The Question of Land Cutting

I fully agree with SL's suggested policy.

There needs to be some land value controls instituted in order to help maintain the land property here. Otherwise, any investor can come along and literally destroy a particular parcel's property value, rendering it *virtually worthless* for untold years to come... This practice is not only unfairly SL, but it also negatively affects neighboring land owners.

There's really quite a SIMPLE SOLUTION to this!

Place limitations on how much a parcel can be subdivided. The minimum size should be 512 sqm. This would solve the issue quickly.

"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."

No mention of size in that sentence, so turning a 2048 bought at auction into two 1024s can be considered cutting under the sentence above, since I'd CERTAINLY want to turn a profit on the sale, else why bother? The way that sentence reads, it sounds as though Jack Linden was against the land resale business, since you could only resell for cost, unless you were lucky enough to find a buyer for that larger parcel and sell at a profit then.


Persephone

Why do you have an issue with subdividing a larger parcel to rent it to others? What's wrong with being a landlord/lady?


Persephone

Now you're just being silly..

I totally support this move by LL... a sim that has been cut up in this way... usually for the purpose of creating ad-farms is an eye-sore and hindrance to good land development. On several occasions I have purchased these small (often only 16sq m) parcels and joined them into usable properties.

There is only one occasion where it is has been useful for me to create tiny parcels, though I am not 100% sure it is applicable to mainland.

On an estate where I have several parcels that I rent (with house & garden), the Estate management have provided some beautiful palms to help create a consistent theme across the sims of the Estate.

Though these plants belong to the Estate I prefer to leave them on the parcels I rent , however, my rental parcels require group membership to rez objects etc: object entry, creation and run scripts are restricted to the group only, with a 2 minute auto-return. To avoid the estate palms from being returned, though they may be within the boundary of a rental parcel, I have created small parcels around them. This also ensures that these prims are not included in the renter's prim allocation.

This is simply to assist me with parcel management and is fair for my renters and in no way conflicts with other users or impinges on the visual look of the sim, quite the contrary in fact.

All my mainland holdings are set up for retail business so I have not had to consider this, however I can see that other mainland parcel owners may have similar configurations.

Did you misread "intent to sell and/or rent to inflate profit" ... perhaps I should have said "grossly inflate profit" ... or "profiteer" or "exploit" ...

I think we all applaud progress on eliminating the use of 16m2 parcels for "extortion", which is essentially the problem that is referenced in your post.

However, there a number of legitimate uses for 16m2 parcels, the most obvious is to allow multiple video or audio streams. But their are other reasons as well, for example:

- Rental boxes for a related parcel.
- Sim monitors.

And frankly, if a land owner wants to parcel their land into 16m2 parcels, I don't have a problem, so long as the land owner is actually using the parcel for some purpose.

Its the 16m2 parcels that are set for sale at exorbitant prices that are the actual issue here. Not the size of the parcel per se. And as other posters have mentioned, if the "limit" is 4x4 meters, then the problem shifts to 4x8 meters, or 8x8, etc.

In my opinion, you shouldn't be able to SELL a parcel under "x" square meters for more than 0 Lindens. That would insure that land owners would need to rejoin small plots into a "minimum" size before selling, and thus rejoin the land. And for those that would suggest it would just "move" the extortion to person to person, I agree. But the costs (in time) to personally handle land transfers "off book" and then complete the 0L sale would greatly reduce the incentive to the point where it would likely disappear.

And from a development point of view, setting a maximum price per meter of zero seems a lot simpler than setting a maximum price per some market average.

Nope, not legitimate.


Again, it's really only a very small number of people doing this - must there be a grand sweeping policy that ruffles everyone's feathers? It's one thing to be bodysearched at a Metallica concert, but quite another for people to be sternly warned and cavity-searched before they walk into a pub. It's too heavy of a response; 99% of people don't do this sort of extortion at all.

Perhaps all that is needed is a one-liner that says "Don't extort others with exorbitantly priced microparcels or we'll kill the sales and you'll get banned."

Smack down the top offenders, others will get the idea quick and you can move on to more important things.

Desmond has it right, go after the top abusers who are responsible for 90% of the problem, and I would say keep the rules semi-flexible to prevent any rules-lawyering. Yes, there will be a subjective standard and while LL has "issues" at time, their standards will still be superior to those of an obvious extornionists. Make sure the Eula supports this because you're probably going to pick up a lawsuit or two from people looking for a quick settle or who have talked themselves into a position of stubborn moral superiority.

Don't get bogged down in edge cases. Waste of paid staff.

Set a minimum tier level per sim at 512.

Micromanaging sale price and ability - bad idea, too many gray lines. Instead, set a minimum tier per sim so a 16m plot carries the same tier load as a 512. There's a low cost of entry for sim extortion, $5/month gives you 32 plots. Change the tier, change the cost of entry, lower the number of people doing it. Of course, if a player already has 512 tier in the sim through other parcels, the micro-parcels count normal for tier.

caps on sale price - Ha! The extortionist will just arrange side deals with an alt account or off the grid entirely (via paypal).

Common sense prevails!

I can see only one use for a 16m parcel, but a 512m parcel would work just as well, too, given that you are able to own that much without incurring tier payments. The use would be inventory storage. Basically, a couple prims set on the ground can hold an incredible amount of inventory. For example, you are able to place a number of textures inside of a prim, some gadgets in another prim, etc, and then store those "boxes" inside of a single prim, where you can leave it in this land parcel, reducing inventory lag. If prices were capped to the region average, the major advantage is even some newbie, provided he were allowed to own land, would be able to buy one of these small parcels for next to nothing and be able to use it to keep his suitcase. This also give him a place he can set as a Home location apart from infohubs where he can, basically, teleport to an empty area with but a keystroke.

These are, of course, just hypothetical uses, and not necessarily critical to the livelyhood of SL, but it is something to consider. Personally I'd like to see 16m plots disappear altogether, but everyone posting here already knows why they SHOULD go. Few, I imagine, are posting about possible uses for them. And to be sure, to make the above even remotely viable as an option, the suggestion to cap the price at the regional average for land, excepting someone buying an entire sim to chop up, would have to be implimented. There would have to be a hardcoded cap programmed in to prevent that scenario.

This is a very good example of land being cut for legitimate reasons. It is foolish to expect anyone to jump into a higher usage fee bracket for 3 prims and they shouldn't be expected to do so.

Parcels cut so that residents may experience different audio streams and sample the music of different artists is another legitimate reason for slicing land.

I agree that deliberately slicing land in a manner consistent with price gouging should be punished but this is something that must be reviewed by an actual employee before any action is taken against the resident in question. If you seek to automate this process to dole out punishment simply because a small parcel is present, you will create a much larger problem than you are trying to resolve. As convenient as it may be to remove the human element, doing so would make the mainland less attractive.

I have to say I'm not too familiar with this practice in and of itself. Personally I can't see how simply cutting up land into tiny parcels is extortion, without simultaneously engaging in some form of harassing behavior with the parcel.

So, I guess to answer your first question - No.

My recommendation would be to expand and clarify upon your previous policy of labeling advert parcels as harassment. Expand it to include deliberately annoying practices on these tiny parcels. From the looks of things there are too many legitimate possibilities for the use of them to make a blanket prohibition on "land cutting".

(I would also note that extortion of this sort is only a problem because of the policy of trying to squeeze people back onto the Mainland, and maintaining the ridiculously high sale and tier prices, but that might stir up other feather-ruffling issues hmm?)

Land cutting should be made a TOS violation and a ar'able offence, you got my vote Pete, but take it a step further, set a maximum price that the 16 square bits can be sold for, for all the 16 square bits that the ad-farmers use to create visual eyesores on the mainland.

Why should resident be held to ransom for these parcels that have been cut out of the various plots on mainland

Q #1- YES! no question about it
Q #2- yes, many, but all I can think of would maintain the ownership of the surrounding, larger plot
Q #3- Yes!

Bonus Question - a good thought

Additional thoughts - How about encouraging the remaining ad farmers (especially the ones holding vacant small plots) to sell their plots. [M** & Ch*******, I am thinking of you!]

TY for taking your Managment responsibilities seriously, and for including us in your decision making.

Yes, land cutting should be made a TOS violation.

No, besides one or 2 small parcels for rental boxes, pathways between rentals, etc, one does not need small parcels on a permanent basis. It is sometimes needed temporarily when dealing with "jagged edge" parcels though.

Yes, existing owners of cut land should be required to rejoin it. For situations where different owners have different parcels of cut land, the whole area should be treated like abandoned land. LL should be allowed to seize them all, and auction the resulting parcel as abandoned land.

And yeah, a max price on sale of parcels of 64 sqm or less is OK

"Land Cutting" for the sole purpose of making a profit in the mainland should be a "VIOLATION" .....its a mess looking at all the tiny checkered parcels priced very high...same as SPAM.

Close down that loophole and force the violators to buy Private Estates so they can do that there.

Being a mainland resident, I am in full support of putting a limit on the minimum sized block that can be sold. There are 16m2 blocks in our region selling for L$9999 and, in some cases, higher prices which is just stupid.

In terms of sub-dividing land you are using, you may wish to set a small plot as a box opening area for customers while restricting this ability on the majority of your land... or set a smaller parcel as a landing area, etc.

I have no issues with owners of land subdividing land for their own reasons while using it but think that there should be a definite restriction on the minimum sized parcel you can sell. A number of those who abuse the system in our region own a number of small parcels which collectively would add up to a larger sized parcel, some of them right next to each other which indicates to me that they do it soley out of greed/for profit.

I think the restrictions should only apply to sale of the land and not use of the land that is not up for sale.

Residents who do stuff 'just because they can' or 'to get my money's worth' tend to get more attention than those who show consideration and respect for their fellow residents by using tools as intended and with common sense.

As the real violation tends to be when it comes to selling the land, lets put the restriction on sales rather than limiting land owners from using their land as they please while they own the 'title'.

* Do you agree in principle that land cutting needs to be a violation?
Only land cutting that is done for sales profits or griefing.

* Are there any legitimate reasons for land cutting (excluding profit) that we should consider when setting policy?
Yes. Example: A museum (like Museum of Robots, Holocaust Memorial) using many different media streams, needing small parcels for this setup. We are not talking about (as you put it) "To be clear, we are not talking about creating one or two small parcels for legitimate reasons or as part of your normal land management" but about many small parcels for a legitimate reason.

* 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?
Only if set for sale.


My ideas would be:

- Make it impossible to sell mini parcels.
- When you find someone cutting land for sales profits (or you get a legitimate AR about someone), give him one warning and a day to join the land again, if that doesn't help: seize the land. If it happens again, seize all property of that person and kick him out of SL.

I've been waiting over 6 months for a 64sqm parcel in the corner of my sim, where I own the property ont he two sides not facing into other sims to come down to a reasonable price. For some reason, I have a really difficult time paying over 600 linden per square meter. Cutting, in many cases, seems to be the leftover result of getting rid of the ad farms. Until the ban on huge ads went through, this particular corner was never anything more than a towering ever changing ad. I can wait.

As for legitimate purposes for extremely small parcels, I know of people who have small, blocked parcels simply in order to have a place to store and maintain their SLX/Xstreet boxes. Unnecessary, perhaps, but not a huge intrusion, other than the ban lines and such.

Yess, cutting should be banned. Price caps, penalties for landowners of such parcels, any of these seem like reasonable ways to deal with the issue, so long as it doesn't become to intrusive to landowners in general.

mostly for video and media settings...or if you need a small parcel in a region for a sensor or part of a communications system...etc...

So I dont think there should be any limitations on what you can do to your own land, so far as cutting it...I do however feel that there should be a limit on what size parcel can be sold...or a limit placed on what smaller parcels may be sold for....as for the average price per meter being a starting point...that would be ridiculous...because if you look at mainland pricing on the grid right now...it in no way correlates with the prices that LL shows as the average price per meter...the thousands of zero linden parcels offered for rent on the island estates skews that number totally.

So what it comes down to is, in my opinion...dont limit the cuts someone can do on their own land, for their own use...there are LOTS of reasons for small parcels...as for limiting the size parcel you can resell...OR...limiting the price you can charge for a parcel under a certain size...I am all for one or the other...but I dont think we need both...

Lastly...what do you do for landowners that have legacy parcels?...you are basically penalizing them for owning land?...I personally own several hundred parcels in various sims that I purchased for landing my bots on...so that they dont show up on other folks parcels...in an attempt to be responsible...I paid more for them than they would be worth under the new policy...I have no intention of selling them...but I do want to keep them...

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

Yes, land cutting as you have defined it should be a violation.

May I add that in certain cases, the current owner - not the original cutter - should be considered in violation - certain practices occurring on 16m plots aside from advertising, are essentially griefing to drive up the sale price.

They include:

1) Obnoxious Terraforming - making 16m high-as-possible hills and low-as-possible pits on for-sale 16m plots. I believe the sole intention is to irritate the neighbors into buying these things - they distort the adjoining land. And those hill things are usually priced way higher than the flat 16m plots - like, 12,999 for a 16m freaky hill? Geez.

2) Ban lines on 16m plots. Same reason - I mean, privacy for a 16m plot is a joke. You know, you can't even build a tiny's outhouse on there, give me a break. The ban lines are to irritate the neighbors into buying it.

(edit: I just read the above. But I am not sure why they need ban lines for the SLXchange boxes? Maybe someone can clarify that for me).

I think those should be AR able offenses.

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

I assume you mean cutting down to 16m plots? Yes, there are... most have already been mentioned. Such as streaming media, and dropping land for tier. Most would not involve land sales. Dropping 16m for lowering tier might, I suppose.

I personally would be loath to set up a bunch of 16m steaming media parcels streaming seperate video- ooooohhh the lag!

* 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?

I think they should have to rejoin it, or take it off the market.
(edit for clarity: I don't think they should be able to sell them without rejoining them)

I own ~45.000 m2 in Templegreen and I want to own there as much as possible. I bought every parcel I could get there over the last 2 years and it was really hard. I had to look at huge rotating full bright cubes with sex themed ads. I dealed for months with some adspace owners and I paid horrendous prices for most of 16 m2 ad spaces along the road and joined them all to my big parcel, a long time before LL did something against those kind of adspaces. I love Mainland and I want to look "my" mainland as nice as possible. So far, Templegreen is adfree. (There are 3 more 16m2 parcels I don't get from the owners, they own hundreds of adspaces all over the grid, but they are all empty and not for sale. I guess they are waiting for a big deal.)

In my shop I've cutted out some 16m2 parcels, because I want to run different ads with different images. And I have a little "unpack area" for my customers (only for lucky chair boxes, my vendors are all set to copy contents). So yes, there is a legitimate reason for small parcels, if they are surrounded/near by land of the same owner.

*off topic* Adspace abuse was the most ugliest thing on mainland. But non built Linden roads are the second ugliest thing. I built "my own" Linden road with overlapping prims, hope you don't throw me out because of violation of TOS. I just want mainland looking nice.

Sorry for bad english.

Dealing with landcutting before extortion is putting the cart before the horse. It's not as if the cutters get some fantasy high from chopping the Mainland to bits; they do it because extortionists will pay them for it as raw material for the extortion. Most of the extortion parcels are no longer owned by the cutters. I'd even venture that the original cutters own *none* of the extortion parcels in most of the worst locations.

Perhaps the idea is to stop the bleeding and protect new, soon-to-be-auctioned Gaeta landmass from the chopping, while devising the anti-extortion policy. But any workable anti-extortion policy will obviate anything done now to solve the cutting problem. So why take this baby step now and make extra work?

Des's and Ann's suggestion to deal firmly with the extortionists would indeed solve the problem quickly (and probably reduce whatever next get-rich-quick scams the extortionists will turn to when their land-for-ransom fun is over). But if LL can't bring itself to do that, there are plenty of other measures to deal with the problem, with months and years of pleas in these forums for their enactment.

So pick one, and get on with it.

If we're just going to follow the outlined path anyway, please don't restrict action to a literal 64-or-less parcel limit. Many extortionists and their alts and interchangeable groups own more than 64m2, scattered around the sim in assorted 16s, 32s, etc., and they can easily rearrange ownership and join the mess into single "parcels" greater than 64m2 in total area. Personally, I'd set the lower limit at 256m2 convex contiguous area, but whatever the number is, it can't allow fake joining to circumvent the policy.

Almost any of the anti-extortion measures can be implemented as Governance rules without need for development. If somebody has a microparcel for sale at more than an announced average market price, neighbors AR it and G-Team reclaims it for the Governor. One week advance notice and you can be sure that there won't be many ARs needed.

It's much more effective and much less work than this anti-cutting policy.

No; You stated; “The owning of cut land would not be a violation (unless you cut it in the first place), rather it is the act of cutting it that would be the violation.” This tells me that anyone cutting a plot 16m for any reason. Even if that reason is valid; it would be in violation.



Rental box placement; the rental box does not get auto returned by the renter.
Video streaming.
Landing points.



No. Once the land is sold to a resident LL should take a hands off approach unless the new owner is in violation of the TOS or Community Standards. Changes should be made before the land is sold; not after. I understand the need to clean up the mainland; but please make sure that the majority is in favor of any future changes before committing to those changes. There are enough upset subscribers.




If LL feels a real need to clean up the grid; please put a cap on the amount of profit that can be made on parcels under 512m for example 25% above original purchase price. Consider again commercial and residential zoning. Sims with mixed zoning.

Cat Cotton

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Reposted from Jack Linden's blog post at
http://blog.secondlife.com/2009/01/28/the-question-of-land-cutting/[/QUOTE]