What's with those 16sqm plots?

Hi folks,

I noticed a growing number of those tiny 16sqm microparcels in several sims, all owned by a group founded by a certain land baroness. The group's name indicates some kind of commercial use but apart from that, there is no information on the purpose those leftover-plots have. No info in the group's description, the group-officer I asked couldn't tell me more, the plots themselves are empty (not even a single "Impeach Bush!" sign)...
So, does anyone know what's up with those parcels or will this mystery forever stay unsolved?

Jo

They're probably recent acquisitions, and will be filled with horrible ads and set to a ridiculous price shortly.

I dont think there is really any mystery about these plots. They are usually sold off at massive prices to people who want to remove the horrible eyesores that are often placed in them, or are used by an advertising git who likes to spam people.

Basically they are used to make people pay vast sums of L$ to avoid being griefed.

I like to buy 16m land for all my many elevators

She's probably placing land scanners on them, so she can be alerted the instant land in that sim becomes available for sale at an 'advantageous' price, and can purchase it.

And yes, a lot of people would pay an outrageous price just to get even a very inconspicuous, flat-to-the-ground sign of hers away from their land, or to ensure that she owns no land anywhere near them.

I haven't looked at any of these micro-plots of hers, and have now idea how she is pricing them or if they are even for sale. But I wouldn't want one anywhere near land that I cared about. No matter who owns them, or what they are doing with those tiny plots of land.

Yeah, check how many objects are on these plots. Usually it's one. Probably a landscanner.

Also... just to be fair, and to play 'Devil's Advocate' against my own post, it's just possible that said 'Land Baroness' has been buying up all the plots that the "Impeach Bush Guy" used to own, and similar plots, just to keep them out of the hands of jerks like that.

After all, by buying them and placing her own comparitively inconspicuous sign there, she gets advertizing, and if she owns other properties nearby, that value of the land there isn't being dragged down by the truly obnoxious uses that some people use those tiny parces for.

Personally, I don't think land should be sold in parcels of less than 512 M2. There aren't many legitimate uses for micro-parcels, that I am aware of.

Mind you, I'm fairly clueless when it comes to land mangaement issues, being a renter myself, but I am curious...if a group holds onto bits of less desirable land and does not build on them, does that free up a portion of their aggregate prim limit, allowing the group to use more prims on their more useable lots.?

Yes. But a 16 M2 plot only has a prim allocation of 3 prims.

On one of the sims that I manage, I created a 16M2 parcel in the middle of a lagoon bottom, and stuck a 3-prim set of animated fish on it. I wouldn't have bothered, but extending the residential parcels on either side to the middle of the lagoon happened to leave that one square free, and I wanted some fish in those waters anyway.

The parcel is part of the aggragate land group for the sim, that covers land not on individual home parcels. So, technically, I could stack thousands of prims on that tiny plot, or I could put nothing there and have 3 prims more to use elsewhere.

I haven't seen any of these plots for sale yet, their description even says "NOT FOR SALE!".




There are seven of those plots in the sim where I live and there's not a single prim placed on any one of them.




She purchased the whole sim by auction directly from LL, so that's not a possibility either.

These 16m2 plots have been a headache for a long time now. I had a huge problem with a 16m2 plot that was within land that I owned.

I offered to purchase the plot from the owner and the next thing I know, I was getting a lecture about how it was against the TOS to build walls to keep him from his land and then the 16m2 was set to no access. it caused a major headache in trying to set up a store.

Fortunately for me, the land was owned by a group that fell short of its 3 member minimum and was disbanded. The land was subsequently placed for sale and I was able to purchase the land. It ended well, but was a major headache for a few weeks.

coincedentally, said land baroness was the originator of that 16m2 plot as well.

I spoke to the owner of a 16m2 plot in my sim who told me that s/he had acquired such plots on over 400+ sims. I was told the plot was not for sale, but could be traded for another 16m2 plot in the same sim. Apparently, this particular person is waiting for web browsing access to be built into the SL client and is going to set up some business taking advantage of that.

I have also heard of the extortion/advertising techniques around these 16m2 plots, but for those who were wondering about the empty parcels, I thought this might provide a partial explanation.

Also, I have to ask those of you who have mentioned land scanners: I am a scripter and I don't believe there is any way to determine if a piece of land is for sale. At least, if there is, I don't believe there's an automated way to determine its price, so a landscanner would only have the benefit of making the owner p2p all over the grid constantly as new parcels were listed for sale. Quite boring, if you ask me, and not very efficient, although perhaps something you could pay a poor land farmer in China or India to do for you.

If there is a way to determine a plot's sale price, please let me know!

Best possible explanation so far, thank you. =^.^=

Well, that was exactly what I was wondering Ceera--yes, 3 extra prims ain't much (except when you really are flat out up against your limit--I can think of a couple of times I would have committed a significant felony to get three more prims), and then if you have a bunch of small plots, each giving you three prims, eventually it will add up. Might not be all that cost effective, but hey, I have come to the conclusion that the pirm limit is the SL equivalent of original sin ("Forgive me Father, for I have prims".

It is understandable to quickly suspect that some curious land managment behavior must have diabolical intent behind it--human nature being what it is--but there are a number of possible benign explanations, including the very simple one that potentially goofy stuff happening on the micro-lots is bad for business, so business people might find it advantgeous to take them out of general circulation.

I have about 300 - 400m of 16s and 32, we purchase when we see them cheaply. (Under $100L and not from someone who profits from splitting plots). We are putting up trees. We are giving them or selling them cheaply to people who will adjoin them to larger plots. Interestingly enough, it is often hard to get people to take these due to non-interest or tier issues.

Occasionally someone buys one off the boards, and we revest that in new plots. For the most part, we are working to put something other than ads and large obnoxious rotating for sale signs up. It doesn't cost much to carry the tier and gets around to seeing slot of the different sims. Probably losing a bit on the deal, but it is worth it to put a tree in front of a sign. (It is the little things in life that bring pleasure). We have also managed to reconstitute a few buildable parcels.

Interestingly enough, one of the land baroness is offering these 16ms free to people owning adjacent parcels.

Xerses Goff
-- Arbor Project

Sounds like a very good proejct Mr. Goff! you folks are to be commended!

You do realize that this is an ongoing myth right, and that your further propegating said myth?

Fact: There are no LSL magic functions that can read the price of land.. period. Nor can they read many of a parcel's flags and settings. This is slowly changing, in a way to read such things as if scripts are allowed, etc.. however pricing cannot.

Fact: The land scanners of yor could only detect abandoned land, which while you can still abondon land now, it immediately falls into the possession of Govenor Linden instead of being available for immediate purchase by the public making scanning for it completely pointless.

As to the topic at hand, 16M plots, there are a couple reasons. Certain land sellers are doing it just to say they own a plot in every sim. In fact it p*sses me off to no end seeing a perfectly nice peice of 512M land bought, then sold as a 496 just to satisfy someone ego.

Also, land tends to sell better as multiples of 512M because that's the way the teir system works. So when you go to sell your land, chances are much better of trimming off a 16M or three to make it fit into one of those multipliers.

Thirdly, for those using networked vendors (such as JEVN), it is advantageous to have the server module in another lag free sim, particularly if the one your vendor is in suffers from alot of lag (or so it's been explained to me).

And finally, yes, the majority of 16M's end up as being used for spam. Lame in my opinion, but it obviously boosts sales to some, but uglies up a sim. The ones that annoy me the most are for some home seller who spams everyone within a certain radius of their ugly spam-vertisements with a note card fawning over how their prims are so superiour. Bunch of disrespectful twits, but not against the TOS (though shouting and note card giving one might).

I hope that clarifies things a bit.

My group just purchased an adjacent 16sqm parcel for 0 L$, no big deal...

I own many 16sqm plots, and use them for various LSL code relays, non-lagging, and in no way use them to extort or to cause harm to nearby land owners. These small plots can be used for good and not just evil.

Recently I read about someone who placed tip jars out at random locations so that people might tip them for no good reason. They said they got tips. This might be one use for 16 sm plots.

I'll bet the person who put out the tip jars just stuck them on Linden or other user's property, though.