for the neighbours.
Forcing Land owners to join back parcels might not be a good way to go either.
There are so many other ideas how to make mainland more enjoyable.
More roads, info places, openspace water landscapes, something pretty even, maybe lowering tiers too?
The openspace additions can help to reduce lag too. Can be either oceans, or forests, or mountains, anything that looks good and makes no lag basically.

Talarus: "The policy needs to stop the BEHAVIOR,"



Do you seriously believe that extortion *requires* microparcels?

Just a small reminder to those who think any past offenders should be banned from SL; you cannot punish somebody for doing something that was legal (no matter how immoral) at the time they did it.

If you'd ever want to ban somebody for land cutting,you should atleast give them sufficient time to link back together those small parcels.

As for how to fix the issue of land cutting; how about imposing price caps per region? i.e. a 16m2 can be upto 16 x the average 1m2 price that land sold for on the region previously x 1.16 to allow for some profit. Similarly, 32m2 can be 32 x that same 1m2 average x 1.32. That way, larger pieces of land will become relatively more expensive than small ones, thus making it benefitial to create large pieces of land. It also allows for local differences in price of most-wanted land, based on past behaviour. The numbers can vary to make the differences less extreme than this example.

so you suddenly need to be a maths genius to price land to sell it...and wealthy to buy a larger parcel...NO THANKS

I own by now 1/16 of a Mainland sim. I have my private area and my Club there. And i often devide the Land into small pieces, when building new houses, rearrange the Look of the Club. And i use small parcells to play media streams differentiated in the several rooms of the Club and the house or the garden.... and so on.
And sometimes just to controll the access on my ground for special events (a live musican can rezz his stuff, without beeing a member of the Club-group: the parcel below the stage gets open access, the rest of the Club only group-access.)

As long as they are not to be sold, small parcels are quit usefull and that should be allowed.

But cutting the land just to make money with these puzzles - NO.

*Do you agree in principle that land cutting needs to be a violation?

I'd say personally anything under 512 meters is almost pointless but can understand smaller plots of 64 meters. So yes, off with their heads.




* Are there any legitimate reasons for land cutting (excluding profit) that we should consider when setting policy?

Yes, media is one that I can think of. I know for me when I had a few sims I'd sometimes have a smal cut for different media.



* With land that is already cut up, but still mostly owned by the resident that cut it, should we ask that the land be joined back together?

No, as long as they don't try to sell it or place ads on it I see no worries.

Now if I can get Linden to waive land fees for mainland under 1024. I can add the chopped up over priced 16m pieces to my current meager holdings.

Well, mostly they can't link up enough contiguous microparcels anymore because they've already sold them off to assorted other scammers in order to be able to spread their tier across as many scarred sims as possible.

But they can try to sell them off at the ceiling price, or abandon them. Yes, they should get a couple weeks notice to do that after the details are public, but it's not as if they didn't have plenty of warning already that they'd have to do this eventually. It's been a risky scam all along, and that risk has been steadily increasing--especially after LL made quite clear that they would act as Estate manager for the Mainland. If the extortionists haven't made their windfall by now, they just weren't paying attention, and it's not LL's or anyone else's responsibility to mollycoddle scammers and guarantee profitability of their past abuse.

This is not an option, there are many many mainland plots between 16m and 511m that are just split up and deeded to groups for land management reasons.

It's not.

Which is fine but they could make a compulsory purchase of the currently for sale plots then ban the sale of any plots of such sizes in the future, below 256 or 128, whichever is more feasible and then make a strongly worded policy that practices deemed as unsavoury in the future will lead to punishment, this should not been seen as a precedent.

The uses for smaller plots have been exemplified in this thread, the sale of them is I think where most people have an issue.

I am surely repeating someone as I have not read the whole thread.

There are plenty of legitment uses for mirco plots, just none involve selling them. Please do not limit the land tool, just make them unsellable. Or at least only sellable at or below market value.

Please do not limit minimum parcel size. Infact I would rather see 8 and 4 meter plots, so when trying to make a plot at an angle the edges are not as jagged.

Please don't limit our building tools to solve this one.

Thanks.

Quiet interesting reactions.

Let's hope LL will find some solution.