The Question of Land Cutting

It seems a variety of people are worried or posting about instances where they have small plots on their lands for various reasons.. So? Whats the matter with that? Nothing! This is about people who resell the land AFTER purchasing it and making it smaller while upping the price. It's not like LL will go around saying you can't have that 16m plot because its in a different group join it to the group or loose it.

* 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?

No

* 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?

Yes, I think so. At the least, the should be challenged over their usage.

Additionally I think there should be a process for users to file for a review on existing solitary 16sq.m plots that are still littered on sims from ad farmers who pulled down the adds are and appear to be trying to sit this out. Also I'm concerned about some groups who have bought these 16sq.m plots on nearly every sim and are using them to monitor the sim at large.

Also, there should be a price cap set on anything smaller than a 128s or 256s in order to discourage this type of behavior by making it uneconomical.

So how would I buy a 80m2 strip from my neighbor? How do I trade my 64m2 block sticking into his garden for his 32m2 sliver on my coastline? My 64 is roughly equal in value to his 32. We negotiate. We transact or not. Are you seriously suggesting that our transaction be banned? Or should my neighbor and I have to fill out a long form and beg on our hands and knees for Daddy Linden to let us adjust our borders?

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

What if a land owner wanted to be able to have one video show on a TV in their bedroom, and a different video show in another room? Same goes for music streams.

I haven't read through the seven pages of posts that are up right now so forgive me if anything I mention has been mentioned already.

There are no legitimate uses for selling plots smaller than 64m2 other than extortion.

There are, however, legitimate uses for land owners to create plots smaller than 64m2.

- Having vendors/ATMs from other merchants placed on your property (such as the newly-LL owned Xstreet XL) that require full build and/or scripting privileges.

- Trading parcels with neighbors (i.e. setting a parcel for sale to a neighbor for $L0) to recover from prior land cutters.

- Donating a small plot to your group so that your alternate avatars and friends who do not own land can set their home location in an area other than a Help Island.

These are just a few examples of things I personally do or have done with 16m2 parcels.

I truly believe that mainland owners should have the ability to create whatever parcel configuration suits their needs.

BUT... no one should be able to place 16m2 parcels for sale for more than $L0.

I realize that something like this is going to require a code base change but so be it. Residents will have to file abuse reports until the code can be changed for newly listed land sales.

I wrote: "Originally Posted by Cinco Pizzicato: Thus, when the market talks, the largest single resource available to SL residents is ruined. It's called a 'tragedy of the commons.'"



Mainland is actually more a feudal state than a privately-owned one. Anyone who pays premium can own 512m2 of land; thus, the Mainland is a shared resource amongst residents who pay premium and/or tier, and those with whom those 'owners' share their resource. The 'purchase price' does not imply true ownership, since LL can boot anyone at any time. The 'purchase price' is only a way to sort out who claims which piece of the resource.

Consider: If someone lags a sim through the use of inefficient scripts or what-have-you, this can be seen as abuse of the *shared resource.* Land works in a similar way, with the value of the land is determined in large part by the activities of neighbors. Land which is next to an extortion parcel (where literally anything could go up overnight if you don't pay the extortion) is seen as less valuable, and rightly so.

Furthermore, even if you were to pay the extortion and buy the land, the process could repeat in the next parcel which appears for sale on your sim. The process of paying the extortionist could continue for quite some time, and appear anywhere within the *shared resource* of the sim you are paying LL to use.

And, of course, if you pay the extortionist, that gives him some cash to buy some more land and threaten some more people.

It seems that peeps would be far more interested in absorbing many of these micro plots if the prices were normalized and,

and this is exquisitely important,

the absorbtion of the micro parcel would not push you into double the tier rate.

The tier rates must be far more graduated. This has stopped me on several occaisions from snapping up cutouts along my parcel border. Maybe a charge for every sqm rather than these large parcel rates.

And least I forget, Thanks Jack Linden, you came through!

I think people are getting a little confused here, the land cutting they are talking about is outlined in the blog, it's linked to the sale of the parcel, they aren't talking about cutting for media streams, just cutting for sales.

But if you are going to place limits to cutting Id say fine to that on new parcels.
Advertisers are still allowed to cut land for such purposes within linden lab guidelines I would assume.
Any price controls installed should take into consideration the price paid per lot. Its unfair to make a land owner sell the land for less then they paid for the it.
A sim by sim basis should be taken into consideration when considering the avg price of land., since some areas are worth far more then others as in RL. As well as previous months tier paid for upkeep of such land. After being soaked for 6 months tier for a pc of land, shouldn’t fair payment be made!

Good Night
ROBO

That's not the proper way to do it (if not in very few occasion), stream multiple sources is done via scripting, streaming individual (per avatar) contents.
Anyway it seems we're talking about t he land-cutting+speculation (resale / advertising), not on what we do with our private parcels for our purposes.

Good for you!
For my part I love the mainland and would never own land on an estate. The mainland has a living pulse, never the same always changing, lovely

I think LL agrees with all these uses, they are internal to your land and not you selling bits for exorbant prices. You are managing a larger parcel.

Stop the land cutters?
Yes please and bring me their heads.
I'm considering expanding and the plot behind me has two little bits cut out of it. The previous owners just built around them, but I refuse to mar my building plans or cave in to their extortion.


I don't think the kind of land cutting being targeted here would affect folks chopping things up for legitimate purposes. Having multiple video streams is part of the presentation of my business, so I can appreciate that. But they're not going to be for sale either. I'll also be quite obviously using them for something.

But for the base matter here of targeting this practice and putting a stop to it? Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.

Land cutting is a huge problem that needs to be dealt with just like ad farms. Extortionists have gotten away with their exploits long enough and now need to be stopped in order to restore the interest of land ownership in the mainland once again. It is great to see that land cutting is coming to an end finally.

You are referring, no doubt, to the infamous Jemima Juergens of whom many mainland owners have had the 'pleasure' of meeting. Yes, this type of scam has been around for way too long.

BUT, neither do we want to turn SL into Carmel, California (where cutting down a tree was illegal, all houses had to be the same color and eating icecream in the street was banned). Given a choice between Jemima and Carmel, I would choose Jemima.

Tinkering with the rainforest (getting rid of nasty frogs to protect the pretty birds) may seem like a good idea at first, but then you need to introduce new lizards to eat the insects the nasty frogs used to eat, then, woops, the lizards breed too fast so you need to adjust the rainfall and that causes problems for the monkeys, so you need to clear special areas of the forest, but that changes the water drainage so you need to cut new channels, but that wipes out the local newts, which cascades into a problem for the snakes, so now you need to hire 1000 more managers and gardeners and form new committees, which results in the rise of the Fair Weather Party that has strong political views on how the rainfall balance should be managed and on and on and on until the rainforest is finally paved in concrete.

As for a technical solution to the tragedy of the commons, I think scripts should be treated like prims - that each parcel be restricted to a percentage of processor (LL is seeking advice on this now).

1 there is no reason that a plot needs to be more than -+10% of the price of the surrounding plots

2 if you ban folks for cutting then the plots should go on a private sale to the folks in the a joining plots

3 the system should disallow teraforming land on a 16 plot outside +-5 meters (and banlines and no fly)

One possible action:

You cannot sell a piece of (main)land that is less than 256m sq.

Let the cutters cut all they want, they can't sell it.

Now, someone will come up with the brilliant idea of cutting it up and RENTING the 16m sq's.. what is it 3? 4? prims on 16m sq? -1 for the rental box, plus they will have to keep up with it.

It's a nice theory, but how can one actually monitor the cutting a piece of 16sqm land from a parcel and setting it for sale versus cutting a piece of 16sqm parcel for personal use or to rejoin with others for either personal use or sale.

I have shuffled sections around myself before donating to a neighboring group. This involved much cutting and rejoining, then setting a specific buyer and 1L. The server may monitor and detect my having cut up the land minutes earlier into a 16sqm but the sale piece was nothing like this.

And what of those who do pass land between eachother? Will a 16sqm for 1L set for a specific buyer be prone to scrutiny, and can LL filter blatant rollover land cutting versus assorted group or personal maneuvers?

Desmond Chang's Recommendation:


a) Make examples out of the top 10 people brutally trashing the mainland with extortion via land cutting. Do it again in 60 days. Cheap, fast, effective, message sent. The problem will rapidly fall away and you won't waste tons of mindless time on ridiculous edge cases.


b) For people with say, a legitimate 16m parcel in a region for whatever purpose, not bothering anyone - leave 'em alone.
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I agree. It is only a few people doing this; just ban them and reconnect their land.
Ban them for griefing and therefore violating TOS.

Make an announcement that land cutters have a certain time to set their prices at fair market value and sell their land and then the banning will commence.

Also make land griefing an ARable offence. That keeps the land use creative instead of being destroyed by the mean spirited.

Poppycock!

If i own a whole sim.....whom am irratating if i chose to cut up my SIM for my Mall?
This is done so that all my vendors have their own plots appear in ALL search, which might mean plots smaller than 256 sqm. I have a duty to my vendors to bring in traffic by any legitimate means! Sure if i ever sold the sim, all the plots would be re-joined again and the sim would be sold as 1.
I must be free to utilise of my land anyway I see fit, providing it doesn't violate TOS ...otherwise what is the point of owning any land on Mainland?

Im with people like Ann O and Desmond S and quite a few others on this.

Where there is a pattern of abusing the neighbours (and extortion is abuse) then those people should be banned. Theyre greifers. We dont need a new policy for this really. Land abusers who get banned get to lose all their 'investments'. Creating another alt isnt going to rectify that loss.

~o~

For those sims that are cut to pieces like where I have my home set to at the moment, there is me and about 4 other active neighbours and the rest is a pile of barren rock, and between us we own only about a quarter of the sim. Its worthless to anyone else because its a pigsty as far as parcel boundaries go. In my view, Linden Lab should bring in the bulldozers. Not just where I am but also on many other mainland sims that are in an even worse state. Either

a) relocate us someplace else and bulldoze the whole lot, or
b) bulldoze and move all the rubbish, donuts, edges and scraps etc, many of which are owned by the Governor, into a pile. And forcibly join up all the owners of these seperated and abandoned and derelict plots into adjacent blocks. Most of which are scraps of less than 512m.

And if Linden Lab do bring in the bulldozers I dont mind where I end up if it means that other people can begin to use the neigbouring land again.

is kinda drastic this, but is the only way forward sometimes. Ghettoes get bulldozed all the time to make way for better housing. The SecondLife mainland shouldnt be an exception to this in my opinion.

Whatever you do, Keep It Simple!

If you don't try to sell the small cuts at L$100,000 no one will bother you. Cut on your land, that you're not selling and there is no problem.

Bingo!

Too easy to game. I sell the land at a 25% mark up to my alt. She sells it back to me. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. I can sell that land at any price I'd like now.

There are almost always ways to game any technical solution. The real solutions require clear rules, humans who can make judgements, and actual enforcement of the rules. (Rules without enforcement, whether legal or social, tend to have a negative effect on society as people learn more and more to just ignore them.)