Add Land Sale Option - Auction Land

As mentioned in Linden's landbot protection, what will it be?, make available to residents a 3rd option when selling land - "Auction Land". Additionally, all new mainland other than 1st Land offers should be sold using a simple auction mechanism. This would help avoid conflict over the inevitable use of modified clients (bots) to purchase land, help residents get fair market value for land, and help land traders purchase new land at lower prices that is otherwise uninteresting to most residents.

As an initial rollout the auction functionality could be kept simple, new functionality could be added as/if needed. For example:

New mainland should remain in an auction state for 24 hours or until a certain maximum number of bids have been received. The land automatically goes to the highest bidder after 24 hours or the max number of bids have been received.

For existing land sales by residents, let the auction last 24 hours or until a certain max number of bids have been received, then allow the owner of the land to accept or reject the final bid. If they reject it, they can restart the auction.

Later on other options could be added such as allowing the user to set a minimum bid, duration of auction, max number of bids, auto-sale to highest bidder, etc...

Feature Proposal 2806

I've put some thought into an auction system and I think it is definitely the way of the future. One minor problem is going to be that an auction has to have an expiry date and there is so much land I expect a lot of it will expire without being bid on.

What I do know is that I'd write a bot to put in a slightly less than fair offer on every single active auction and I think I'd win a lot of them without anyone else even bidding.

In that case it could be re-upped for auction, or the default time for new land could be higher than 24 hours...


Which is perfectly fine since everyone else had a chance to bid also...

The way I think the aution would work best in terms of expiration is that X number of bids need to come in first (3 or 4), then run for X hours/days.

The landowner should be able to set an opening price, a reserve price, and a sale price.

The reserve price in this case would be the minimum price for an uncontested auction, and would not be disclosed until it was met (or it was otherwise made moot... for example, if there was at least one rebid). The sale price would be a "close out" figure, any bid over that point would take the auction immediately.

I like the idea of having the auction's timeout deferred until at least the first bid, though that would tend to encourage browsers to hold off on bidding on a lot until they see someone else bid... which wouldn't work to the seller's advantage.

You could still use a bot to buy below the reserve by running two or three bots to bump the price twice and then rebid with the first, so you'd need to have some kind of per-IP limiting.

Great idea! I definitely think something of this nature will have to be incorporated into the future of SL. We already see such auctions in certain MMO's so it definitely isn't impossible to implement

I would assume, programtically, only a higher bid would be recorded. If a bot wants to keep bumping up their own bid on the land, stupid bot

I probably should have added in my proposal that the bidder _has_ to purchase for what they bid, as opposed to the seller having the option of not selling in the end....

I don't know how they would account for the bid at one time and paying later though, when account balances might be different.

You'd have to implement sme kind of escrow system, to ensure that the bidder actually has the funds available to pay for the land in the event of an actual sale. Otherwise, you could find someone bidding minimum on everything, in the hopes that a few go to him through not being contested.

So... me and three alts?

Not stupid: suppose you had EVERYTHING: reserve, minimum bidders, minimum raise, and re-bid required, you'd still be able to buy for barely above the minimum bid.

You'd have Bot1 bid for minimum bid, Bot2 for minimum+raise, Bot3 for minimum+2*raise, and bot1 for minimum+3*raise. Now all the requirements are met, and at the end of the auction if nobody else has bid the botrunner gets it for minimum+3*raise.

See the above about bots. I don't know how you'd be able to track it except by IP.

Yeh, draco, I said that.

Which is exactly why I kept the proposed feature request simple Allow the auction to go until a max number of bids are received or a time period has passed, then let the land owner decide if the price is good enough before selling.... That way they only have to keep track of four variables on the server - key id of the bidder, current bid number, bid amount, expiration date of auction. Alternatively it can be kept even simpler, there can be a button on the client that fills in the "sell land only to..." with the winning bidder name and price, no auto sale or escrow needed. Of course you would have to deal with bidders purposefully driving up the bid and then reneging...

That means that the seller has to get involved on *every* auction to decide if it's a bot or not? That you'd have to put your bid in, tying up the money (I think that you'd have to have your money tied up during the auction, like it is when you post an offer on LindeX) and then the seller can go "I don't like furries / goreans / humans / virtual-ethnic-group" and pull out?

The intent was to remove any real or imaginary unfair advantage from bots, while giving the _seller_ the opportunity to get the best price for their land. As a seller I could care less if the buyer is a bot or a klingon, as long as I get top dollar for my land


I am not married to any particular of the feature request one way or another, as long as landowner residents are allowed to auction their land. I would prefer not to be forced to sell at a price below what I am willing to accept. Smarter minds will have to figure out how to implement that

The problem with that feature is it opens up the possibility of abuse, and it doesn't scale: imagine someone with a LOT of land for sale. They'd have to check in and complete each and every auction in a timely fashion.
that's what a "reserve price" is traditionally for.

Then I propose a compramise:
If the land "sells" for at or more than the reserver, sell imediately to the winner without interference from the seller.

If the reserver is not meet, notify the seller and ask if they'd like to sell anyway.


That way peo---jackasses who put a reserve of 9999999 on their 512 land have an extra step they need to log in for to sell their land.

I think that should still be up to the seller:

* If the reserve is not met:
[x] Set land "not for sale".
[ ] Extend auction and sell to first bid over reserve.
[ ] Allow highest bidder to buy for reserve.
[ ] Restart auction.
[ ] Notify seller and highest bidder to negotiate sale below reserve.

That is an even better idea.