The Question of Land Cutting

It's been raised a few times now, and it could matter: Do we know of actual incidents of using "undetectable" land sales to circumvent the earlier adfarm policy banning harassment prims on for-sale parcels?

I always assumed it wouldn't be viable because, if the buyer reported the practice to LL, the not-for-sale seller would be in deep trouble. But that was just my assumption.

Also, the buyer would have to trust the scammer enough to front them the money on the promise they'd then set the land for individual sale. I don't see any reason to trust them to do so because the whole transaction is a violation, so reneging and pocketing the "gift" would be no-lose for them. But maybe enough buyers would be willing to take that chance.

So my question: is this a real problem, or do we think it really will be if a price cap is set? If so, is there some special ring of hell to which the perpetrators can be sent, beyond account closure and IP ban? (E.g., can LL craft a policy such that this violation would have RL legal implications, such as theft of service or something?)

this could all be solved by making it imposble to cut smaller then 512 lots on mainland or you could make to so you can only cut into 1024 lots but then you might be alienating noobs and freeloaders *grinz*
But in reality there's really no reason why to allow smaller then 512 cutting...set the controls to cut in 512 lots on mainland I think this is a great idea for mainland

These are just a few stops along the mainland tour of shame. There are likely many more examples in every sim all across the mainland.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dongyeongju/155/181/58

Includes the 4 corners (which are in the middle of the cut, not even the corners), many potholes, all crazy prices. extends out along the road also.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nangrim/86/10/65

This is what can be done to render a 512 totally useless. It includes "corners" which are seperated but linked, one not even at a corner. Numerous potholes, hoodoos and random prices and lots of garbage.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nangrim/90/93/75

This is what can be done to make a 1024 totally useless. There are old panels, potholes, random ads and a bizarre shaped 512 for sale, totally surrounded by smaller cut 16m for high prices, and random ads.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nangrim/47/171/75

This is also what can be done to make a 512 totally useless. There is a 320m parcel a 96m parcel and then 6 16m parcels with the corners at prices like 777L and 840L.

This is the type of parcel likely to make a new user frustrated if they don't realize what they are buying. As that user realizes 320m is not enough to do anything on, they are then forced to expand and buy the higher priced parts of what was once the same parcel. That is what the landcutters and extortionists bet on. The amount of assistance available to new users is totally scattered still. The scammers then prey on this by strategically placing themselves where they can make the most $L out of someones lack of knowledge.

If they unwitting buyer decides not to give in and piece a decent parcel together, their only choice is to move. Likely they will dump their parcel to the bots- allowing it to get chopped up further. Or, they will abandon it. Either scenario adds to the rot of the mainland.

What is even more likely the result will be that they will get frustrated and leave SL altogether, thinking it is nothing more than a 3D version of the Nigerian money spam.

If I had my choice I would make parcels a 512 minimum unless the parcel has some odd sq meters left over by chance. I would agree with limiting the add farm 16sqm activity as the land is not for sale by the owner and also on a larger parcel owned by the same owner not some where else surrounded by other owners. I agree with the old add farm parcels should be clamped at or below the surrounding sim parcel pricing. I have some sizeable parcles I would like to sell near my other parcels but Im afraid the new owners will divide it up into 512s and a bunch new small scale land owners will make it look like a jumble of junk ( no harmony in the builds to make it look better).

...and the haze rolls over his eyes, while his strings whine and crackle due to the cutting wind that has frozen his Masters guides to all his actions.... this whelp of a Linden seems braver everyday. Why shouldn't he? He has crushed every viable money making business in SL in such a manner that residents pack up and leave their respective money makers. They abandon their land "en masse". They leveled out currency trading to the point that it would take the conviction of being whipped 16 hrs a day to make any worthwhile money. They destroyed casinos based and a lie of legality and yet they commit atrocities to their people that parallel Despots of ages past while their acts if taken outside of Second Life would have many of them facing down multiple life sentences from the real criminal courts that they have conveniently stated have caused their casino tear down actions. Advertisers were targeted as a threat due to their propensity to propagate what information they saw fit and this could influence people in a way that Jack and every other foul creature who behaves like this seems to be proud to be called "Linden". However in no way did they attempt to discern the greifers from real advertisers but rather.... they let a fear filled community enraged by a small number even more cowardly entrepreneurs crush the SL communities best ally, their power of free speech. And Jack and foul Lindens spurred the people on. Now on to the biggest SL uprising, the largest protest in the (lets face it) infinitesimally short life of SL. The attack on estate owners! These wonderful people for the most part provide an excellent service. They hold island estates that anyone can rent out for a nominal fee that contributes to profits. These investors in SL pay tiers upwards of $6K+ per month and only pull off 1.5Kish plus in profits. Along comes this idiot with his squad of lechers, cowards and unqualified staff and hikes the prices that force a extremely high percentage of them out of SL. From this day forth let Jack Linden be known as the Sheriff of Nottingham. And the Lab only delays but did not correct this flagrant abuse of its residents. They have heart....

Now here we are. Land cutting.. the real issue of the adfarming griefers. The one Smakin Jack should have confronted in the first place when dealing with the ad farm griefers but instead allowed his eunuch self not to behave like a man but instead a mouse. He plans to make all those people that did nothing wrong pay the price for investing in second life and shaping the face of it.

The decline in numbers despite the Labs creative numbers generator showing stable if not growing stats for logins is such a joke these days that I chuckle when I see it everyday.

1. Yes
2. No
3. No. Leave it up to the owner. Sink or swim, it's up to him.

That doesn't work for all land owners.

Cutting allows for specific landing points. I was a land owner once and did not want landmarking all over my sim (privacy and pay area reasons), but did cut landing points for the mall (which only made up part of it).

Highly-motivated miscreants will always find a way to get around rules (laws) and procedures meant to prevent them from robbing banks.

Does that mean there should be no rules (laws) against robbing banks?

This is not a good argument against tying the maximum price of small parcels to some market-price measure.


You did then go on to say that 'intent' must be included in any new rules.

A lot of people are saying this. But as some other people have said, and I think correctly: interpreting 'intent' is tricky, and LL doesn't have a sparkling record on this.

To be fair to LL, I don't think any company could, because 'intent' is basically impossible to attribute fairly and even-handedly. When you're trying to guess at someone's emotions, based on their conduct, context is everything---and the context will be different in each and every case. (And we all know that LL is not going to devote enough personnel to this to check out each context in anything resembling an adequate fashion.)

My point is that if 'intent' is made a part of the rules on pricing land, injustices will occur and LL will create widespread ill-will for itself. It's a can of worms.

I bought a wonderful seaside parcel, with a Linden channel on one side...it's gorgeous! 1488m.

I have to pay tier for 1536m,of course: that's the way it works.

Someone in the sim is leaving; they had bought some little bits, for the prim-allowance, when the ad-farm policy appeared. They have a 48m that has a 10-prim allowance. It would be great to have those 10 extra---since I'm paying for them already, really, with my monthly tier payment...

But I CAN'T buy it, because a new policy has made the 48m parcel 'unsellable'.

QQ











This, I agree with.

So, Jack, you see the can of worms you have opened by asking the wrong question? As is now quite obvious, the issues is not about small lots (however defined), it is about harassment (however that is defined). I suggest you should now contact the major estate owners and ask them how they deal with the problem. The blog has ground to an end. We are beating a dead horse.

I am not arguing against price controls on smaller parcels - they need to be an integral part of the solution. And the fact that people will always find a way to get around the rules is exactly why intent needs to be part of the policy too.

There still is a measure of arbitrage that can be had in dealing with small parcels, especially as the price goes up. To eliminate the problem completely, small parcels shouldn't be sold for more than a token amount, say, 50L per 16m2 square. There is no incentive, then, to goad the neighbors into buying them with terraforming, ban lines, etc. because it would otherwise be a clear action of harassment.

Personally I feel that Land cutting should be a violation and anyone caught land cutting should have their land forfeited back to Lindens and a stern warning about the possibility of account cancellation if the practice is ever done again by that avatar.

Also my feeling is no land should be any smaller then 512m2.

After this problem is solved I would suggest you look inot price gouging by land sellers. I have seen properties of 2048m2 being sold for 120K L$. Now tell me that is market pricingh and I will have a good laugh. PLEASE PLEASE take this request under consideration and holler at anyone who purposly takes and prices their land out of reach for the size of the property!!

That said ... i will go hide now

Oh, if only. Following the lead of any major estate owner, every parcel under 512 would be gone overnight, no questions asked, no apologies given. Of course no estate owner would ever have fallen for the witless wishful crypto-anarchist claptrap that made the Lindens f*ck-up their Mainland in the first place.

We see where the real extortion lies how bout $L10 per sqm. You were the one who bought a plot cheaper because of cuts near by. then you expect to steal the 16s too LOL!

There is sentient life in LL. There are people with real soul in there.
Perhaps the below was an aberration, but I JUST LOVE IT, AND IT GIVES ME HOPE !!!!



Maggie is what M should aspire to be if he had any vision for SL.

Read that again!
Put it into the TOS/CS

"We give our residents a lot of tools, to build, create, and manage their lands and objects. That flexibility also requires people to exercise judgment about when things should be used. "

That in two short sentences defines what society in SL should be about.
It cover land-cutting/price-gouging, griefing, traffic-botting, pick-buying, harassment and the kitchen sink.



If anyone knows that Maggie was in fact disciplined for being so mind-blowingly awsome, I'm not sure that I want to know. That knowledge would be like a rusty nail in my soul.

I agree with your, er, intent in saying this.

I just foresee a huge volume of problems as Linden employees make rulings on what's going through the minds of Residents.

Well no policy will be perfect, I agree. But from my perspective, the G-team gets it right most of the time (not withstanding their allowing a "compliant" ad to remain in the middle of some of my land - but that's another story). We can't worry about a can of worms when we are faced with barrels of worms everywhere you look - I'll take the can.

Land extortion would stop dead, if people just stopped giving in to the extortionists and buying these 16m parcels for outrageous prices. L$160 for a parcel of this size is DOUBLE the market rate. And people here are admitting spending L$100s or L$1000s on them.

No wonder the crime is flourishing. You people have dug your own grave.

Price and size controls don't work and will never work, ever.

Selling cars that only go 60 MPH might a solution for speeding, but so much for loads or big hills. Carpools and cargo are not the villans, dangerous drivers are.

If I choose to sell an existing microplot for $1L, $160L or $1000L, that's my business, provided I didn't "cut" land to create them. It's that simple.

Imposing price caps and size controls will only cause restrictions to rule-abiding residents and bloat the already suffering code base.

Linden Lab keeps records of all transactions, it's pretty simple to prove when someone cut a bunch of land into checkers and jacked up the price.

This is why Jack specified "the act of cutting", which to me shows LL intends to target the abusers and not the residents or edge cases.

The whole "land cutting" issue is a shibboleth put out by people who refuse to recognise the realities of free markets: the last prims available in a sim are always the most expensive, period. The first available are the cheapest. That is supply and demand at work, and no amount of legislating, permbanning, or tyrannical abuse reporting and G-team thuggery is going to change that.

Certain ranting, conspiracy theory-laden demagogs may think otherwise, but those are the facts of nature. Get over it.

Small parcels serve a public purpose for a number of reasons:

a) they make the rarest prims available in smaller quantities for those who need some of them
b) individuals who only need a few prims for content servers for their web-based content business dont need a whole 512 square meters of land.

You said on the blog: "Land cutting is the deliberate chopping up of parcels into smaller pieces in an attempt to sell those pieces collectively for more than the value of the original parcel."

Who are you to rewrite the basic laws of economics? By your definition ALL land dealing is 'land cutting' because a basic economic law of the market is that small retail sized portions are always worth more per unit area than large wholesale sized portions.

You guys need to start paying more attention to Metanomics and Beyers Sellers, he's been trying to educate you guys for months that the crap you are doing to SL with these tyrannical anti-market rules is what is destroying the SL economy. Go and listen to his "connecting the dots" comments at the end of each show, they are almost always pointed at LL's bad policies.

You keep passing these inane, anti-market, diseconomic rules you are going to continue to drive the most productive members of SL away and within a year or two SL will be one more historical dead-end/backwater like AOL is.

PROOF: You guys are losing so many sims off the grid right now that you are now hiding basic core economic data like the number of sims added to the grid because the number has been grossly negative since October. One typically only sees such data being hidden when dealing with totalitarian regimes like the USSR or China.

That's true even when the high priced parcels are surrounded by lower priced ones? That's true even on the many many sims that were sold without landcuts before the "Impeach Bush" guy showed how profitable extortion could be? That's true even when these "prim reserve" parcels are deliberately placed in the middle of lower priced parcels to make them unsalable without buying the landcut?

You've either been well and truly hornswoggled by one of the landcutters, or you're one of them yourself.

Um, yes, I think I've pointed that out myself. Why, yes, I have.

Please brush up on your reading skillz. A 16 square meter parcel will ALWAYS be worth significantly more, per square meter, than a 512, 1024, or 2048 square meter parcel. That is how economics works.

You pay more per twinkie for a pack of two than for a case of 24, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE SITTING NEXT TO EACH OTHER ON THE SAME STORE SHELF. If you dont believe, me, get out of your mom's basement and go to the store to check it out.

And I do not buy or sell mainland land, I have 8000 square meters in Caldbeck and thats it. Nor have I been hornswoggled. I would instead suggest you've been hornswoggled by the socialist arbortards that follow prokofy around.

Yes, it is. It's the small lots that make harassment cheap.