The Question of Land Cutting

Above (post no.744) is a classic example of how an "Extortionist" views the world, driven by self greed and a lack of compassion for one's fellow man. This is the typical mentality displayed of such exploiters..........and you want to pussy foot around these sort of people???

Tanika is the type of person that deserves a place on LL (Jack's) hit list. End their practices already!

You have a database to work from. Someone like Tanika has 300-400 or 500 parcels even, of which most are set for sale between the cheapest at 666 L up to 10000 L for a 16sqm plot!!. What does this tell you?....what type of business model do you think they have developed? It doesn't take an Einstein to figure this out

Take them down! No need for resident's opinions about developing yet another future wishy washy policy......use your best judgement and big boot instead!

500 16's

Like ..... duh!... um.... ah....... 8000sq.m.

Oooooohhhhhhh! The loss of that tier is gonna hit LL where it really hurts.

WE'RE DOOOOOOOMED!
The biznizmens is leavings we.

I spit on your piddling 8000 tier.
Go rezz yourself a big finger and sit on it.

Here are the some of the ones I have personally seen:

Hippiepay.
"Get Money Fast!" (pyramid scams)
Networked advertising (that includes both plots cut for it as well as actually used for it).
Microparcel extortion.
Porn vending.



It is based on the psychology of the "death of a thousand cuts" or the "mosquito" analogy. Basically, people don't do math very well, and just go off of (often, the first) numbers they see. That's why prices almost always end in 9s. Gas isn't $2.00 a gallon, it is $1.999 a gallon.



If Jasper talked with the person up-front and negotiated buying it that way, sure. However, cutting it up, pricing it, and leaving it specifically with the intent to harass someone into buying it out is the nature of what the problem is.



The problem is that it isn't the way it works. None of the landcutters (that I have seen, anyway, and I've seen an AWFUL lot of them) buy a 512, checkboard it, and set ALL of the microplots to L$100/sqm. They pick one or two choice plots, usually ones in the middle, or the corners, or adjacent to another plot with an active owner. They then dump the rest to the bots, or to their buddies, the adfarmers and other extortionists, who then come in and buy one or two for themselves. The bot owners also dump them, because they aren't generally profitable enough for the hassle and the bad press of people mistaking them as the ones who cut them in the first place. After a short bit, you have a mishmash of them owned by anywhere from 5 to 20+ different people/alts; if the majority of them are of the harassing extorionist variety, the plots will be set anywhere from L$500 to L$100000 per 16sqm. Each extortionist varies in their tactics and prices.



Well, unless you've been directly harassed, as many have, you probably would think that. However, I assure you, the problem is FAR more serious than just being ancy about some empty microparcels a sim or two away.

I'm sorry you don't have any compassion for the BS that people have had to put up with, but I doubt you're going to change your mind about it, either.

In the end, yes, it most certainly does warrant a policy change; one that solves the entirety of the problem with a minimum of collateral damage.

Lastly...

While I don't mean this to be accusatory, I find it interesting that you were once reported as a 16sqm corner-cutter for some plots in a region near me. Up until recently, the corners were still cut out of the plots and owned by you, though there was a note in the description that they were available to the adjacent landowners for "prevailing market value". When it was reported, there was no information about sales.

Just curious, but why would you cut a corner out of several rectangular plots and put the remaining plots up for sale? Further, how would you think the people who bought those plots would feel if you decided to sell them at L$10000 each? Or, even better, terrorformed them, or put up advertising terminals?

Lays back, fingers interlaced, relaxing and enjoying the sun. Ponders the naysayers pitiful state and shudders for the mistake of trying to put oneself into the others shoes... the thought comes through from the multitude of naysayers... "am I getting a welfare check this month?"

Cashing out a few more hundred USD just for fun.

If you're only cashing out a few hundred dollars a month, you're really a small fry enterprise.! Personally, I wouldn't go to all that trouble if thats all the money you're making out of it for such bad PR in return....not to mention all the "not so nice" IMs you must be receiving from your irrate neighbours. If you deliberately set out to be an ass or game the system, you should have at least made it worthwhile during the short term....like say a few thousand dollars a month!

You're not even a successful exploiter in my books!

I can hear Chucky Manson cheering you from inside his prison cell. "Helter Skelter, babe!"

FEAR? You won't find any FEAR from this Dragon's point of view. I've been quite happy to go up against any and all of the extortionists and adfarmers from the beginning.

FEAR would have been giving in, paying the extortion. FEAR would have been just sitting in the middle of my swiss cheese land saying and doing nothing. FEAR would have been letting the parasites win.

There's no FEAR here.



Yes, we know. I never had the misfortune of having to deal with you specifically, but several who did had plenty to say about the experience.

So what? You paid lots for 16sqm parcels. Your bad. Your problem. You probably single-handedly funded your fellow adfarmers/extortionists to advance them into the "big time". I bet you'd be proud of that, too.

You offered a WHAT? L$500,000 per WEEK??? Wowsers! Did you beam your advertising directly into people's brains or something?

I bet you didn't know that, for about L$500 a week, people could get better results with classifieds.



Yep, Chucky would be proud.



It is EXTREMELY unlikely you made a single L$ off of me. As for "sorry excuse of a conditioned idiot self", look into the mirror sometime, and ask where the anarcho-capitalist ideals you hold so dear came from.



Sorry, my tinfoil hat was maladjusted.. what did you say again?



Lack conviction? I don't think believing in a harassment-free world as an ideal, and willing to speak up for it and do everything one can to make it happen is "lacking conviction". Compete? With whom? You? Assuming I WANTED to run an advertising business in the first place, I KNOW I am MORE than capable of beating microparcel ad networks, and STILL be a good "corporate citizen" that people would enjoy having around. That's a no-brainer. As for quality, ask anyone who knows my work what level of quality I demand in it.



It couldn't happen sooner to a more wonderful set of personalities, I assure you.



Ahh yes... doom and gloom prognostications. Is the comet here yet? Don't forget to pack the kool-aid!



The epitome of disingenuousness. Forgive me, but I think the rest of the human race believes that "higher consciousness" and "materiality" are mutually exclusive concepts.

Anyway... can I have your stuff when you leave?

What you are is not something that I can post on this forum without getting banned.

I'm actually encouraged that she'd post such a thing here. It really seems like a parting shot from somebody who now totally believes that their days are numbered.

/me offers the troll a cracker. Yours for only L$9999, Tanika!!

Touche'

10k for a plot is not even remotely legitimate, and yes it goes to show the blatant attitude of these extrotionists. I'm glad they post here for all to see. This will make LL's decision all the more easy.

The funniest part of this whole ad cutting thing, are the extortionists advocating "legitimate" use for 16m parcels, yet our group seems to come under attack by them all the time. Our group has AR'd them countless times for predatory scripts, denial of service, ostentatious advertising, among other things. As their inability to use the land in innovative and respectable ways, extortion or griefing is their only route to profit, also known as "racketeering"..... which illegal IRL.

We certainly don't pay these ridiculous prices and we never encourage anyone else to either, even if it means cleaning areas up. We rarely pay more than 2x market value. So the assertion that some plots are worth 10k to potential legitmate users, is total BS.

Again, our group's worth is measured by it's business, not the sum of it's parts.

Even Ponzi himself thought that his "business plan" was innovative.

It's amazing what lies people have to tell themselves to believe that screwing over their fellow man for profit is "justified".

First, in all your snipped monologue, thank you for proving that in at least some cases, the stereotype about you "Advertisers" is correct. Nothing I could say or suggest would be as effective as hearing it come straight from the horse's mouth. Kudos.

Second, if you have such COURAGE and mad skillz, you should strike out and make a fortune for yourself in the real world. The pay is far greater.

Third, and probably the most difficult for you to come to terms with, is the fact that very few people are in SL simply to serve your needs and fulfill your business models. We pay to play this game, and having your ads shoved down our throats at every turn ruins our paid for entertainment. We have enough of that in reality, thank you. We are here for ourselves, not for you.

I look forward to the day when 16m cannot be created except as a subplot within a bigger plot. And when the smallest parcel you can buy/sell/own is 512m, the landscape will be much cleaner. Oh, how ever WILL we survive without all your ads? I guess we'll just have to use SEARCH and SLexchange, for starters...

As I said to Desmond Shang before: Rock on.

However, I want to point out that the time for the Short Sharp Shock was a year ago. Jack & co. have led those concerned with this problem on a merry goose chase, promising to deal with it, promising a good policy. We ended up with the meaningless gesture of some limits on ads, which was an OK policy for addressing one single aspect of a complex problem, but which didn't address the cause of the problem.

'Pussy footing around' is what has been happening for a year at least. It's abundantly clear that Linden Labs *likes* land cutters and extortionists. So why swat them now?

I'd also like to echo a suggestion from Nostrum Forder back at the top of the thread: If LL is serious about addressing this problem, then simply *start working to address it.* That is, post-purchase interviews for <512m2 Mainland purchases above that day's price index. Find out if the purchaser was harassed into buying, and if they were, then the seller forfeits and is sanctioned in some meaningful way.

This of course means that no one has to AR anything. LL takes it upon themselves to protect the experience of its customers. Radical new concept, eh?

Linden Lab has been the benefactor of this practice for a long time. As long as resident concurrency and retention was on the upswing, they turned a blind eye. Only when the bottom line was swinging in another direction, did they act.

Let's be frank here. LL acts out of profitability, not what's right or wrong, unfortunately.

The auctions are no exception, either.

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

* Are there any legitimate reasons for land cutting (excluding profit) that we should consider when setting policy?
Yes... different options settings for media and fly and rezzing purchases... and shared prims

* 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

Proposed solution
smallest parcle to sell to public 256 sqm
Smaller parcels may be sold for no more than L$1 per sqm until until June 30, 2009. After that date they may not be sold and if they are not part of land totaling 256 or more in the SIM, they revert back to Gov Linden.

That way the valid uses still remain able to have small parcels for valid purposes and the land cutting is no longer profitable. I am sure there are other solutions and no one will please everyone, but I thank you for addressing this problem.

See, you're hitting the nail on the head here as to why Jack Linden has failed to ask the proper question. He wants the discussion to be about microparcels, when in fact the real problem is extortion.

It's true that a large parcel next door or a small parcel next door could easily ruin your SL day. Either way, you could have an obscene build and/or ban lines and/or particles and/or light sources and/or who-knows-what-else next door when you log in and go to your home away from home. In either instance, the intent could be to extort you into buying an overpriced parcel of virtual land. (Or it could just be lack of taste, which is the loophole these extortionists love. Which says a lot about them, I think.)

However: If you are in the business of this kind of extortion, it makes more sense to only be in for 16m2, rather than 512m2. The reason is that you can then spread your risk over many many sims, and have many more potential 'customers.' For the same expense, you can threaten 32 people instead of just one. If any one of them bites, you win. If more than one bites, it's total complete victory. And you still have all the other parcels out there, waiting for some poor sap.

You can then take your winnings on the first couple parcels and invest in another parcel which you buy at auction or for cheap from one of the low-margin, rapid-turnaround 'bot-based land holding companies (ahem). Then you repeat the process. You keep going, because it only takes a few purchases to make it worthwhile.

And that's how you ruin Mainland, devalue Second Life, and make Linden Labs look like patsies for extortionists. All while making a buck or two.

Oh yes, thats EXACTLY what SL needs, more jackbooted stormtroopers with zero accountability giving residents no means of confronting their accusers, judgement by a jury of ones peers, or of legitimate appeal to an objective, impartial judiciary. Members of the g-team have been proven on multiple occasions to be rather viciously biased towards residents, even violating LL policies to pursue personal hates and agendas.

The reason why "improving the user experience" is so difficult is because it begs the questions of 'improving' what - for whom - at what cost - to whom?

The mainland IS regulated - just not centrally regulated. It is regulated via social interaction (friends, neighbors and groups) within a price-based information system (market). We are not victims of fate; we are players in a multiple-iteration game. The TOS are the broad rules of the game.

All 'rules' require enforcement. All enforcement generates costs. A mainland covenant is simply a new set of centralized rules with a new set of centralized enforcement costs.

The question then becomes one of cost/benefit ratios between centralized and decentralized regulation. It is not obvious that centralized regulation will cost less or improve the user experience. As I mentioned earlier, "most of the proposals in this blog introduce costs. I find it interesting that many who rail against the bullying tactics of the 'land cutters' are quite willing to propose their own bullying tactics as a solution."

My main concern is that by attempting to rid the rainforest of snakes, we introduce rabbits and eventually destroy the whole ecosystem. While imperfect, the current system may be optimal.

Remember too that the mainland represents only 1/3 of SL. Island estates provide a wide range of themes and covenants to satisfy almost every taste. The mainland as it stands - as it was created - as it has been lived in for six years - represents one option among many. Perhaps it's best to leave it alone. As we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I'm quite awake thank you thanks in part to a massive amount of caffeine. While stortion in the legal sense isn't really the issue here since there is no legal definition when it comes to second life. Even before extortion becme a legal term there's teh concept of extortion and extortionist behavior which is what the current 16m extortion is.

You'd have to do it with a formula and even then it would be tough I agree but I think it would be possible. One of the first things to take into consideration is that it would have to exclude person to person transfers which would prevent the stupidest of gaming and then there would also have to be a cap on what it considers when it adjusts the average. A very rough idea to say the least but I still think it might work.

The only legitimate uses that has been brought up holding 16m2 in a sim without owning other land in the sim is either A) for a landing spot or B) for magic boxes, both of which there are better way to do without requiring this hackish solution. Incidentally I never said 512 and I think that may be too much, it would have to be well evaluated but I think 256 would work better or even 128. That would also hinder legitimate uses less than setting the bar high at 512 would.

For the land sales, as I said before, I don't see how that's an issue if it doesn't apply to person to person transactions and/or transfers from a group to a member of the group. It would require one or two extra checks but that would take care of pretty much all legitimate needs.

Not really.

I'm not talking about virtual worlds. I'm talking about online communities. Virtual worlds are a kind of online community. And relationships in them extend well beyond circles of friends, in my experience. For example, here we are, talking on this message board right now. You're not in my regular circle of friends, but we're interacting right here. There's a moderator around somehwere ready to act if we try to tear out each others' throats, violate the TOS, break the law, etc. What kind of relationship could not exist here? While typing and posting images isn't as vivid or, in some cases, as efficient as conducting businesses, romances, or other conversations or relationships in-world, people have been doing it for a very long time.

I could grief you right here in text, without any prims or scripts or parcel lines at all, and people use simple things like message boards to phish, to scam, to ruin someone else's business. They use them to find real-life jobs, to network, to teach, to make sales . . . .

It's clear you aren't very familiar with Habbo Hotel. There is trading, and was before there was an automated system for it. There are jobs. There's crime and fraud. And some people have found ways to sell their items or game money for real-life money.

Yes, you can. Again, you don't seem to be very familiar with Habbo. I could use another example, but this one is plenty and all I have time for.

There is a connection between buyers and sellers in There, involving marketing and networking and advertising and all the rest. Some do this on forums or exteral sites. Some have in-world shops. I haven't been in There lately, but I ran one myself a few years ago (I sold a heck of a lot of camels, which I had built for me by the great Max SMoke). People find workarounds even when the actual feature set isn't designed for what they want to do, such as the drink machines built by There users.

Yes, There and other companies do try to tightly mediate and control aspects of their services. It requires staff, and remove spontenaity, but it can be done if a company has that philosophy of community management and is willing to hire enough people to do it. Whether or not that's the ideal approach depends on who you are -- obviously the folks running There like it. I don't prefer it personally, but there are good points about it. It sure does keep down problems like copybot, DMCA-ing someone to harass, trademark infringement, etc.

Sure there is. Someone would come into your company's chat room and begin spamming over and over and over, saying they won't shut up until someone gives them what they want. Some of them even wrote code to do this automatically. Unless you're a moderator yourself, you have to call one for help. Anyone can post something horrible next to your post on a message board in order to harass you. There are countless ways to juxtapose your annoying content with someone else's.

Anyway, I wasn't talking about the exact features of one platform or another; I was talking about workload.

The same social problems have been around all along. In SL we have land griefing. In Habbo it was someone coming into your "room" and using it for illicit purposes (such as setting up a virtual brothel with teen escorts). In There it was someone setting up a PortaZone next to yours, with a jukebox on it blaring heavy metal at full volume. These are perennial problems, with a variety of potential solutions. While SL is more advanced technically, the people using it are still people (some of them the same people), doing the same things people always do, online or off. It's no surprise that Linden Lab has a difficult challenge here; zoning is a pain in real life, too.

This is way off topic now and I don't figure you or I are going to convince each other to change our minds. It was interesting, though!

Hi, I am what most of you would call an extertionist .

I started about a year ago collecting mainland, as I was experimenting with a landprocessor and needed some land in different sims to test it out.

As owning and selling 16 sqm parcels was and is no offence, I continued collecting them, setting them for sale at quite high prices, yes, going from 7 x market value for 16 sqm plots to 1 x market value for 512 sqm, at the moment . For these prices, other landtraders are not interested in my parcels, and if they are, they may pay the full amount .


In my profile though is clearly stated, and this is there for a very long time now :
"For my "experiments", I own a few 16 sqm parcels, look in my picks for my policy about them . And don't hesitate to contact me, I'm very reasonable and I've never bitten anyone in SL."



in my picks then:
"About my 16 sqm parcels :
If you own land next to one of my parcels and the parcel can complete your land and I can see you would not misuse the parcel, I'll be happy to sell the parcel for a very fair price to you, np, just IM me and tell me about it .

Also, if a parcel of mine is not properly terraformed, and is bothering you, I don't mind to help you out, just im me."



In the K-Group - group charter, the group that owns my lands (10% more land for the amount tier I pay) you can find :
"Contact Kman Catteneo for information

If you own land next to one of my parcels : I'll sell for a mutch lower price.

If you own a small chunk of land next to mine and you sell for a fair price : I'll buy .

If you have other small chuncks that can be joined with mine and I own some that can be joined with yours, I'll swap .

Also, if a parcel of mine is not properly terraformed, and is bothering you, I don't mind to help you out, just im me.

You may build above my small parcels, don't use my prims ."


Now,

first of all, I like my collection of land, I know mainland very well thanks to it, and it's my pleasure to browse around looking for nice places . In my oppinion, there is nothing against the owning of small parcels , as they exist and are permitted by LL.

then,
I have never cut into large parcels, making waffels of them . Never . I hate the view of it and yes, I think it should be restricted . It hurts the landscape and annoys the neighbours .
That does not mean I don't own some parcels in such area's, as there were no other parcels available on that sim . I'm always prepared to help to heal these lands .

On none of my parcels you can find any objects, neverywhere . The creation of objects is not permitted to everyone, for the rest there are no restrictions on my lands. Nowhere there are banlines. About the terraforming, i smooth the lands with the neighbourhood, and if in time the surrounding parcels would not level anymore , I'm allways prepared to come over and help out.


Looking at this convertation, I'm asking myself, what am I doing wrong, it is my right to own these parcels, it is permitted by LL, it's the way mainland works and by my knowledge, I've never harrased people, and if somebody had a problem with one of my parcels, I reacted as soon as possible. I know for sure that you won't find ANYONE who contacted me who was not happy with the solution of the problem they had, I repeat ANYONE, in all the time I collect my lands .

Why I keep collecting these lands ? Just because I like it . This is SL and this is my pleasure, hobby, whatever. In the past there was nothing against it and I kept doing it.
I payed fair prices for my lands and I pay tier for them .



I hope LL will not take any decisions that would force me to give them up .


For those interested, as this article would become too long for the 30000 permitted characters, I have set up a notecard giver in secondlife://Amella/98/157/92 with some conversations I had with people who requested land from me . 64 K, thats all a notecard can take .
I left out the exact prices, that is something between the buyer and me .
I can assure you all that the prices all vary between 6 and 9 l$/sqm.
I left out the names, because otherwise I would be violating the privacy rules.
For the rest are these conversations authentic and nothing has been changed, I copy pasted them from my loggings, I still have the originals on my disk.
You could ask any of these people what an extortionist I am .

Kman Catteneo.

To make myself clear :

- I am against cutting up land for the purpose of making money out of that action .
- There are legitimate reasons for cutting up land, but it seems to me that in most of the cases it is very clear when land is cut up for profit only .
- I think it will be difficult to rejoin the lands, but some people are making already a good job out of this, and since the ban on networked publicity, I can see that already mutch of the land is coming together, give it time .

K-man

I don't think people would call you an extortionist based on what you are saying here.

I've only had one dealing with you, making an offer which you accepted for a 16sqm. Others who have asked about your plots, I have told them to contact you, and as far as I know, it went well. The fact that you are not in it to buy plots with the intent to extort or harass people adjacent to your plots, and are willing to deal fairly, goes a long way to showing that you aren't part of the problem. People may make the assumption that you are an extortionist, because you have a lot of microparcels and have them set at initially high prices, but when people approach you to deal, you are willing to work with them. So, no, I don't see you as an extortionist or as part of the problem.

The ones I see as extortionists are the ones out there day in and day out, cutting/buying microparcels, setting them to absolutely ridiculous prices (or not setting a price on them at all), and then proceeding to do everything they can to harass and annoy people, or ply some odious business model, like adfarming. THOSE people need to be ganked NOW. They really need to be stopped over a YEAR ago, but this isn't a year ago. We are here NOW, and the problem still has only gotten more urgent as time has gone on.

Your situation goes to the heart of why I push for addressing the real issue, which is extortion and harassment, instead of punishing people who aren't a part of the problem in the first place.