How Many Islands have gone so far?

Yes, but that is also true for the price of full regions, so Shockwave was correct. He said that LL changed the requirements for purchase (now single purchase possible and not necessary anymore to attach them to a full region) and doubled the prim number. The price in USD didn't change (well, a tiny bit, from 1/4th of 1675=418.75 to 415), but the price per prim was cut by 50 percent. Before this you payed $418.75 for 1875 prims (1/4th of the price of a full region for only 1/8th of the prims of a full region) - with the policy change from march 7 you payed the same for 3750 prims, the OS regions became a "fair deal", you had to pay 1/4th of the price of a full region for 1/4th of the prims of a full region.

Island growth so far in January, as of January 19th: -584.
Island growth so far in January, as of January 20th: -588.

The rate of loss has slowed to a bit under 30 sims a day now. That's a pretty sharp decline from last month, and if the curve holds, we'll probably only lose another three thousand sims by July when the next price gouge^H^H^H^H^Hincrease kicks in.

We can only lose so many islands, though. I think the reason the loss is slowing is that there are simply fewer Openspace sims to lose. If it was Linden Lab's intent to completely kill off Openspace sims as a product, I think it's working.

If their intent was to destroy their relationship with their customer base, I think that's working too.

I'm modifying my seat-of-the-pants estimate to a total landmass of about 16,000 sims by July, when the rest of the fertilizer hits the fan. This gives Linden Lab about another nine or ten weeks to reverse course on this decision before it does them in, if they haven't already done irrepairable damage, and I think they just might have.

Er.. I think you need to check your math there...

Paladin is right in so far as the average over the days from 1st to 20th Jan is -29.
The last 7 days the average was about -9.

Island growth so far in January, as of January 21st: -611.

21st I know you're not a native English speaker and I respect how well you grasp the language so please don't take my correction the wrong way

I thought the decline would have been levelling out by now, maybe it will go right to the end of the month.

Island growth so far in January, as of January 23rd: -604.

Hey, somebody's adding islands again! Perhaps the decline IS leveling off.

Of course, that was to expect. Most of those that had to give up their regions and dreams are done (for now). The next big wave will hit in July - if LL really does the 2nd step in raising the that "great new product they introduced because of the demand from their customers".

Also 4 februarie will be the last day that the new tier level will have to be payed for the 1st time (4 january was the last day the old tier level was payed)
full sims will always keep getting added so we reached the point now where more new full sims get added then homestead sims will get removed.

The decline IS leveling off, but let me give you a better picture of who is adding islands again, by quoting Tyche Shepherd's blog ( http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/business-land-economy/8523-new-second-life-sims-past-12.html ):

This week for the first time since October the main grid showed a net increase in the number of regions. With 314 new regions added and 282 removed, the Grid increased by 32 regions.

The main reason for this increase was the addition of 151 new Linden regions, 146 making up the Ursula area and another 5 bridging the gap between the Gaeta and Corsica continents.

Private estates still showed a net decline in number with a net fall of 74 regions though this is the smallest drop since the Openspace announcement. There certainly seems a decline in regions being converted or abandoned.

Private estates now number 21912 with 5366 Linden regions.

Island growth so far in January, as of January 25th: -642.

Judging by the raw data statistics page ( http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy-data.php?d=2009-01-27 ) there was an increase of 5244 islands from the 25th to the 26th. Hm?

Thats closer to the total Grid - It sounds like they added in Linden owned Sims
6 hours ago my surveys said total grid size was 27266 of which 21900 were private estates and 5366 are Linden owned

So the mainland sims has been counted *2 at this round?

January 2009
Islands Owned (end of Month) 27157
Islands Added During Month 4602

so by taking away the Linden sims would that be -764 islands this month to date?

Assuming that they included in their count the number of 5366 Linden owned sims, as Tyche suggests, your calculation is correct (4602 - 5366 = -764).
But we are at a point where it is anybodies guess WHAT they are actualy counting and publishing, or better not publishing, since the island count is still disabled in the main statistics page, and the raw data pages are not consistent any more.

I realy wonder when the rest of the statistics page will end up in Nirvanah, - especialy the sources/sinks table does not look good.

Yes, and there are big differences in sinks&sources between the statistics page and the raw data files.

You are right

The numbers on the statistics page

L$ Sources and Sinks
2008 December 2009 January - MTD
Description Sinks (L$) Sources (L$) Sinks (L$) Sources ($L)
Classified Charges 26,909,289 0 9,635,148 0
Group Creation Fees 2,115,100 0 879,900 0
Land 4,009,917 7,291 1,109,466 0
Supply Linden Sales 0 179,176,138 0 30,826,152
Parcel Directory Fees 7,954,290 0 1,589,250 0
Referral Bonus 0 1,572,500 0 557,000
Stipends 0 142,723,550 0 28,251,600
Upload Charges 31,318,180 0 12,183,970 0
Other 90,784,420 13,303,736 34,519,012 5,185,548
TOTAL 163,091,196 336,783,215 59,916,746 64,820,300

are totaly different to the ones in the raw data file for the 27th:

Description Last Month L$ Sinks (L$) Last Month L$ Sources (L$) MTD L$ Sinks (L$) MTD L$ Sources (L$)
2008 December 2008 December 2009 January - MTD 2009 January - MTD
Classified Charges 26909289 0 23254686 0
Group Creation Fees 2115100 0 1984100 0
Land 4009917 7291 2050550 0
Linden Lab Sales on LindeX 0 179176138 0 40826152
Parcel Directory Fees 7954290 0 4784910 0
Referral Bonus 0 1572500 0 1177500
Stipends 0 142723550 0 84545450
Upload Charges 31318180 0 27625350 0
Other 90784420 13303736 77717727 12335226

Wow, yeah all their numbers look really messed up now.

/me scratches head, wonders what's going on.......

The December numbers are the same. And if the data in the first part is from a week or two ago (how often is statistics updated versus how often Raw is updated?) then there could easily be big differences between the January numbers between the two. The Raw data will be dynamic and changing alot whereas those statistics could be generated once a week or every two weeks. When the previous month's data changes, ah, that's when you have something rotten going on. But current month's numbers not lining up would be expected.

I certainly am no fan of how LL runs things nowdays. But this is not necessarily LL trying to be sneaky or pull a fast one on everybody. And as little consideration as they have for their customers right now, I don't see that they would even bother trying to obscure the data in the first place - what would you do about it?

Well, when you compare from the statistics page that says "reflects data till midnight jan 27th" to raw data files that say "reflects data till midnight jan 27th", you should think that they are the same

(Looks like they fixed the raw data hickup from the 26th)

Island growth so far in January, as of January 27th: -686.
Island growth so far in January, as of January 28th: -683.
Island growth so far in January, as of January 29th: -684.
Island growth so far in January, as of January 30th: -718.

I got an email saying that stipends had been paid twice because they triggered the "L$ accounting" process twice by mistake on Tuesday.

I guess that is why the data for 27th don't look right.