Land, land everywhere (hoarding)?

What is with this land hoarding?
I'm ready to move on to my next project but the land that I own is too small so I flew around and checked out all the empty plots. Great, I thought. Oh, ok that one is is owned already, wow, so is this one, and this beautiful piece belongs to the Lindens. I look at empty stretches of land , nothing on them?????, but not to be had.
Are ppl buying the land to curb development or is there something I don't understand. As far as I know, it can't be an investment cause there is no return, only taxes.

Mmmmhhh, what to do. I like building my projects around themes, like the Tutankhamun pyramid in Varney. Can I sway someone to give up a nice parcel? I also think that if you submit a plan of your projects to the Lindens, and upon their review, they should be able to free up some land.

Anyway
Haven't been on latey because of the lack of available land.
See yah
Peter

In rose there is some space available and I would be happy to part with some of my land if need be

The lindens seem to listen more to non-paying former trials' whines than long-term paying members' needs.
Some clueless trial or two, who obviously didnt know how to use the mini map to look for people, happened to list "there was no one there!" among his reasons to not join SL as a full resident.
Which of course doesnt sound remotely possible given the enormous amount of ppl who always hang out at the welcome areas.
So we arent getting any new servers until the game achieves some critical mass where its always so crowded that no trial will be able to fly any amount of distance without bumping into a few people.
HINT: Two new servers floated up one day, and the day after that they were fully owned already. Is that critical enough for you?
Anyway there's bound to be some new servers floating up when 1.1 comes along. So dont worry. And btw there are still some reasonable stretches of empty land in the watery sims like welsh and taber.

To me, it seems like there's still a fair amount of land of available, but obviously this is highly subjective. When I joined during Beta, the first parcel I bought was underwater because there was so little land above water; it got pretty crowded underwater, too. When I finally bought a parcel above water, it was a cliff face that I think most other people found unusuable.



The Lindens are often willing to free up a parcel upon requeste, no proposal submission required.

This all makes me wonder how much land does one person need? How much are they entitled to? I suppose as long as they can pay taxes on land it is one thing, but when they get the money to cover their taxes by muling accounts and indeed avoid taxes by passing money and land back and forth the question must be raised. I noticed yesterday that large areas of Perry are public, and with a little negotiation you can usually put together a good sized piece, if you have the money, but many of us DON't have the money to pay inflated prices for land.
DeHaro and Green are lovely areas; I enjoyed living in DeHaro for a good while, but neither one of them is even a third occupied. It's obvious that living in lovely sims that are frankly deadly dull has a limited appeal, so maybe one of them could be taken off line for a while and replaced with a more open sim.

I keep hearing people mention various ways of avoiding land taxes as you just have, but im curious as to how this is even possible. Not that I intend to do it, hehe, just curiosity and I think any assumptions should be carefully backed up with facts before being stated.

So how does exchanging land between two people avoid taxes? Either way, one (or more) of them is going to have to pay the same amount of taxes on the land right? Secondly, as far as I understand it, aren't taxes calculated at a random time nightly for 1/7th of your total weekly tax and then summed together for your total taxes? Thus exchanging the land back and forth, would still balance out to the same amount of taxes being paid on that land, regardless of if its between two people or not?

And what is muling? I've seen reference to this term a few times, but I'm not sure on its exact definition. I believe it refers to someone creating multiple accounts to play? Are people doing this? How does it benefit the player? I suppose it could aid in the generation of more stipend, but still evenly balanced between two equally paying accounts? If someone is paying for two accounts, aren't they thus entitled to two stipends?

Further more, how or why would anyone do this. It seems like a really expensive means of generating extra revenue. Take into account that anyone with over 3500 at the time of their stippend cannot generate any additional cash since the stipened was only meant as a 'starter' and is capped at this amount. Also that both accounts would be equally taxed on whatever assets each one was in ownership of. I could see this helping a new/starting user generate cash fast, but once they cross that threshold I don't see how this is beneficial way of generating money. Unless they continued to create new accounts which would become very costly. But I dunno, maybe some people have money to throw around like that. If I had this kind of RL cash to throw around I think it would be more wisely invested into Cal Rogers method of paying for sponsored links to your referral page. Which generates new subscribing users and helps SL grow, which is a good thing right? Seems like the better investment of dollars for lindens.

interesting thoughts. I wonder if it would be plausable to give people a max land limitation. Many would balk at this but its just a thought.

I do think some land police should go though and check for checkerboarding (or tetris-ing which is effectivly the same) and try to clear up some land. Its out there.

Another thing that realy needs to be done is to take the 'housing' sims and make them normal land since as many can see they are hardly used.

Thow there is the side issue of people who are part of community sims.

If you see checkerboarding, report it. It IS a violation.

I think the housing sims are goind to waste too. It's a nice idea, just doesn't seem to work/be popular, half the reason people enjoy SL is the creative freedom, if you can't design your own home, why bother?

So it seems the cookie-cutter home sims don't really get used. Not to negate the few people who are using them, they should retain their land ownership. But theres just too many of these sims not doing anything, and it seems they keep adding more and more of them.

Rathe, your stipend and taxes come on a fixed day of the week, supposedly the day when you joined. If your tax day is thursday and my tax day is sunday, if you hold my plot of land throughout the weekend I wont pay any taxes.
I have seen many people doing it. It enables them to own massive amounts of land with no tax penalty. And I do know people with more than one account. Aside from the increased cashflow, it is also possible to game the tax days by swapping all your money to the other account, which will put you below the 3500 dollar limit and will enable you to make up to 3500 dollars per account. 7k a week is a nice little profit. At that rate you will own an entire sim in what, 3 months?

I know taxes are charged once a week, based on the day you started. But it's my understanding that the actual amount taxed and the tax estimate in your account history are based on a nightly auditing of 1/7th of your assets. Which is then summed together at the end of your tax week when you are charged the total amount. Right? At least this is what I had heard about two months ago, if it is not this way, perhaps it should be?

I never heard such a thing. Maybe it is so for object taxes but not land taxes?
I only really own the plot under the disco and the lindens pay its taxes for me so I wouldnt know precisely how to evade the land tax. But I do see ppl swapping plots all the time, right before tax day, so I assume it works.

Multiple Accounts During Beta Testing
Multiple accounts and Liinden Lab's policy during Beta Testing

Summary

* Several closed beta members have more than one account. Sometimes this is an honest mistake (incorrect email during application, lost password, etc.) and other times the duplication is planned to support game play.
* During closed beta, we have no easy method of determining who is using more than one account. However, we know there are several situations where more than one member of a household has an account, so we will allow 2 accounts per IP address.
* We will continue to allow residents to have multiple accounts in Second Life after commercial launch, with each account having associated subscription fees.
* Please remember that you may lose content if you have multiple accounts during Beta, but choose not to once Second Life launches commercially.

Dear Second Lifers -
During a recent routine check of accounts and activity, we found that there are a handful of residents with more than one account. Some of these accounts have never been used, some of them have been used many times.

We have no easy way of identifying the person behind the computer while the account is being accessed, but as people can unfairly use one account to benefit another (a process commonly referred to as muling) we have created a policy to be enacted immediately that will remain in effect throughout the Beta period.

Residents are allowed 2 accounts per IP address. This would allow roommates, house mates, and otherwise paired individuals to share computers/internet connections.

Before rushing off to apply for a second account, though, please remember that if you're creating cool stuff with multiple accounts, and you decide you only want to continue with a single paid account subscription, you'll be in the unfortunate position of having to transfer or delete your creations. Any assets created with cancelled accounts will disappear once the account is no longer active.

For example:
Gertrude and Leopold are a married couple sharing their computer. Gertrude has two accounts, Leopold has one. There are three accounts on this IP address. Gertrude will lose one account.

Lilo and Stich are college roommates. Kermit and Piggy are also roommates in the same college. Their internet access gives them dynamic IP access each time they log in. It will look as if there are four accounts on one IP address. We will look at all available information and allow four accounts if it appears there are four separate people involved.

Aloysius has 5 accounts. He is using all of them to get money for his "primary" account. We will remove 3 accounts, and depending on behavior patterns, likely remove any financial exchanges between the remaining two accounts.

Sam has maintained 2 accounts during beta, creating wonderful structures and toys with both. When Second Life launches commercially, he decides he only wants to pay for one account. He is faced with the choice of deleting everything made with one account, or trying to move everything to one account, which is difficult because of limited funds.

...


...

I know a texan family that has four kids, all of them over 18 and so eligible to play this game. Their father is into gaming as well, though he prefers MS Flight sims and their ilk, and as for the mother I have no idea. SL is a game that appeals to a very wide selection of players. Is it that bizarre to think that 4, 5 or even 6 people in the same house would all play SL?
As you very well quoted those were Beta rules. Now that the game is for pay, I believe it is only reasonable that people should be able to get as many accounts as they want, as long as they pay for them, and most obviously, as long as they dont use them to abuse the system.

I fell under this clause.

Recieved an account in closed beta (feb for me), and was unable to play as much as I wanted to do to the hours of connectivity. I'd decided in april that i didn't like my name and completely changed my account to the one you see now.

After a while, i'd forgotten the PW and even about the account until a week before launch.. when i recieved double emails of everything, each addressing the different avatars i had. My roomate decided that he wanted to play, but didn't have a credit card. So I allowed him to pay me upfront for a 3-month membership, and created another account for him with my credit card (same isp etc) and a dif avatar. The feb avatar was deleted, and my roomate decided SL was not the game for him very shortly afterwards.

So now I've been stuck with 2 accounts (until the end of this month) that i really had no idea what to do with the second other then try to get other friends of mine to try out SL here and there... and if i really want to be left alone to build something.

Now I don't consider myself mulling here, but the account has pretty much sat there unused for most of its life and has been capped at the 3500 limit for quite some time. Is it so wrong to take that money before the account expires?

Morally, sure... it may be wrong on a continuous basis. But it will go into nowhere once the acount is up anyway.

so what would you do?
A. Take the money.
B. Let the money float away to nothingness.
C. Support others by donating in-cogneito.
D. Cry

--Water

There's a very very simple fix for this problem... LL should make it so you don't get the purchase price back when you release the land.

Chip, that would totally suck... No offence. Im not a person that exploits this mechanism, but I do like to experiment with land. Thats what turns me on to SL, the ability to experiment. with that feature implimented, I wont be able to explore as much as I do today.

Plus, I think the tax calculator service activates itself in the background randomly, so if you sell your land on tax day, It wont really affect your tax.

It does affect your taxes.... I've seen it done, taxes are calculated (unless its been changed) on your tax day late at night, for me its like 2 AM or something, but I'm EST.

So if you sell your land to someone else you can avoid taxes, not something that should be done but i've seen it done in group builds because the tax burden was so heavy on them.

JV

I own large tracts of land in Aqua and Sage. Both plots are contiguous (no checkerboarding) and the land in Aqua is subdivided in useful plot sizes and is all available for sale (just click 'buy'.) Several people have already done so, and some have even negotiated for different plot sizes.

The land in sage is for the Little Tokyo Themed sim (and therefore is currently not for sale.)

Is there a problem?

Oracle Omega

They dont release the land chip, they sell it to each other for $1
I am also vehemently against your suggestion, since it wouldnt allow me to fix holes left by former players' basements and stuff like that...

That might be a good feature that if and when you release your land it "popped back" to the default. I spend a lot of time fixing screwed up plots of land too. I mean it can be a total bitch, digging a basement, but how hard is it to clean up after yourself?

The answer? Very hard, usually even harder than digging the basement in the first place. And when you are done, it looks horrible: spiky and unnatural. You end up having to build a floor or patio over it to cover it up.

So yes, the pop up suggestion would be a miracle. Then if i accidentally screwed up my land, I could have it fixed well instead of doing a sloppy job myself. This would make the game a lot more aesthetically pleasing, and also easier for people who want a piece of land that has been half chopped up and then abandoned by the previous owner.

But I think SL also needs a better land-editing system, so that people can make land improvements that look good, instead of ones that do anything but improve the land.

-Pippin

Well, I don't much care for my suggestion either. But tax loopholes need to be closed. How about this instead... if you own a plot of land for more than, say, two hours during a week, you get taxed on it as if you owned it all week?

Or why not have it, so that if anyone has prims on your land for over 2 hours (tunable) you are taxed on that land. After all... land is just there to keep prims from going public.

If it was a case of MY prims on MY land, that would be great, but a lot of us have logged in to find abandoned vehicles, prims, whole houses dropped on our land; we wouldn't want to pay taxes on those.