I know abandoned islands get converted to mainland and with the LL's current difficulty in getting new servers and LL's issues with server space, why don't they offer a program to voluntarily convert private islands to mainland? The region/estate controls, and mostly likely the island's name, would be turned over to linden, but ownership of the land would remain with the owner of the private sim. LL could place a requirement for selling a certain percentage of the land, after conversion, to disuade converters from doing so merely to gain value on their properties, and this would give the game more mainland.
Since Class 4 islands use old tier, which is the same price as mainland region tier, LL looses no money and even gains if the island plots put up for sale are snapped up by enough tier-paying folks. In addition, they could charge a transfer fee, like they do with private island tranfers, to offset costs, but at the end of the day, the increased value would likely push many private island owners to convert.
Yes, there is personal gain for me in this proposal, as I am selling 1 of my islands, as I recently realized that my plans for it would be too time consuming with my final college semester starting soon, and my first island still requring alot of attention, but why shouldn't the island owner profit? He or she is giving up all that lovely terraforming capability and being god/goddess of their own domain. There has to be some incentive, but it would make things easier on LL in regards to buying new simulators and help control the market price on mainland.
What do you think?
-Joy Iddinja