Property Rights vs. Land Harassment and Coercion

Way too much crap to read!

Personal viewpoint: Die Ads Die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wooooooooooot and now we have a viewer with visual mute so the whole ad farm revenue stream goes kaploooie... any one want 16sqmeters for a buck?
lolololololololololololololololol

IMO there should be zero advertising in primarily residential areas except in specifically built locations. If you go around a real-life residential area, sure there is some advertising on the sides of bus-stops and billboards near bridges and such. But there aren't any 20 foot billboards in between houses!

Advertising only really has a place in primarily commercial areas; malls or themed areas with shops. For example in the Amsterdam sim there could be an advertising network of discreet posters. There probably is already, but it's an example of something that would fit well.

It's one thing to have advertising that fits into an area, such as a commercial or otherwise attraction area. It's another thing to just buy plots of land to put up signs anywhere there are people who might, by some strange turn, buy whatever is advertised, or buy the land to get rid of an obnoxious sign. It doesn't matter if it doesn't flash, or rotate, the fact it's there is often bad enough.


I actually just posted a JIRA issue inspired by this. The idea of zoning has been thrown around a lot before, and it just occurs to me now that this could actually be done automatically with a very simple change and some changes to the ToS. Basically; if most parcels in an area are marked as home or recreation, then the region becomes residential, otherwise commercial. Residential sims disallow excessive advertising (making it abuse reportable). To read and/or vote on the JIRA issue go to this link:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-603

It wouldn't be an instant fix, but it would be incredibly beneficial if people supported it.

Ummm no, I don't run an ad farm business, but I also don't agree that they are "evil, blah blah blah..:

Lol, thats funny. Its not the ad farms persay, its the person that divides a plot into 16m plots instead of selling it whole.

If someone put out a plate of birdseed and one of the pigeons pinched a loaf on your windsheild, who do you blame? The pigeon or the person who put out the birdseed?

This has been going on since I been in SL. There was the impeach bush guy years ago, even more before him. People have the right to do what they will with their property.

No, there is never going to be zoning so you are wasting your time. There is no way any zoning could be implimented without effecting too many preexisting clients.

LL is no longer in the Sim planing business, they just want to sell the whole sims and could care less what becomes of them. There are sims going on almost two years with a right a way for a road but still no road. That should tell you something. Zoning only happens when you buy a sim and do it.

You do not have to look out your windows of your homes unless you have something to look at. You can place beautiful murals instead or even place scenic views inside the window frame itself so it looks like you are looking out. You never even have to go outside your home, you can place your landing zone inside the house. Create the environment you want to see in your home. Who cares what is going on next door, you don't have to look at it.

You are welcome to come down to my lot to look around and get ideas. I have homes that the entire windows can be made to be a scenic view.

If you get the Nicholaz Edition of SL it has an object "muter" that hides offending objects (prevents them from being rendered).

I haven't personally used it because I don't own land, and as such can just move when I see something offending.

Did you read the JIRA proposal? Implementation-wise it's incredibly simple, and would only really affect people who are running obtrusive businesses in regions that have a majority of residential parcels.

The problem is the grey areas. What is an obtrusive business? You can ask a 1/2 doz people and get different answers. The lindens are not gonna play zoning police, I can tell you that right now. They have way too many other things to do then to try to settle disputes over what is obtrusive or not.

You would have better luck going after a specific of what is inappropiate but even then I am trying to think of one and once again run into grey matter. Unless it is purely a black and white with no grey area proposal, it doesn't have a chance. An outright ban on signs or spinning objects can't happen, there are too many legitamate applications. Even what is considered a residential area is grey, land is constantly changing hands. What is residential today could be commercial the next day.

If we are talking eyesores, what about offensive homes? What about the plywood wonders? What about blinking textures from intersecting prims? The list could go on and on and there is no way LL can police all the mountains of reports this would create.

You have to be realistic. If LL didn't zone it in the first place and in the case of ad spots, stop the origonal person from creating all those 16m lots, how can they correct it after the fact. Not to mention the fact that they don't want to be bothered with existing older sims. They won't even put in the road that was subdivided into the sim when it was origonally created.

My first lot was in Yucca. A casino opened up there and at one point had more camping devices then the entire sim could support. It was a constant battle and in the end I had to move because there were times my clients or myself could not even enter my lot, my home, because the sim was full of zombies. In my opinion that is a much larger problem then an ad spot that doesn't stop you from getting to your home. I wish my problems had been that small.

Have you asked the owner of the offending ad to perhaps put a clear texture on the side facing your home? I doubt they are advertising to you and I assume its on a road? I think any reasonable person would consider complying to such a request. I know the impeach bush guy had gotten so many complaints that he scripted his signs to disappear for a period of time if you clicked them. Mutual cooperation sometimes works much better then trying to get a rule that will work for everyone.

I'm not currently being affected by advertising, my home is 700m up and can be easily moved vertically if someone were to try and target it with ads. I'm not a very good audience anyway, as I have a habit of avoiding things that I feel are being forced upon me in the slightest, or miscommunicated ("drink new coca-cola with hint of viagra, it'll make you a super stud!". However, I have been affected by some truly ridiculous ones that LL didn't bother to do anything about.

The proposal obviously leaves the ToS up to LL, but all it takes is something as simple as "Unreasonable simulator resource usage" to define camping chair fields, or clubs that use 90% of capacity for 10% of land, to the detriment of homes. I'm working on the assumption here that Lindens have /some/ common-sense in regards to these, but it's pretty obvious when someone is over-doing it.

As for adverts/businesses infringing on residential area you go for something like "Intentionally, or otherwise unacceptably, obtrusive constructions and/or practices, without offering any co-operation in resolving issues in regards to these". This covers ads that are put up as big as possible, spinning, flashing and such, but importantly does not penalise someone who has done it unknowingly. ie - if after a warning they co-operate then they have no mark against them.
For homes this covers ugly houses as being unintentional. Unless of course the buildings were put up purposefully to make someone move. As you say, some things can be resolved with co-operation, as an ugly house might not be ugly on purpose but the first effort of a new builder, or a really bad pre-fab.

The intention isn't to turn the whole grid into a perfectly lovely example of fine building and organised planning, that's unlikely to happen except on private islands where they can be strictly regulated. But common-sense ought to determine when something is unreasonable, such as your case of not being able to access your own home due to camping traffic, or ridiculous ad-farmers who ever-so-helpfully tell you where to shove your complaints about their 60m high tower-ads in the sky right in front of your window.

As for zones being one thing one minute and another the next, it's intended to work by a majority number such as 60% of all land in the sim set as residential. A sweeping change isn't likely to occur unless someone owns a massive plot of land and changes it, in which event the change is justified. If the percentage is not a majority then the region is neutral, mixed or some-such.

If a pidgeon shat on my car, I'd hit the washwipes and sigh. If you did it, I'd stop and fish out my jack handle...

After hours of reading I have come to some conclusions...

Advertisers (who are not neccessarily adfarmers by nature) have equal rights to the land they own and what they do with it, period! We do NOT care about any of you whiners because we are in business, money is what we care about, put your money where your mouths are, anti up or shut up! That is how it is until Linden Labs changes something, then Advertisers will gladly comply!

Linden Labs should clarify the issue as it ongoing and "zoning" is a practical approach that most legitimate advertisers would welcome. A grandfarther clause must be included where land rejoined is lost from the "Grandfarthered" adland supply. This will diminish the amount of adland in unwanted areas over time by the residents of those sims. Furthermore Linden Labs should expediate this process by not allowing land to be subdivided into sizes less than 128sq M.

For all the non profitable thick Ingots you need to get it thru your heads... Nobody Ever Beats a Dead Horse and it seems Temporal is alive and RUNNING WITH IT $$$$$$$$$

This will be my only post regarding "ADVERTISING" as I have no interest in what any of you whiners say, I am way above it at this point and have put up with so many of you idealistic nothings that you actually bore me. Go back to bad builds and worse AVI's. Go find a nice Estate somewhere and do not stay on mainland, its a place for EVERYONE TO CREATE ANYTHING! We did! Advertisers are good for business.

Tanika Goodspeed
MyADCOM Advertising

Ug, this is the one that has the 16M next to my parcel. SHe actually said I had to take down MY SIGN. Very amusing.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e298/bladyblue/adfarmer_003.jpg

Well Tanika, many of us have come to conclusions about ad farmers and unfortunately for your side, they are not favorable. I will block every ad farmer in my SIM, rendering their ads ineffective and a waste of money for them to own by building up walls, trees and whatever else it takes to insure that you are not able to sell eyeball views of your ads across the land I own.

You have no right to have eyeballs on or on the other side of my property viewing your ad business placements. If ad farmers want to have their ads seen by people coming to my business, my club or my land, then they can come pay ME for the privilege of allowing them to be seen. The one asshat ad farming Rudy Gulliani loving ad farmer left surrounded by my land on all four sides is currently having a lovely ten story building built around him and his lot. He can keep his ads there all he likes, but it will never, ever be seen. I will build into the sky if it takes it.

You irresponsible and inconsiderate ad farm people want to extort people into buying the lots at inflated prices ($500 to as much as $20,000 for a 16 sq m lot?) have declared war on SL residents, and now its time to turn the tables. If any ad farmers adjacent to my various lots want their ads seen, they need to pay me and I'd suggest the other land owners around them for the pleasure of having our friends and visitors see their ads, and if we don't want to pay them, then be prepared to have them eliminated from sight by construction. Build whatever ads you want on your lands, but when you are rendered worthless to your paying ad clients by those around you, you'll know you brought it on yourselves.

If you want the view, you ad farmers tell us land owners to buy the view. Well now us land owners are telling you ad farmers, if your want the VIEWS, then buy the VIEWS from those surrounding the ad spaces. Otherwise, quit your whining when you get blocked.

LOL, and ADfarmer complaing about the view from their parcel..
To quote an adfarmer in reply, "you want the view, buy it"

They spread uglines across SL like a plague. Somehow they have found companies dumb enough to believe 30 identical signs next to each other sell 30 times more product. Thats the signs of course that are real products rather than just fiction to cover extortion of real estate.

I said I would post no further about the topic of advertising in SL because the subject is moot with regard to successful business.

However... with no further ad do (snickers) lets now address AD FARMING and earlier comments with regard to the one above Bl?d?bl?e.

AD FARMING - the taking of larger parcels and subdividing them into smaller sections of land, very usually 16sq M parcels.

- I do not nor have I ever farmed. I have come accross a parcel here, a parcel there and have grown over a year without farming and this process was deliberate and intentional. I do not nor have I ever supported AD FARMING. I never sell my parcels tho rare exceptions happen. I do however need 16sq M parcels for my business and do support subdividing land that is not in excess of 64-128sq M for a small section of ads for the advertising industry in SL and preferably in a suitable area. And that is that!

- Concerning Bl?d?bl?e... These people and that group deliberatly griefed my parcel. They built their club accross my land and when confronted about it refused to admit they were on my land extending from thiers! There is only a single (1) 16sq M parcel in Bear 180, 163, 106 and it is mine along protected roadside in a highly commercial area and sim for that matter. Bl?d?bl?e started with and continues to slanderously call me an AD FARMER and libelously continues to advertise it as such and she herself advertises. She refused to move her objects and as of today is still slightly griefing me and my parcel! She is also using Linden Labs land to protrude her prims further accross her property line to block my parcel and has not realized that if the issue goes from push to shove the Lindens will sweep the Bear sim for other purpetrators as well and many follow the same practice in this sim. She hypocritically accused me of advertising objectional material (escort club) while my ads conform to PG standards even in this Mature sim. She was (V??d?? Lounge) peddling protitution of another form and rather clumsily defended her position when confronted with the embarrassing situation... all the while her ad is right behind her. Furthermore she is digging her nose into other peoples business and trying to take away an infohub that brings in lots of new people 24hrs a day and contributes to the wealth of the business near it. Apparently her business cannot get any traffic because the sim is full. I think not. It is time they move. These people are stubborn, self rightous and hypocritical SL denzians. They should make the neccessary changes considering the rediculously cheap land in SL these days. These residents and their group continue to call me an adfarmer when clearly I am not and continue to greif me contrary to ToS and CS!

All of this began as I was doing a maintenance check of all my properties, 1 ad tower per sim, I wont even begin to get into how many sims but suffice it to say that all I had asked in the beginning was that she not block my property. If she needed the space all she need do was ask. She was too proud to do even that. I try my best to work with my neighbors and many have become quite happy and understand that I am one of the very few that are not like the rest. As for her signs, they are libelous thats is why I ask they be taken down or changed to be correct. She is free to slam advertisers all she likes... but then again, she is one!

Get councel hun... you will need it soon.

Poor baby.

This is copy and pasted from another thread in the forum by C?m C?rd?ff. Please insert Bl?d?bl?e when Cam speaks about the purpetrators of his grief as that is correctly whom Cam is referring to.


Infohubs, A definitive answer please.

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For a long time The Bear Infohub has been my chosen spot to meet people chat and help the new people arriving. I have met many of my friends there and up until a short time ago all was well and life was good. The social aspect of this area was what made me like SL so much.

There is no denying that there has been a certain amount of griefing at Bear but this subsided when scripts and build were disabled some time ago.

Lately the good feeling of the Bear Infohub has been shattered by one of the landowners claiming that thepeople who use bear are ...... and I quote "loiterers, clowns, squaters, and have created a chat ghetto" She claims that the area is stopping her from entering "her sim" and that the users of this Infoub have "no right to be there" She is now suggesting that talks are underway to get the seating taken out of the hub and the patio to be removed being replaced with trees so that people find it hard to use it as a social meeting area. Every day this person comes to the infohub and causes a rift with the people using it which is now so bad that to many it is amounting to harassment. There are now large signs up on this persons "warehouse" scaremongering the other land owners right next to similar ads that she is complaining about! there is no need to stir up this amount of trouble in an otherwise very content area. This person has at times taken new people from the Infohub and introduced them to others making sure that they then mark this as their home. This she calls her "capture and release program! This is (IMHO) an inapropriate way for a mentor to behave and is hardly in the spirit of Second Life when her business is put before the welfare and enjoyment of those that are using a very nice infohub.

Reading through the forums in an attempt to get the good atmosphere back to The infohub I came accross the following statement from Jesse Linden........Originally Posted by Jesse Linden The new Infohubs are designed to be public spaces for use by the entire Second Life community. In the tradition of the town square or public commons, these local spaces will provide a central point of congregation and communication exchange between residents. We are committed to building traffic in these areas and giving the surrounding businesses and services the opportunity to benefit from their increasing use.

The above outline for Infohub use is EXACTLY TO THE LETTER what Bear Infohub has been used for by the community. It is loved and enjoyed by many until this campaign was started by this idividual.

My question to the lindens is (If you can be good enough to provide an answer) will our community be broken up (as this owner is suggesting) or is our community safe to enjoy as it was intended in the first place?

I would like to ask that this thread is moderated with a close eye as it is not my intetion to troll or flame.....My intention is to get this matter clarified so that we may once again enjoy the use of this hub without the constant harassment from this person. If she gets her way the other businesses in the sim will no longer enjoy the high traffic and very high land values that they currently enjoy because the Infohub is there. This would also set a precident for other business owners to dictate how sims are run.

Please don't hijack this thread and please keep it to the point and on topic. Many thanks.

Someone is having a temper tantrum.

Hi Tani! Fancy seeing you here! Aside from anything anyone builds on their land, the price at which they to choose to sell it is an indicator of motive. You neatly summarise that all you care about is the money above. So if your ads and 16m parcels are so in-offensive, why on earth do ad owners expect to achieve ridiculously high per m2 costs for their land?

Ordinary users who perhaps don't only care about money sell land at market values, for a profit if they can, but related to the market. Even land bot runners sell around market value.

So the only reason 16m parcels cost so much is .... drum roll .... they are annoying enough that people will actually consider paying up to get rid of them. Either because of where they are, or because of what is on them, or both. You know that. Every ad farmer knows that. Everyone with mainland land knows that!

In fact I know one person who when offered a 1024m plot offered to buy the 16m square right in the middle of it. Now who could that of been I wonder?

I won't be putting my money in your pocket. Thanks!

Temporal, while you, personally, may hold yourself to a high ethical standard, you have thrown yourself in with a bunch of general scumbags who have no ethics at all, and in so doing you've pretty much tarred and feathered yourself, in the eyes of many SL residents. Guilt by association. You can see the reactions you're getting, even though you claim to be, and quite possibly ARE so ethical in your own practices. People simply are not going to believe you, because so many others have already tarnished the reputation of an in-world ad parcel seller beyond any hope of redemption.

There are plenty of ways to advertize in SL, without placing billboards next to people's houses. As a merchant, I will NEVER use an ad service such as you offer, because I refuse to be party to destroying the property values of other SL residents. As a consumer, any product or company that I see on some "Ad Farm" immediately earns a place on my personal blacklist, and will never get my business again.

If you don't like being treated as a pariah, stop hanging out with the social equivilent of a Lepers Colony.

I am always encouraged by the fact that, even in the rapidly-changing world of Second Life, certain traditions are unconsciously respected. It feels very... _natural_. Like birds build nests and salmon swim upstream unheeding of history or consequence, so will ad griefers post paragraph upon paragraph defending their practices, as if anyone actually cared.

Since the dawn of the Grid, or at least since the first ad griefer looked at a black monolith and thought "if that was spinning and had an annoying ad on it I could make money there", this species has attempted to persuade the forum public that the business of ad griefing - one which is specifically designed to annoy them - is in fact entirely legitimate and should be applauded as free enterprise or some such.

It is baffling behaviour, as it has never worked, never will and in any case is not required for the ad griefer to Get Paid, but it continues, irrational as it may be. It will take a far better anthropologist than I to get to the bottom of the matter.

Heya Ordinal I had a rumination along similar lines myself today and though perhaps not entirely anthropological, you may be interested. I fear the answer may lie simply with money. Money as I am sure you are aware is oft quoted as being "The root of all evil". In SL we have that seemingly extreme stance verified somewhat.

It seems some of the curious inhabitants of this world are so led by money as a raison d'etre that they are blindly letting the everyday social niceties and pleasantries of living alongside other people slip away entirely. I know! Were I not here to witness it myself I would be dumbfounded myself!

The vexing question then is: Would SL be more of a utopian land if money were not exchangeable beyond the boundaries of it's own world, or if such money never existed in the first place?

I fear we may never know the answer, and will only dream of utopia's that we are unable to create.

Well, certainly the pursuit of Pecuniary Reward at the expense of considerations of Society and Morality explains the ad griefing activities themselves... but what confuses me is the insistence of said folk in coming to the Forum and other areas and attempting to "defend" their activities, as if there was any sort of ethical argument that could be used.

A common footpad makes no effort to claim that he is being moral in striking some unfortunate over the head and making off with their wallet. Such an activity is clearly in the interests of one party (the wallet-maker-offer) and not in the interests of the other (the head-having-been-hitted). "It's a fair cop, guv," the footpad says if and when arrested, as he is well aware that he is acting purely for his own benefit.

Similarly there is no confluence between the interests of the ad griefer and the unfortunate resident of a sim which is being griefed by advertisements. The argument that the residents somehow benefit by this, that they are being exposed to information they would otherwise have not been, is laughable - for a start, nobody serious advertises with these people, and even if they did, having a persistent spinning advertisement a few feet away from one's marital bed for a period of weeks or months is not informative in the slightest.

No, such advertisements only serve to annoy sim dwellers and to cheat naive would-be advertisers out of their Linden Dollars, yet somehow, some perpetrators seem to feel that those that they set out to annoy are being "ungrateful" somehow, and could be argued out of their annoyance at having ugly spinning rubbish all over their view by vague arguments to do with commerce, or the intrinsic goodness of advertising, or... well, I don't know, really, none of it makes sense to me.

It is _that_ which I am puzzled by, that an obvious rogue would then repeatedly attempt to claim that the roguery was honest practice. And, you know, they do, an awful lot of the time. Give me a simple footpad any day (and a hard helmet of course).

by having a large parcel of land without adds on it and keeping it this way when reselling




it's your problem if you are willing to pay that much for 16sqm.. don't expect others to think it's the right price to resell it to.

While I do not condone the person's actions (which is wholly unreasonable), being unable to enter a sim where you own land is an extremely annoying issue. How can you run a store if you can't get to it? Or live in a home that you can't get within 128m of?

I'm all for nice public spaces, especially if they maintain the relative value of info-hubs to an extent, but the issue of them preventing others accessing the sim is a genuine one.

However, 'bully tactics' and disruption are not an acceptable solution, as this is a technical issue, not a social one.
You should point this person to the following JIRA issue:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-716