The Question of Land Cutting

Unfortunately......or should I say fortunately most people don't share your sentiments...and by the looks of things nor does Jack or Linden Labs, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Maybe you're a NeoCon that believes in free capital markets with very few regulations.......well we can see where that's led us to in RL...can't we?

And self images of brave new man striding into the future over the backs of the less self inspired. Exactly the meglomaniac attitude we are saying extortionists have toward us peons just trying to enjoy our sandbox.
Though probably just a trolling trick to get me on the bait.

Great to hear K-man. I am trying to heal the chopped up land in my neck of the woods and I think your group (hopefully) owns one of the 16s there. I'll check tonight and send you an IM if so.

I am very sympathetic to what you and others are saying. As I mentioned early in this blog, I was the 'victim' of a pro 'extortionist' (using 512m2 lots) who caused immense damage to the morale of thousands of mainland residents. It was a very bitter experience for me personally.

Then something far worse happened. Linden Lab made a series of policy blunders in 2007, many in response to its June 2006 policy of inviting kids and griefers into SL through anonymous accounts. In my opinion, LL's kneejerk policy decisions based on a lack of strategic vision have caused far more damage to SL than all the 'extortionists' combined.

Before Br'er Rabbit throws another punch at the Tar Baby, perhaps we should clarify the problem, which, to my mind, is systematic harassment. It is foolish to ban advertising or land division or pink skyscrapers etc. when these (harmless in themselves) are a subset of the tools available to those who seek to conduct campaigns of harassment.

Is there a quick fix that will reduce systematic harassment without using a shotgun to kill a fly? Linking script processing to parcels (similar to prim limits) will be a huge improvement because it will eliminate a major 'tragedy of the commons'. Yet, because SL is mostly a visual experience across borders, the only way to deal with 'visual noise' is to determine whether it is employed for systematic harassment.

Jack, the question is: How should we deal with those who employ 'visual noise' for purposes of harassment?

Wow... 20 pages... is Jack still reading?


MY solution (which certain folks will NOT like) is this:

- Anyone that owns less than 512sqm in a region (contiguous or not) is at risk of losing some or all of their land due to eminent domain. Notify them. Give them 3 months advance warning, and alert anyone putting land up for sale that their remaining land may be at risk if they go below 512sqm.

- Allow only adjacent neighbors of the undersized parcels to submit a request for eminent domain seizure.

- LL reviews the request. If they decide the eminent domain request is actionable:
--- they charge the petitioner fair market price for the land
--- seize the land and pay the offending land owner
--- clear parcel & smooth the terrain
--- mark the land Linden Reserved Land
--- and close the issue.

This helps rid the mainland of blight ... and does not reward those that would seek to use this mechanism for personal gain.

Does that include land belonging to groups with the same owner?

This is a very creative approach. It will be interesting to see the reaction. Truly thinking out-of-the-box.

Of course no Linden is reading this thread anymore so we're basically just tossing around ideas for our own enjoyment.

That said Jopsy's idea is fine but why would person A want to force person B to abandon their land? No-one benefits and the small parcels stay and the sims never heal.

A 16m parcel could have as many as four adjacent neighbors.

How will LL decide among them?

Potentially 8 neighbours <G>

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shon Larsson
Your still missing the point and exhibiting what many in this thread have, that because you can't have YOUR way with MY land I'm at fault..( if I were doing these things that have upset so many ). It IS the landowners right to do as they see fit. I bring the word to you again "CHOICES". Meet with a few of your friends or neighbors that feel the same as you and "get yourself a private island or set up your own OpenSim". No one needs to be regulated on this platform how they are to use what they've paid for and OWN, how to price, and when or if they can re-sell. *If there is a performance, safety, harassment issue then LL should deal with those individuals. On the Mainland, its OUR World when its your plot that you've rented from the Sim Owner and you can share YOUR World with who ever you like. Forums has a land thread why not spend time there and maybe find a place you'd like. If everyone thought like you Second Life might as well be First Life..and thats the reason many are on Second Life.







These two posts are excellent concise representations of the two opposing camps in this thread: the 'Mainland should remain Mainland, go to an Estate if you want everything that meets your eyes to be controlled' versus 'you must be a ______if you don't want to have everything that meets your eyes be controlled!'

Though I've posted in favor of market-linked maximim pricing of microparcels---to remove the incentive for people to checkerboard--I definitely come down on the side of 'if you want everything you see to reflect your own preferences, and damn the other person's rights, then you might be happier on an Estate than on Mainland'.

Though that position has gray areas--I would NOT want a return to the 'extortion by giant spinning cubes' period. I do concede that the policy against such extortion has made for a better Mainland experience.

I just don't think that the people whose skin crawls at the sight of empty land that happens to have property lines on it, really deserve to be catered to.

How, if it's four meters on a side? Or maybe you're counting 'catecorner' as neighbors...?

But either way--or even if it's just two neighbors (presumably one with land that surrounds the 16 on three sides and one that has a long border along which the 16 sits)----how would LL decide between them?


(And, anticipating: If you would offer 'first come first served' as a way of deciding, wouldn't that penalize people who live in certain time zones?)

STRAW MAN

QFT.

I think you've expressed the problem as well as anyone in this thread. The only place I part ways with you is in the concept that the policy should be focused on 'harassment'---not because I think you've mis-identified harassment as being at the root of the problem (I think you're quite correct about that). But because deciding what actions spring from harassment and what actions don't spring from harassment, is going to be very difficult.

Fundamentally, it requires mind-reading.

And worse, it requires a huge increase in the man-hours LL would have to devote to dealing with the decisions on what actions are due to an intent to harass, and what actions are due to (perhaps) personal taste or land management needs or what have you.

That's why I think removing the profit motive is the best means of dealing with harassment--coupled with a renewed committment to enforcing the anti-extortion policies currently in the TOS. (I.e, prompt responses to ARs about spinning neon cubes on parcels up for sale at a high multiple of the current average per-meter price.)

This has nothing to do with mainland vs. estate land. This has to do mainland, and those who wish to see changes to policy governing how mainland is maintained. Estates are a whole different product altogether, and have no place in this discussion.



The lack of spinning cubes certainly has improved the landscape's appearance, though there is a long way to go before mainland regains some of the qualities it had before excessive land restriction options were introduced. It's nearly impossible to explore the mainland in a vehicle these days. But that is a debate for another thread

You know, you similarly misused this term yesterday. I didn't want to humiliate you, so I let it pass.

"Strawman" refers to having attributed a statement (call it X) to a person, when that person never said X.

It does not refer to having expressed an opinion about the philosphy expressed by two opposing camps in a discussion (as you misused it today) or about 'people lying awake fretting about such things' (which you mis-identified as a Strawman claim in your post #743.)

To explain in a little more detail: making a claim that some people lie awake fretting, is NOT attributing statement X to some person who never said X--which is what Strawman is. To repeat: to have a valid claim that Strawman has been committed, the person you're accusing must have made a false claim that a person said X, when the person never actually did say X.

This site has some good examples of actual Strawman claims; taking a look at them might prevent you from further embarrassment:

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html

I personally am in favor of limiting the sale of cut parcels to the average price. It would remove all incentive to piece it out for profit, and should heavily mitigate the issue.

Now, I personally am guilty for creating one or 2 16m parcels on my lands for the purposes of managing security systems in groups that are not the land owner, and to allow me to maintain autoreturn permissions on the main plot. This is, I feel, a legitimate use of the land to solve a problem with providing for the lack of granular security in the system. I personally would never sell such a plot, but maybe others would need to for some similar reason.

As for the ad farms, burn them all! I have search, I don't need your crap in my face to know where to shop.

I think you missed the point I was making. I wasn't talking about 'mainland vs. estate land', I was talking about the desires expressed by some people in this thread to have estate-like rules imposed on Mainland. (Some have gone so far as to say that Mainland should have a Covenant, that Managers should be appointed for each sim, etc.)

I disagree with the idea that no comparisons with Estates are useful, and that such comparisons have no place. Because many have brought up the comparisons, they are valid to discuss.







I agree with you on this.

There you go. Eliminate the incentive, and you eliminate the problem.

Another thing it would eliminate is the need for umpteen man-hours for Lindens trying to deal with all the exceptions and disputes that would arise if a change in the land-cutting tools was implemented, or if eminent domain is used for anything other than donut-holes (which seem to be the main two competing solutions being offered).

I think that some comments have missed the point that the land does not go to the neighbour who triggered the report. There is no "How does LL decide which adjacent neighbour".

If a landowner is adjudged by LL to be blighted by a small parcel on a boundary or as a doughnut-hole.:
1) LL take the land into LL ownership
2) The adjacent landowner who wanted the blight removed from their boundary or from inside their land funds the cash that is given by LL to the parcel-owner as a 'fair market price'.

The big thing in its favour is that it avoids accusations (not to mention the possibility) of unfair land-grabbing by neighbours - especially by newly-arrived neighbours.

A drawback of this is that it doesn't address the issue of micro-parcels that are in the middle of a larger parcel.
LL could permit adjacent/enclosing landowners to encroach on such (LL) parcels - but not get the prims.
This would solve the issue of a small parcel blocking a build and-or a corner/indent 16 forcing the architectural possibilites.

The only real problem left for the enclosing landowner would be that they would have to build with some small non-rezz/no-media zones inside the build.
THis might not be the ideal in their view, but the major restrictions and threat posed by the micro-parcel would be gone forever.

But it IS libel if it's not true.

These were your claims (in post 750):

1) you were once reported as a 16sqm corner-cutter for some plots in a region near me.

If someone reported me as 'a 16sqm corner-cutter', then their claim was dismissed by LL. As can be documented through LL records.

Anyone can make a false accusation. Someone could accuse you of being a terrorist. Would that make you a terrorist?

2) 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".

That is another lie--again, LL records would prove that I've never typed "prevailing market value" in a land description.



I've received some unofficial advice (not having gone, yet, to the expense of paying a retainer) on dealing with you. Much depends on LL's response to your libel. But even though posts on a message board have traditionally not been considered actionable because of the anonymity, this situation is different because actual money is involved.

It's good advice for you to retract your lies.



As for why a single 16m was taken from each of four 2560m parcels: it's simple math. The parcel was 100m wide, with the sea on the east side of it. No tier-level parcel has a dimension of 100m, and cutting them lengthwise would have meant land-only parcels with no water access.

The obvious solution, to make tier-level, rectangular parcels with a fair amount of ocean frontage: (28 x 92) - 16 = 2560. No 16m was put up for sale, but each had a message offering to sell to the owner of an adjacent parcel for L10 per meter, which was a lower per-meter price than the parcels had sold for.

Some owners took me up on that; I set the land for sale to them and it is in LL records. Eventually the owner of a parcel to the west of my original parcel asked to buy the remaining land (which included some of the 16m bits, two, I think) at L7.31/meter. I liked the community-oriented nature of their build, and so sold to them.

In this, where is 'corner cutting'?



Regardless of whether we end up with a court judgment against you for libel, in which you surrender real-world assets to me, the fact remains that at this very moment, you are being punished for your nasty conduct. You are being punished by being you.




Why? To make tier-level parcels that have the maximum access to features such as waterfront.

How other people feel? Well, ask my customers. They feel grateful.

You're right, I did miss that--I'm guilty of skimming.

But I'm still not seeing how this wouldn't mean a huge increase in calls on LL personnel and time and resources. I'm only guessing how many people would file these 'I'll pay to have this person removed from ownership of this parcel' requests---but I'm thinking that it might be a very large number (all of which would have be dealt with by LL employees).

Also, inevitably, some such requests would be of a vindictive variety, and LL employees, swamped with work, would let some unjust expulsions of owners occur.

That wouldn't be good for SL as a whole.

So, you object to small empty parcels if they are owned by residents but you're totally OK with small empty parcels owned by Gov Linden?

No, it doesn't.

In MANY cases, the intent is so obvious, there is no way it could be mistaken. NO WAY.

Yes, there WILL be some cases in which it will require relying on gut instinct and prevailing common sense to discern, and there WILL be some cases where it won't work out the way it should. However, for the VAST MAJORITY of cases, it's not going to take more than a couple minutes' time to discern the actual intent of what is going on.



I SEVERELY doubt it will lead to a "huge" increase. Will it lead to an increase? Sure, initially, but once the big players are dealt with, their case load will actually FALL below its current levels, assuming they actually deal with the right problem the right way, as opposed to band-aiding another facet.



It won't. It will quickly be circumvented in some way, and the harassment / extortion will continue by going down another avenue. You whack one mole, another one pops up somewhere else.

Very strange post!

Where did I imply " if you don't want to have everything that meets your eyes be controlled" ?

I just want the 10 or 12 top culprits shut down, i don't want any pricing controls enforced nor the determination of which land sizes can or cannot be sold.