An Open Letter To Linden Lab
|
|
Weedy Herbst
Too many parameters
Join date: 5 Aug 2004
Posts: 2,255
|
03-21-2006 17:45
From: Nolan Nash We'll need more info to ascertain that. What Andrew has said seems to contradict what (I thought) I heard a few days ago, which is that the land would go to auction. That's if I understand what Andrew is saying properly, of which I am unsure, because he didn't really make that totally clear.
What I mean is, you won't be able to scan for it the way it was possible to scan for public land before, with a script. Nothing LL says has any bearing on the truth Nolan. It's a farce. Lies, lies and more lies. |
|
Jauani Wu
pancake rabbit
Join date: 7 Apr 2003
Posts: 3,835
|
03-21-2006 17:45
From: Schwanson Schlegel Blasphemy i didn't say it was wrong... 
_____________________
http://wu-had.blogspot.com/
read my blog
Mecha
Jauani Wu
hero of justice
__________________________________________________
"Oh Jauani, you're terrible." - khamon fate
|
|
Cristiano Midnight
Evil Snapshot Baron
Join date: 17 May 2003
Posts: 8,616
|
03-21-2006 17:46
From: Weedy Herbst From the "find" "land for sale list"
I can see the pileups and pissing matches already. Not to mention the invitation to yet more vultures. Sorry, Weedy, you can't hurl out the word vulture about people looking at a list trying to find land cheaply for sale without applying it to those who used an automated scanner to be able to swoop in as soon as land went public - that is ridiculous hypocritical. I fail to see how what you were doing is so noble, but someone grabbing land for the same price from the find land list (you know, the land list everyone uses to find land for sale) is somehow some vulture.
_____________________
Cristiano ANOmations - huge selection of high quality, low priced animations all $100L or less. ~SLUniverse.com~ SL's oldest and largest community site, featuring Snapzilla image sharing, forums, and much more. 
|
|
Karsten Rutledge
Linux User
Join date: 8 Feb 2005
Posts: 841
|
03-21-2006 17:48
From: Andrew Linden
The elimination of public land wasn't driven by Philip or any of the VP's. It was a feature request from the Customer Service group. The reason they entered that item on the Big List Of Things To Do (BLOTTD) is because they were spending a significant amount of time responding to complaints of people accidentally realeasing their land having it promptly grabbed by public land recyclers. Often by the time LL was able to respond the recyclers had already turned the land around for profit, which made recovery of the land difficult or impossible.
Enh, call me unsympathetic, but I don't buy into 'accidentally releasing land.' That's just silly. Which part of 'ABANDON LAND' confuses people? If people really are that stupid, I don't have any sympathy for them at all. It's been a while since I released land, but, uh, doesn't it also offer a yes/no prompt that states you're about to lose the land? How do you accidentally agree twice to dump your land? That being said, there are legitimate reasons land can be abandoned without stupidity, but all of them that I can think of are Linden Lab's fault. If your customer service people are tired of dealing with land releases, how about fixing the software? Some examples that come to mind are: 1) Rogue officers and lovers' quarrels -- This is purely a result of the fact that groups are an unmitigated pile of suckage, an issue that residents have been demanding loudly be fixed for a long while. If groups had some kind of proper permissions system this would very very rarely happen. (like the ability to specify who can and cannot sell/release land) I understand something like this is in the works according to Philip from the town hall, so why kneejerk public land if we're expecting better groups in a couple of months? 2) Groups with unsupported tier -- Why do group officers not get an IM or email like three days before the land is due to be scrapped? This makes no sense. I've talked to many many people who were in a group that lost land because a member jerked tier without a word and nobody noticed until suddenly, hey, why does Joe Landbaron own my land now? 3) Accidentally hitting the wrong button -- Okay, but isn't there that tricky confirmation box? And shouldn't the abandon land button be red or something and seperated from the other land controls somehow? All that being said, I sympathize with both sides of this debate. As a landowner, I find land scanner plots annoying and while Weedy did try to do right by land owners, she was only one of the players in the land scanning game and not everyone else was necessarily as ethical in their scanning programs and 'right of first refusal' policies. |
|
Cocoanut Cookie
Registered User
Join date: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 1,741
|
03-21-2006 17:49
Well, it WAS said that it would be going up on auction, I could swear it was.
So apparently what they are doing is: Making it impossible to scan for abandoned land for sale, but people can still scan for regular land for sale? But when land is abandoned, LL will automatically get it, and then hold it for a week, in case abandoning it was a mistake?
And - we are thinking possibly the plan now is - it will then go back on the find list, as land for sale, whereupon the same scanners that can still detect regular land set for sale can now also detect the once-abandoned land now set for regular sale? (Unless, of course, it all goes up for auction, which may have been a mistaken slip of the tongue by whoever wrote it when this was first announced?)
coco
|
|
Cristiano Midnight
Evil Snapshot Baron
Join date: 17 May 2003
Posts: 8,616
|
03-21-2006 17:50
From: Cocoanut Cookie Well, it WAS said that it would be going up on auction, I could swear it was.
So apparently what they are doing is: Making it impossible to scan for abandoned land for sale, but people can still scan for regular land for sale? But when land is abandoned, LL will automatically get it, and then hold it for a week, in case abandoning it was a mistake?
And - we are thinking possibly the plan now is - it will then go back on the find list, as land for sale, whereupon the same scanners that can still detect regular land set for sale can now also detect the once-abandoned land now set for regular sale? (Unless, of course, it all goes up for auction, which may have been a mistaken slip of the tongue by whoever wrote it when this was first announced?)
coco You can't use scanners to detect normal land for sale.
_____________________
Cristiano ANOmations - huge selection of high quality, low priced animations all $100L or less. ~SLUniverse.com~ SL's oldest and largest community site, featuring Snapzilla image sharing, forums, and much more.
|
|
Jauani Wu
pancake rabbit
Join date: 7 Apr 2003
Posts: 3,835
|
03-21-2006 17:52
From: Weedy Herbst Nothing LL says has any bearing on the truth Nolan. It's a farce.
Lies, lies and more lies. you can find the truth hereweedy, the real vultures don't swoop land. the real vultures circle the forums for weeks for the carcass of the next failed sl business. j-vu 
_____________________
http://wu-had.blogspot.com/
read my blog
Mecha
Jauani Wu
hero of justice
__________________________________________________
"Oh Jauani, you're terrible." - khamon fate
|
|
Weedy Herbst
Too many parameters
Join date: 5 Aug 2004
Posts: 2,255
|
03-21-2006 17:59
From: Cristiano Midnight Sorry, Weedy, you can't hurl out the word vulture about people looking at a list trying to find land cheaply for sale without applying it to those who used an automated scanner to be able to swoop in as soon as land went public - that is ridiculous hypocritical. I fail to see how what you were doing is so noble, but someone grabbing land for the same price from the find land list (you know, the land list everyone uses to find land for sale) is somehow some vulture. Hang around the "find" land for sale list for a while Cris, or better yet, offer a piece of land for sale cheap. Look for the result. See the pileups for yourself. I agree it appears to you as the same thing. The difference being, I bought and paid for the right to script in a sim by buying land. Now they throw it at those who invested nothing. Penalize scanners, reward swoopers. Fucking absurd or what? |
|
Iron Perth
Registered User
Join date: 9 Mar 2005
Posts: 802
|
03-21-2006 17:59
From: Karsten Rutledge Enh, call me unsympathetic, but I don't buy into 'accidentally releasing land.' That's just silly. Which part of 'ABANDON LAND' confuses people? I suspect what happens is people abandon the land and when people show up so quickly to buy it, they realise that they probably just abandoned something of value and suddenly wish to change their mind. In the new system, no one will be showing up, and people will just abandon land being none the wiser, and .. well, you know what they say, ignorance is bliss. It's also important to note that when you have over 150K people.. odds are someone is going to slip on the mouse a couple of times. |
|
Weedy Herbst
Too many parameters
Join date: 5 Aug 2004
Posts: 2,255
|
03-21-2006 18:05
From: Iron Perth I suspect what happens is people abandon the land and when people show up so quickly to buy it, they realise that they probably just abandoned something of value and suddenly wish to change their mind.
In the new system, no one will be showing up, and people will just abandon land being none the wiser, and .. well, you know what they say, ignorance is bliss.
It's also important to note that when you have over 150K people.. odds are someone is going to slip on the mouse a couple of times. "Linden Lab does not intervene in disputes between residents" |
|
Cristiano Midnight
Evil Snapshot Baron
Join date: 17 May 2003
Posts: 8,616
|
03-21-2006 18:07
From: Weedy Herbst Hang around the "find" land for sale list for a while Cris, or better yet, offer a piece of land for sale cheap. Look for the result. See the pileups for yourself.
I agree it appears to you as the same thing. The difference being, I bought and paid for the right to script in a sim by buying land. Now they throw it at those who invested nothing.
Penalize scanners, reward swoopers. Fucking absurd or what? Weedy, Please don't get me wrong, I feel bad that you as one of the few people actually making a legitimate business and caring about who you sold to are being penalized and painted with the same broad brush as a lot of the sleazier people doing the same thing. We will just have to agree to disagree on the land scanners - I find their use quite dubious, and quite different than profitting through arbitrage land sales by actively monitoring find land for cheaply priced land. The former required only the effort of getting there before someone else did once your script notified you of the land. The Find Land list is an open market, and I think a far more fair way to handle things.
_____________________
Cristiano ANOmations - huge selection of high quality, low priced animations all $100L or less. ~SLUniverse.com~ SL's oldest and largest community site, featuring Snapzilla image sharing, forums, and much more.
|
|
Schwanson Schlegel
SL's Tokin' Villain
Join date: 15 Nov 2003
Posts: 2,721
|
03-21-2006 18:09
What is this "public land" you guys keep mentioning?
|
|
Weedy Herbst
Too many parameters
Join date: 5 Aug 2004
Posts: 2,255
|
03-21-2006 18:17
From: Cristiano Midnight Weedy,
Please don't get me wrong, I feel bad that you as one of the few people actually making a legitimate business and caring about who you sold to are being penalized and painted with the same broad brush as a lot of the sleazier people doing the same thing. We will just have to agree to disagree on the land scanners Thank you for understanding, and I understand that you don't like scanners. The solution put forward at this time, has me fit-to-be-tied right now, having heard two completely different things from LL. Karen says the land will be auctioned, Andrew says the land will be sold at 1/sq from the list. Which one is the liar? In all honesty, both are flawed. it solves nothing and leaves me (and others, judging by the IMs Im getting) with a really bad taste our mouths. |
|
Kim Anubis
The Magician
Join date: 3 Jun 2004
Posts: 921
|
03-21-2006 18:32
Thanks for the info, Andrew!
_____________________
http://www.TheMagicians.us 
|
|
Siggy Romulus
DILLIGAF
Join date: 22 Sep 2003
Posts: 5,711
|
03-21-2006 18:39
I've actually looked at Weedy's scanner code.. and I have to say I don't mind it being in Gallinas - I own a fair bit of land there and to tell the truth when the mine field of sexballs was cleared from one plot I saw it significant increase in sim performance... I've not had any experience after that that would make me say 'ugh--fucking land scanner lag'
Its a simple straight forward script that doesn't go overboard... no multiplexing, no ludicrous timers.. no nothing.
_____________________
The Second Life forums are living proof as to why it's illegal for people to have sex with farm animals. From: Jesse Linden I, for one, am highly un-helped by this thread
|
|
Eboni Khan
Misanthrope
Join date: 17 Mar 2004
Posts: 2,133
|
03-21-2006 18:40
From: Schwanson Schlegel What is this "public land" you guys keep mentioning? It died mid 2004. RIP Public Land, RIP |
|
Jamie Bergman
SL's Largest Distributor
Join date: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,752
|
03-21-2006 18:41
From: Andrew Linden Since this is an open letter, and I happen to know more about it than anybody else I'll address it.
The elimination of public land wasn't driven by Philip or any of the VP's. It was a feature request from the Customer Service group. The reason they entered that item on the Big List Of Things To Do (BLOTTD) is because they were spending a significant amount of time responding to complaints of people accidentally realeasing their land having it promptly grabbed by public land recyclers. Often by the time LL was able to respond the recyclers had already turned the land around for profit, which made recovery of the land difficult or impossible.
The feature request went onto the pile along with a number of other items relating to public land. During my stint on the maintenance team I was browsing the BLOTTD, sorting by priority and votes, and I found a bunch of high ranking items relating to public land and auctions. "Hrm. These three items are related and probably not that hard to do. They have lots of votes, and they are mildly interesting (I'd get to do some more python scripting) -- I;ll take 'em" I thought. I assigned those tasks to myself and got to work. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to remove the Public Land information on the World Map legend to free some space for some UI widgets that were starved for screen realestate (yet another BLOTTD item).
The main reason we left public land in place after the intial automatic transfer to Governor Linden of the big plots is that we didn't want to have to manually sort a large pile of very small parcels into For Sale and Auctions, so we just let them go public. However, since then we've added functionality to the servers to accept network packets from external scripts that trigger events within the simulators, which opened up some possibilities for pulling simulator functionality and logic out of the simulator and into python scripts driven by cron jobs. So I added a few hooks for parcel transfers and added a field to the database so we could easily find the many small parcels later.
The way it works now is this: parcels smaller than 512 meters (which used to go public) will now go to Governor. LL will sit on those parcels for about one week -- anyone who has accidentally released a parcel can contact Customer Support during this time to get it back. After a week each parcel will be put up for sale for L$1/sq meter, which means they will be available for the same price as claiming public land. The L$1/sq meter sale price is hard coded in the simulator code at the moment. Eventually I expect we'll make the price an argument for the hooks. When that happens there will be a policy decision to be made about whether or not to change how we give up abandoned land.
(Incidentally, it might be possible to provide some standard API and authentication so that the simulator hooks can be triggered from external Resident run scripts. That is, a land owner might be able to operate on their land without having to log in and manually push UI buttons.)
This is a typical case study on how some (not all) things get done at LL. Anyone can add an entry in the BLOTTD and anyone is free to accept things off the list. Everybody is free to vote on, edit, change priority, accept the items, or close as "Won't finish". This means that quite a bit gets done without the VP's ever being involved. Also, the workplace is realatively flatter and more dynamic when it comes to responsibility.
For the larger projects we usually form small groups with a Project Lead and Technical Lead. Sometimes the Project Lead and Technical Lead are the same person. It may be that the roles of two individuals in a project may reverse for some project in the future, such that the Project Lead in the first project is now a supporting team member, and a previous support member is the new Project Lead. Well Weedy, there is your response. Now change. |
|
Weedy Herbst
Too many parameters
Join date: 5 Aug 2004
Posts: 2,255
|
03-21-2006 18:42
From: Cocoanut Cookie whereupon the same scanners that can still detect regular land set for sale can now also detect the once-abandoned land now set for regular sale?
coco Let me dispell this myth once and for all. It is not possible to scan for land sale. Land scanners employed a completely different function within LSL coding. There is a feature in LSL called llGetLandOwnerAt(vector pos), which is a method of accessing the avatar key of the owner of any given parcel of land. In the case of land scanners, the key that was being sought, was not that of an avatar, but of public land. This was done by employing another LSL feature known as NULL_KEY, which in simple terms is a "wild card". Public land had no owner, hence no key, so therefore the scanner could use the wild card and alert the scanner owner of its presence. Likewise the (vector pos) are the co-ordinates to the nearest corner of the lot. So you see coco, this has absolutely nothing to do with the price of the land, but only the owner of the land. Even if the land reverts to the governor, scanners will not activate, because the governor has a key too. |
|
Jamie Bergman
SL's Largest Distributor
Join date: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,752
|
03-21-2006 18:45
From: Weedy Herbst You gotta be fucking kidding me?
So now the land swoopers get it. Very professional, Weedy. |
|
Weedy Herbst
Too many parameters
Join date: 5 Aug 2004
Posts: 2,255
|
03-21-2006 18:47
From: Jamie Bergman Well Weedy, there is your response.
Now change. I suppose I could follow your lead and sell freebees and then put up blue signs on my 700 plots. LL seems to think that is acceptable practice.
NOT! |
|
Weedy Herbst
Too many parameters
Join date: 5 Aug 2004
Posts: 2,255
|
03-21-2006 18:48
From: Jamie Bergman Very professional, Weedy. You would know about unprofessionalism. You are the master. Crowing about legitimate business people being put out of work, no less than what I could expect from you. |
|
Jamie Bergman
SL's Largest Distributor
Join date: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,752
|
03-21-2006 18:49
From: Weedy Herbst I suppose I could follow your lead and sell freebees and then put up blue signs on my 700 plots.
LL seems to think that is acceptable practice.
NOT! No clue what you are talking about. |
|
Weedy Herbst
Too many parameters
Join date: 5 Aug 2004
Posts: 2,255
|
03-21-2006 18:51
From: Jamie Bergman No clue what you are talking about. Top it off with lies. |
|
Aliasi Stonebender
Return of Catbread
Join date: 30 Jan 2005
Posts: 1,858
|
03-21-2006 19:00
From: Nolan Nash Yes, except this won't be detectable like public land was. You can detect to see if Gov. Linden owns it; since protected land like roads and such are known, you could factor those out relatively simply. If you see something owned by the Governor, earmark it for later. Not as easy, admittedly...
_____________________
Red Mary says, softly, “How a man grows aggressive when his enemy displays propriety. He thinks: I will use this good behavior to enforce my advantage over her. Is it any wonder people hold good behavior in such disregard?”
Anything Surplus Home to the "Nuke the Crap Out of..." series of games and other stuff
|
|
Karsten Rutledge
Linux User
Join date: 8 Feb 2005
Posts: 841
|
03-21-2006 19:04
From: Iron Perth I suspect what happens is people abandon the land and when people show up so quickly to buy it, they realise that they probably just abandoned something of value and suddenly wish to change their mind.
In the new system, no one will be showing up, and people will just abandon land being none the wiser, and .. well, you know what they say, ignorance is bliss.
It's also important to note that when you have over 150K people.. odds are someone is going to slip on the mouse a couple of times. Yeah, I mentioned that as item 3, bad UI design. But again, there IS a comfirmation box if I remember correctly. And abandoning it and them realizing you just did something stupid is not accidental. |
