The Question of Land Cutting

I'm surprised to hear that LL is permitting one For Sale sign per 16m parcel (though you didn't specify 16m, you did mention landcutting, so it seems safe to assume that you weren't referring to 512s.)

I thought that they were enforcing 'no signs on parcels smaller than 512m'.

(Have you seen this recently? Can you tell us the sim?)

Land chopping?? Really? Isn't the point to mainland the fact that it is the wild west? If you want tight control go to an estate. Of course maybe LL has realized mainland is yet another area where a penny of profit can be made for investors. I miss 2005.

So no I don't think any of this is needed. But some how I think no matter what is said here thngs will continue

Single signs on single 16s are all over the grid. Was there a policy about the "no signs on parcels smaller than 512m" at some point? Instead, what I found surprising about the post was that it seemed to say that there were multiple such signs by the same seller in the same sim. AFAIK, that's still forbidden (even for 512s and above, which seems like overkill to me--or did they change position on that?).

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

No. Like with private islands, mainland needs to be subject to a covenant which gives a guide as to height of buildings and appearance of objects on the land. There doesn't appear to be a covenant at all on many mainland regions. Why does it matter if a parcel is cut into many small pieces if it looks attractive? I certainly agree that mainland tends to be more untidy than most private islands. The lack of anybody to oversee what residents are creating (unlike with private islands where there are usually owners and estate managers to enforce the covenant) appears to be the issue here rather than the size of parcels.

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

Yes. I have cut small parcels on a number of occasions so that I can have different media urls for business events, allowing people to move from one screen to another to see a different video. It might also be used for malls that rent out small units to make management and prim limits more easily controlled. There may be many other reasons that do not result in untidy looking parcels.

* 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, I don't believe that the size of parcels should be the criteria for any decisions. If the land is untidy and an eyesore to other residents, that THAT is the issue that should be dealt with. Asking somebody to join up all their parcels and allowing them to continue having awful spinning advertising signs surely defeats the object of what you are trying to do.

I think the key to this is delegating the responsibility to region owners by passing them an example covenant and asking them to edit it for their needs (commercial, residential, region theme etc). They can always delegate that responsibility to a trustworthy resident who they make estate manager in return for a reduction on their tier. There is no way that Linden Lab can take on the responsibility for watching every single mainland region.

Maybe not just for fun. One of the leading reasons advanced for dispersed microplots is the need for back-up server locations. This could be dealt with if our overlords made a crop of islands reserved for servers, to provide sufficiently replicated microplots to fill this need. No avatars allowed, no builds, remote server placement on plots costing 1/2 of a 16m2 tier (financial incentive). (Script capacity might limit the advisable number of plots per sim even on a cut-down sim software, but never mind ... run one per quad core if necessary or leave empty plots). This should provide cheaper, more reliable server locations and relieve this pressure towards cutting. Why not? This is a waste of land anyway. Outsource to them at half the cost!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ponsonby Low
What I can't find is a single explanation of this:

HOW does a checkerboard restrict 'chances to expand' or to make 'interesting builds' any MORE than any 512 or 1024 or any other larger parcel?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ponsonby Low
Isn't it the PRICE of the parcel next to the one that could otherwise be expanded, that stops the expansion?






But that doesn't answer my question: how is the situation of a 128m cut into squares and priced very high, different from the situation of a 128m NOT cut into squares, but priced very high?

Some have said the difference is that there can be more sellers in the squares-128 than in the uncut 128.

But that's irrelevant.

If the price for each set of 128 square meters is the same, then.....how is whether it's cut or not, relevant?

Others have said that the difference is that if eight different people own the 128, then each is paying less tier than one person would, if one person owned the 128.

But how often is it the case that the owner of a high-priced 16m parcel owns, in total, less than 512 square meters?

Seriously, HOW often is that the case?

How many would-be predatory land-sellers are paying tier on only 16m of land, total? Isn't it the case that virtually all of them hold, at the least, thousands of square meters? What difference does it make if the thousands is made up of one 16m parcel in each of hundreds of sims?*

Clearly, the tier argument is sophistry.

So we're left with NO answer to my question. Meaning that the whole 'checkerboarding' issue remains a red herring.



YES, extortion is loathsome. But LL has cut off the option of putting a separate spinning neon tower on each of dozens of 16m parcels in a sim. LL has cut off the option of making Ugly Red Ban lines a means of extortion. LL, to its great credit and the everlasting gratitude of thousands, has made extortion virtually impossible.

A person sees a field of spinning neon boxes and is repelled? That's normal. A person sees flat, empty ground that has visible lines on it when Property Lines are turned on---and rips his or her hair out with rage? That person has problems that no LL policy changes can solve.

(I'm not referring to you with the above; it's a general comment about the 30 or 40 squeaky wheels, out of the tens of thousands of regular users of SL, who may succeed in forcing an expensive and pointless policy change on LL.**)


*A 16m donut-hole does retard expansion, I agree. But anyone who feels that all their hopes and dreams are dashed by the existence of a 16m (or 32 or 64 or 12 on the EDGE of their property---well, for one thing, that shows a lack of creativity. It also shows a need for control that can't be construed as healthy by even the most charitable standards.

**As mentioned, I DO agree that a policy change about donut holes would be worth the time and manpower it will cost. For one thing, LL could make a start by taking the donut holes out of the parcels it auctions!

* Do you agree in principle that land cutting needs to be a violation?
Yes. There are lingering issues with these small parcels, even with the vast improvement brought on by LL's regulating signs. Many are just sitting idle, doing no one any good, even if they don't have unsightly signs on them.


* Are there any legitimate reasons for land cutting (excluding profit) that we should consider when setting policy?
I can see allowing fairly small parcels for small commercial vendor stalls, but certainly larger than a 16. Minimum lot size is a basic tenet of zoning regulations in RL, and there's no reason why the same principles should not apply in SL. I would suggest 512 as a minimum area for newly created lots. That would eliminate exploitation of the 512 free tier in increments of 16.


* 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?
That's only reasonable, as long as it's doable, particularly for owners who have no other land in the same sim (who could not legitimately claim prim value for the land). What would be wrong with some compensation to those giving up the land for recombination? It happens in real life when nonconforming land uses are "amortized" out of existence. Billboard companies may have to be paid to remove their signs, and it's a burden on the taxpayers. Fortunately for us, LL is printing all the money!

I wish we knew for certain.

They've never really made all of this explicit. All we have is the Network Advertising limitations (which became interpreted as meaning For Sale signs, mistakenly, I think, when during a Q&A a question was asked about whether the policy applied to Advertising Networks accepting ads for other people's land up for sale--and the answer was misinterpreted to mean people couldn't put a sign on their OWN land.)

I do wish they'd put the explicit rules somewhere (preferably somewhere official).

(By the way, I do support a ban on For Sale signs on parcels smaller than 512m.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ponsonby Low
And if so, how is an overpriced 16m x 32m that's uncut different from a 16m x 32m that's been cut into 4 x 4 squares?






Different 'get rich quick' schemes?

Like what, for instance?

(As opposed to simply having a high per-meter price? And how is a high per-meter price different on a parcel that's whole, as opposed to a parcel that's cut? It's still a high per-meter price.

And please don't trot out the 'less tier' argument again. You know it's been exposed as sophistry.)








I'm sorry to hear of Jasper's experience. But I'm not seeing how buying a 512m that's been cut into expensive bits is different from buying an expensive 512.

In fact, the 'buy in bits' might even be said to be a benefit, as Jasper wouldn't have had to have all the money at once.



Look, I do see that a person who charges L$100/m for a 512m isn't going to see the first return as quickly as a person who takes that 512 and cuts it into 32 bits, also priced at L$100/m. One or two of the 32 bits will probably sell before the 512 would.

But the time it takes to get the entire 32 bits sold is probably not materially different---as your own anecdote shows!

I just think the whole 'my SL experience is ruined because I can't get that particular parcel of land' point of view is an overreaction, and fussbudgety to boot. I'm sorry for the people who lie awake at night fretting over such things, and I know they're not going to change. But does this warrant an expensive and trouble-laden policy change?

Once a parcel is cut eventually the individual pieces of it will wind up with different owners. Anyone looking to expand beyond their 4x4 for pretty much anything suddenly wind up communicating with all of them, many of whom have not been on in ages and their IMs long ago capped.

Why would they need to communicate?

Are you saying that if you IM the owner of a L100/m 16m parcel and ask nicely, they will lower the price to L5/m? Because it seems unlikely to me that the owner of a L100/m microparcel would lower the price at all.

While SL has cooler tech than any other online community around, it's not bigger, and it's not more complex socially. As for technical complexity, that means the admins have better tools on their end, too. I'm talking here about communities the size of, say, AOL at its peak, or Habbo Hotel. Lots more users means lots more fraud, lots more griefing, lots more pedos to catch -- the number of social problems increase with the number of users, not the complexity of the software.



I have a rosier view of the staff over at the Lab. I think, within the limitations placed on the G-Team, they do a pretty good job. Not that they're perfect (no one is), but in my experience they are dedicated, hardworking, and try to be fair. My experiences might have been different from yours. I have certainly had the impression at times they were overworked, but that's what happens to people who work for a startup. That changes as a company grows, which is what LL is doing right now.



I said there'd been a lot of improvement, not that things were perfect. It takes a while to sort out such a pervasive problem, and I think LL's made a great start. The fact that Jack's posted what he has here shows that they're still working on it. This isn't an easy problem to solve. While you don't feel a social solution would do the trick, I think it could, and I'd prefer something that includes some human judgement rather than a hard-coded solution that I feel would be more likely to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ponsonby Low
And if so, how is an overpriced 16m x 32m that's uncut different from a 16m x 32m that's been cut into 4 x 4 squares?





Your reply to my question reflects a lack of knowledge about Tier. (I do realize that many SL Residents have never paid tier directly, and so this information may be new to them.)

But in fact the tier on a 16m x 32m parcel is identical to the tier on a set of 32 4m x 4m parcels.

If that's the only land the person owns, the tier in both cases is US$0.

If it's not the only land the person owns, the bump up in tier is the same in both cases.

It's true that if someone is near their tier limit, they may be able to buy an additional 16m and still stay under-limit, whereas the purchase of an additional 512m parcel might push them up to the next-higher tier level. But that's not germane to my question about how a high-priced 512m differs from a high-priced set of 32 16m's.

It's more of a 'once in a great while a situation might obtain in which circumstances let a would-be predatory land-seller hold an extra 16 without extra cost, whereas holding an extra 512 would make him incur cost' argument. Which is scarcely convincing enough to warrant an expensive change in LL policy.

So you haven't provided a counterargument for my initial argument (represented by the quote above). Therefore I haven't provided a counterargument for the non-counterargument. ^_^

The technical complexity automatically makes it more complex socially. The kinds of relationships that exist between people in a typical virtual world are largely limited to their circles of friends. The ability of people to effect other people are limited to what they can do, in person. You can't have a "business relationship" in the context of the game in Habbo Hotel. You can't leave presents and boobytraps for people to discover. SL supports many more *kinds* of relationships between people even than worlds that support richer user-generated content because the sales are centralized and largely anonymized. The user has a relationship with There.com, and the customer does, but there's very little connection between the person who buys an outfit and the person who created it. Even where they do, that connection is tightly mediated and controlled by the service. You have to be approved.

And there's no analogy to the kind of relationship where you can buy a parcel of land next to someone else's chat room in AOL and have an impact (good or bad) on them.

This kind of complexity is both unique to SL, and something that grows far faster than the capability of the tools to manage it.

I'm not criticizing them, personally, or individually. I'm saying that they are perennially overworked, and this shows.


And I see some kind of hard-coded solution to be inevitable. They've made hard-coded solutions before, when they were necessary. When they introduced Havok 4 they nerfed a bunch of things in physics at the same time, but they were very careful to avoid breaking working products... and they still had problems. They've gone overboard in such restrictions, too. If we don't discuss the limitations of such tools here, where they're watching, we won't have any input in what they come up with.

I'm saying that the other poster's claim that what was being discussed was a "sell micro-parcels only with IMs" policy was a straw man.

There is no such plan.

I haven't proposed that ANY land only be sold by IM.

One way -

If I was in the micro-parcel extortion business, I'd have scripted objects hanging over my 16s, scanning the parcels that I was interested in. The moment one of my own or a neighbouring 16 got bought, I'd have my bot swoop in and jack up the price of any other 16's I had there.

Thought if I read all 49 pages the thread might be closed before I posted, so apologies if this just echoes other posts:

* Do you agree in principle that land cutting needs to be a violation?
================
Yes, when this is defined as cutting up, e.g., a 512m2 into 16m2 blocks. No if it a way for larger land-holders to harass those who want to own a small plot. If there is a 16m2 plot in the middle of a 2032m2 plot you bought, then you knew that when you bought it - land values have plummetted since I arrived in SL in early 2007 - it is not hard nowadays to find a 2048m2 plot without 16m2 in the middle.

=================
* Are there any legitimate reasons for land cutting (excluding profit) that we should consider when setting policy?
==================
When I failed to sell a sim off as one piece I parcelled it into 512m2 plots, and gradually did sell them all, but with 12000m2 of Protected Road Land, I was often left with little bits of land. Had I added them in a premium account could not take a plot into individual ownership if them just wanted to use their 512m2 bonus tier.

=====================
* 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, that is going too far, but would be ok if restricted to land cut up very small and set for sale - there is no need to regulate someone who just wants to cut the land up into numerous parcels for the fun of it. E.g, this could be used to create some wild moorland type terrain effects.

=======================
Finally, it has also been suggested that parcels of 64m or smaller have their sale value clamped to be no higher than the current average price per meter. This would obviously involve development work so wouldn’t be something we could deliver quickly, but I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.
======================

Well this would help those of us who are willing to spend quite a bit buying up current small plots, but will not pay too much as that would encourage the practice. Note that it is often the case that someone sells land for 250L$ for 16m2, and the buyer then puts it for sale at £1999.

8 different people are each paying less tier. They are not all putting the parcels for sale at the same time. They are not all putting them for sale at the same price. You have to wait, and buy one, and wait, and buy another, and wait, and buy a third... all the while you're sitting there with a partial 512 you can't use because it's a discontiguous mess.

I don't see what the point of this question is. A person is paying tier on Xsm. If they own parcels of 512sm, they can maintain a presence at X/512 sims. If they own parcels of 15sm, they can do so for X/16 sims.

Nonsense. They can still terraform, they can put anything they want in the parcel as long as it doesn't look like a spinny tower sign. They can even put ads in there. They can *cycle* the ads as long as no more than 50 are rezzed on any given day. And as long as it's sitting there, you don't know what the griefer is going to do next.

No? Even if it's right along the edge of protected land, blocking you from that land? Even if it's terraformed +4 one day, -4 the next, and has a dirty prim toilet on it the next? Even if it's between you and your neighbor and you want to do a build together, and the griefer has already ARed you because your tree is hanging over their microparcel and some poor G-team member made the wrong call?

Thank you, but paying substantial mainland tier, I am quite familiar with its operation.
Precisely the point. So the mean maintenence cost in tier per high priced plot is the same for one 16mx32m, adjacent to a single potential purchaser, as for 32 4x4 plots each adjacent to a different potential customer. (and yes, I am also assuming they own more than the 512 included in the premium membership fee [not quite the same as the L$0 you indicate]).
On the contrary, it is of the utmost importance. Discussing this in terms of incremental purchases that may affect the occasional tier bump is quite misleading (cf. hare and tortoise). The fact is that, whatever tier they are paying, they can have 4x4 plots adjacent to 32 times as many potential customers by using the cut plots. The relevant players have certainly hundreds and probably thousands of these microplots. If these had to be 512m2 instead of 16m2, they would have either to target enormously less customers or pay enormously more tier. For bulk holders, it is the overall cost per plot in large numbers that is relevant, not the minutiae of incremental purchases.

As explained, it is not once-in-a-while. It is 31 times every time a 512 is cut into 16s. I begin to wonder if you have ever even looked at the way the microplot dealers operate. (Sory, just tit-for-tat there).

While we are about it...

Having read all the 700+ replies with interest, the only viable solution that makes any sense moving forward is the one that Desmond Shang advocated many many pages back.

Go after the 10-12 main offenders of land extortion very hard....give them a set time (48 hours or a week or whatever works) to a re-evalute their sale prices. If they're still playing silly buggers...reclaim the offending parcels. If they repeat offend, seize all their land assets in SL....if they repeat offend for a 3rd and final time, then permaban that account and not just that account but the IP or Mac address, so that the army of alts can't log in from that same computer.

LL and particularly Jack needs to rule with an "Iron fist" to enforce the "Extortion/ Griefing/ Harassment land policy"..... no wishy washy coding limits which can be side stepped or move to another form of extortion like the "pepper plots" that has been suggested.

The TOS should include an additional paragraph that defines "land extortion" (or alternative phrase for legal reasons), but kept broad brush so that it may include a whole range of activities including ones we have not seen as yet.

You'll find that if you take out the Gang leaders, all the small crooks will fall into line pretty sharpish!

If the offenders can see that LL mean business by wanting to see an end to land extortion...they damn well mean it and there are no "grey" areas!


Forget about limitation of land sizes for sale or complex limitations to small plot pricing....this is not Bolshevik Russia.! Remember this is SL......"Your world, your imagination"!

Take down the main offenders hard and make an example of them for all to see.....so any would-be "extortionists" will have 2nd thoughts. Pussy footing around wont solve anything long term!

"less tier"

"less tier"

"less tier"

The fact that YOU choose not to believe it doesn't mean it's "sophistry".

"less tier"

The economics of microparcels is completely different.
You bloody try it some time. Really. You just bloody try it. THEN come back and tell me it;'s the same.

You're paying most of the tier on a 512 that you can't do anything with until you've almost finished it, for several months. That's tier you can't use to buy the 512 that comes up on the other side of your parcel, so it's a real cost. And you're paying a lot more for each piece because the guy holding each piece has negligible resources tied up in it, so yuo can't wait them out.

Um, "over a year" as opposed to "six months"? He paid more for individual parcels on the adcut piece than he ended up paying for the 512.

STRAW MAN!
STRAW MAN!

FEAR: this is what drives all of YOU, yes I said YOU, moronically conditioned little minded humans. I simply do not have the time to explain why less that 1% of you operate on any scale remotely close to the first tone of POWER! That is COURAGE!

I am an ADVERTISER in SL. I had over 500 16sqM parcels in as many sims. I have paid high prices for 16sqM parcels to secure a better position for my customers that were contributing to SL through economics. I offered an under 500K L$/week solution for small business and have made some of them into huge successes.

I now sell my 16sqM parcels that I have no plans to use for anywhere from 666L$ just for evil laughs at your expense. Others I sell for 9998L$ because they were that valuable, being a single such 16sqM parcel with no others or few others around and roadside or near intersecting roads.

I am happy to EARN my L$ off your sorry excuse of a conditioned idiot self indentured slave.

BTW, CIA operates in SL to test just how much you can take of all things that anger you. I respect anger, its human tone is much farther up the scale than fear and allows you the opportunity for change.

Those of you who have more that 10 posts in this particular thread are always the same ones posting any kind of gruel simply because you lack conviction. You have no heart nor wish to compete because you lack quality. GET AN ISLAND, HOMESTEADS ARE CHEAP AND FOR RENT ALL OVER!

Now on to the true purpose.... on second thought you don't deserve it, the less than 1% that do... and I include myself amongst their ranks, will be long gone. Soon SL will not be a viable virtual world, LL is not a viable company with less skill than a big box computer store chain tech dept.

I am one of those that will take your L$ for the values I see fit. I do it knowingly and take pride in my manifestation into your world. I have enjoyed for years the benefits that extra income reaps and my life has been improved for my honesty, hard work, persistence, acceptance of my position, sheer willpower to get over the humps and joy it has brought my wonderful family. You deserve your little shattered world of SL and it will become, in short order, just a glorified chat room that has no funding because the likes of me and all like me are long gone. SL will be decadent very soon.

I do wish you all the best, some of you may aspire to higher consciousness and realize that I have truth and courage on my side and you may well discover its merits... enjoy your SL.

YAAAAAAAAYY!!!!

When and if the new policy comes out, it will be the third stab at the same simple issue of extortion / price-gouging.
Even the initial Ad-Farming blog made clear that it wasn't really about Ads.

Jack has the database to look at. It's not some wild guesswork if he says that 90% of the issue is caused by a small group of people.
This small group is causing all of this drama and putting us in danger of having badly thought out sets of rules imposed that will mess us about - with J.Random G-teamer interpreting them on the fly, and J.Random Resident with an axe to grind spewing ARs.

Whack them!

/me adopts the submission position.

WE ARE NOT WORTHY!!
COLLAR US!! ...PLEEEEEEASSSEE. O mighty asshole!

Wow!

Any more questions, Jack?