"Release Land..." Button

Some people are confused about what the "Release Land..." button does in the About Land dialog box.

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NEVER, EVER USE THIS BUTTON!
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You might as well just rename the button to "Give Land to Land Barons".

If you do hit this button, your land is converted into "public land". Within seconds, many of the Land Barons who run Public Land scanner networks will sense that you have made this blunder. The scanners will inform the Land Barons of the location of the "public land" and they will proceed to"swoop" down and buy up the public land at the bargain price of L$1 per sqm, and immediately turn around and sell the land for L$3+ per sqm! Instant Profit!. The Lindens will not help you to recover from this if you did it on accident, and you will be at the Land Baron's mercy to recover the land.

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But I have to Release the Land Now!
I can't afford to keep my tier or to wait for my land to sell!
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In this case, you should probably consider giving the land to a friend or contact me inworld and I will buy the land myself and donate the proceeds to VERTU or to another inworld charity. You can also contact inworld charities or Live Help inworld and see if anyone there knows of a charity to donate the land to.

Wouldn't you rather have your land go towards a charity, or would you rather it go to the greedy Land Barons?

Edit: Fixed Typos, Clarity

If anybody finds themselves in a position that you MUST sell immediately, contact me inworld. I will gladly purchase your land. NEVER EVER RELEASE IT.

There should be several safeguards on this button. I know LL said in the past they'd help people who accidentally released their land, and then they did a 180 on that position.

I -really- want to have this button guarded or disabled. I don't even like going into the land options menu; Luskwood could turn into a mall with one click.

Please, LL - if you guys aren't going to HELP people who made ACCIDENTAL RELEASES, then PLEASE put SEVERAL confirmations on this button or a way to DISABLE IT.

Either help people who make this mistake, or make it HARDER to release land by mistake.

Releasing of land should be ensured to be a DELIBERATE action. I don't see any advantage to it being so easy to have land released by mistake -- but I'm sure someone in one of the following posts will come up for a reason why they don't want it changed. (It never fails.)

I've never used this button nor do I ever plan to however, out of curiousity, does anyone know if there's a confirmation dialog after you click the button or are you just instantly SOL? (I'm always paranoid about clicking it on accident)

-Meiyo

No idea. I'm not about to try and find out, though. I would ASSUME there's a confirmation, but I'm not sure.

There should be two confirmations. Also there should be a []allow release checkbox. That ensures it's intentional.

LL has a "too bad too sad" attitude if you do it by mistake. The least they can do is make it difficult to do it by mistake.

There is a confirmation button, but people either don't understand the ramifications of using it. Some people think they need to do that to put their land up for sale and just don't read the warning message.

Most people don't read warning messages.

The reason I bring this up is with all of the public land scanners out there, public land is meaningless these days. If you release your land, it WILL end up in the hand of the land barons. Just think about whether you would rather donate the land to a good cause, or hand it over to the land barons for free. It's your choice!

I used this button the other day on accident and had to pay over 3k Lindens to buy my own land back. Fortunately no one was around to steal it from me. Why the fuck does this button even exist?

Btw I dont remember seeing a confirmation but then again I was so stoned.

Oh yeah and like 2 minutes after this happened someone flew directly to the parcel as if they had a landmark. How the hell did even they know I released it?

Usually land scanning devices about 500 meters above some point in your sim. It notifies them almost instantly.

No shit. Thank you for bringing me up to speed TinaStar. That just seems so inherently dishonest. What is being done about these devices? Do they violate TOS?

I really worry that on some lag ridden night, I'm going be doing something with my land, like joining it or something and I'm going to get one of those spam teleport "Come to my event" requests, where I will think that I'm hitting cancel but in reality - I will have just released my land!

Does anyone know whether or not Released Land can be bought or does it just go back to the Lindens? I ask because Darko was able to buy his back - which must mean that people can still buy released land. If someone was flying over his land ready to snatch it up, it would mean that it is still profitable to have land scanners around.

From all the threads about them, it doesn't seem that they violate the TOS enough to get dealt with. Either the wannabe baron will buy a 16m2 plot and park their scanner up in orbit or in some cases just put them above somebody's land until or unless that person returns the object.
It's kind of predatory but every official statement seems to be that it's not against the rules.

/120/02/24181/1.html has an example of one of these devices, btw

Thanks Tina (can I call you Tina?). I must have missed the threads about the land scanning devices. My bad. I will read the thread now!

Rose I was able to buy all of my land back. After I released the land went public. I bought it back at a $1 m2…a real fucking bargain.

Glad to help Darko, and yeah please do. I'm one of those people who thought they needed a long complex name when signing up to SL.

That goes back to the days when we could buy Public Land freely and when we released it back to Public we got all our money back


BTW Darko, I removed your expletive as I heard you have to pay Baccara $L50 evertime you use it.




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Thank you Pituca you saved me $L50.

Tina feel free to call me Darko.

Darko,

Land scanners are not against TOS. Essentially, all released land goes to those who own the scanner networks. (Anshe Chung, Chance Small, and a handful of others.)

Linden Lab has all but approved this practice, and essentially handed them first rights on all released land.

1.5 claimed to change this; that released land was going to go to auction. Thankfully, this is not the case. Per LL's view, land sniping and "baroning" as something that stimulates and is good for the SL economy, the only released land that goes to auction are those plots released by the system (such as dormant or cancelled accounts) - Land released by users, on purpose or mistake, go directly to landscanner owners.

LL has defended the scanner owners, off and on. They also have never actually acknowledged land scanners as a problem, nor have they ever acted on land scanners as the result of an abuse report. Please remember that scanner owners provide a service of appraisal - where otherwise unclaimed plots would be purchased by new users at well below the controlled market value. Land scanner owners instill a price and therefore a value upon land, allowing us all to benefit. (Their gain leads to increased spending on their part, which eventually trickles down to even the most casual of users.)

The best thing you can do is what you did: Once you release your land, the land scanner owners usually take at least a minute to arrive and claim, what, (with LL's backing and support, through their inaction and 'loud silence' over the issue) is, in fact, rightfully theirs.

Often if you're quick with the mouse you can scramble and re-purchase your land for the special L$1 scanner-owner price that Linden Lab offers to those who have had the ingenuity of developing scanner networks. (Essentially it is a reward for their cleverness. Please do not be mistaken - many scanner network operators have spent countless nights locating and purchasing optimum 16m2 plots for this dream to become a reality.)

This causes some older (read: obsolete) users who are erroneously disturbed by this predatory behavior to become slightly disillusioned with SL and it's governance as a whole. Times have changed, and this is what SecondLife is about -- gain.

What I have to ask anyways, Darko, is -- Were you using your owned land for a useful and gainful purpose, such as hosting a mall, adult club, or gambling area? If not, holding an excess of land is likely a waste and not in the SL economy's interest, anyhow. In ideal conditions, land that is not turning a profit to its owner would be released to real-estate handlers who will appraise it and resell it as a "value-added" service, thus keeping the economy of SL healthy and happy, and in turn, allowing us all to profit.

Now, let's go out there and make some cash!

Sincerely,
Michi Lumin,
Loitering Tenancy Executive,
Luskwood Resort, LLC.


EDIT: P.S., Please remember to vote for George W. Bush this election. Thank you.

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The land I released was land my lodge and my private jazz lounge occupy. In fact when this happened I dipped under my prim count and the doors blew off my fucking house! I have spent the last few days rebuilding.

As far as voting for Bush I really dont think I am going to be able to remember to do that.

Relax, Darko. I'm full of sh*t. Thanks.

Very Sharp and Pointy too!

Michi you can say shit! For real.

I have my land set with my name in the buy field so that if I accidently set it for sale, it can only be sold to myself.

That is a brilliant idea! Thank you for sharing Camille...your so smart.

My sarcasm detector just exploded

Whoa !!! Am I reading your edit correctly Michi ????? Please say Fair and Balanced 3 times fast for me !