% of land holders in sl

OMG!!! You are soooo feted! How does it feel to come out of the closet?

Chris, we have no idea yet if group ownership is included. I'm thinking it can't be and that's the problem with what still seem like very low numbers. We've got to get this clarified.

Um, Malachi, if I'm "feted" than so are 59 other people who happened to go that same Welcome Are when Philip went. Yeah, they fit in 60 people! Loki just went around notifiying everyone to come to get a chance to talk to him.

Zonax, excuse me but it's my right and duty to pick apart vague Linden sentences. That's what people in a democratic society do with federal governments, they study their pronouncements and they try to clarify them.

First, I started with my clear hunch that there had to be more than 12 (and I suspect more than 20, there's something about the group land thing they aren't counting right I bet). Then I looked at what was being said about the developers' awards. I saw the sentence was ambiguous and admitted two interpretations. I asked about them.

I continue to think the sentence isn't clear. Proof of that is the July 2004 sentence where they made it more clear.

What's puzzling to me is why you can't see that second interpretation. It's there. "The two percent of landowners who have the most dwell," i.e. a two percent of a cut of all landowners, that cut which has the most dwell, which in turn is a subset of the larger group.

Why would I reach for something convuluted in defiance of Occam's Razor? Because the Lindens have some esoteric formula for dwell. In fact I'm one of the people who kept banging on them and asking them to publish it so we could figure out whether it was fair and how much it really could be gamed as everyone says. We now have it published (buried in the Linden announcements). Precisely because it's convoluted, I figured their dwelloper thing could be *just as* convoluted.

After all there is a huge jump between all landowners, the overhwhelming majority of who have like 1 or 10 or something dwell on their smaller properties, and that small subset of the top landlorders who get the lion's share of dwell. It occurred to me that it would be rational for the Lindens to grab that top percent, that sector of high-dwell-earning landlords, and then skim 2 percent off that. Made perfect sense to me. If it doesn't to you, you can argue with it.

What you're not entitled to do is make these kind of lurid nasty comments, as Lordfly did:

Oh my god...
Stop feeding the troll. Syntax obviously isn't his strong suit. Stop baiting him.
Fuck. Put him on ignore

Syntax on THAT sentence I banged on wasn't the strong suit of that Linden who wrote it, either, eh?

The point is they could say it like this:

"We give developers' awards to the landowners who accumulate the most dwell or traffic points on their property. These 3360 people [or whatever figure] make up 2 percent of the 12 percent of those who own land out of all residents."

That is the worst sentence I've ever read. You might consider learning how to write before making any further suggestions.

I'm not claiming to write the best sentence ever read here. This isn't English class or the Pulitzer Prizes. This is the website of a game. My point in putting a sentence there quickly was to show the direction in which they could have gone to make it more clear. Take a stab at editing it yourself if you need to.

We give developers' awards to the landowners who accumulate the most dwell or traffic points on their property. These awards are given to the top 2 percent of the [3360] landowners in SL, and based upon the proportion of dwell which these landowners have received.

Ardith, what you've written is exactly the sort of thing that I probed in my second interpretation of the Linden sentence:



That makes it sound like it is given to 2 percent of the 3360 people, when in fact the 3360 *are* the two percent.

So I'd suggest this:

We give developers' awards to the landowners who accumulate the most dwell or traffic points on their property. These awards are given to 3360 landowners, the top 2 percent of all landowners in SL, and based upon the proportion of dwell which these landowners have received.

No, the 3360 are the 12%. Monkey math is hard, see?

Linden Lab is hiring, maybe you could be Vice President of Frustrated Wordsmiths Who Attend to Picayune Details that Nobody Gives a Flying Fuck About.

Nice title, actually. *runs off to make cards*

I don't think so. If 3360 is 2% of some total, the total is 168,000.

- Jon

I

No, it works like this.

3360 is 2 percent of players -- those land owners with the most dwell.

People then take that number, contrast it with the 28,000 players, and come up with the factoid that 12 percent are landowners only.

I've questioned that, Philip said it was more like 20, but we don't know, does he count group land?

I don't understand what you mean... if 3360 is 2 percent of players, there would have to be 168,000 players, wouldn't there? We know that's not true. I thought the 3360 (or 3650 from Stoneself, or 3700 from Robin) were total landowners with more than 512 m2 land.

The concept of "more than 512" has never been part of this discussion nor has Robin ever said anything about it.

In fact we're assuming that Linden calculations of land ownership does include 512s but we can't be sure.




This was stated incorrectly (it was put correctly the first time then retyped incorrectly). 3360 is the figure of 12 percent of 28000; 2 percent then of 3360 is 67.

The Linden statement itself about devlopers contains all the notions you need to see for this purpose.

They said that 2 percent of the landowners who get the most dwell are the prizewinners. There were X number of prize winners (let's say about 67). Whatever that number was then gave people the figure of 3360.

3360 out of 28000 total players then gave the figure of 12 percent. But that's precisely what is questioned. It's more like 20 now, says Philip Linden.

The formula was worked like this:

3360 landowners out of 28000 totaly players is 12 percent of all players. Then out of the 12 percent of all players were the 2 percent of all players who earned the most dwell, or 67.

Using the limited number of prizewinners which some Linden said were 2 percent of all players gave people a way to calculate the total of landowners.

But as this seemed a bit backward, the direct question was then made: how many landowners are there, and what percentage do they make up of the total population?

We will don't know if they are counting those in group land.

/invalid_link.html - Ursula quoted this hotline answer earlier in this thread. That's part of this discussion and Robin saying something about it at the same time, so you are mistaken on both counts.



It's now pretty clear that StoneSelf's original math was accurate, but he could not know the crucial fact that LL excludes owners who have 512m of land or below from the DI award calculation. So if Philip says that about 20% of residents own land, and (from StoneSelf's numbers at the start of this thread) 12.8% own more than 512m, that leaves 7.2% of 28471, or 2278 that own 512m or less. Gosh that was hard.

As I originally pointed out, we still don't know if non-tiered group members are counted as landowners. I'll ask Robin at the next FIC star chamber meeting.

We give money to people every month.

LF

Here's the reference from Robin for those who couldn't find it:



So I understood that to mean in the developer calculations, they didn't use the figure of 512 owners. That means the developer calculations wouldn't be an accurate way of extrapolating the total number of landowners because they don't count those 512 owners, as indicated, and that's why the number came out too low.



We can't be sure Philip is making a guestimate even for his own game, as Robin said, they didn't run the query at this point in time.

It isn't that StoneSelf's math isn't accurate. It's that using the dwelloper's formula isn't the way to get the answer to the question. It's easier to just say to the Lindens, "Lindens, how many residents own land?" They seem willing to give out this figure.

I wouldn't assume that 7.2 or 2278 own 512 or less because she said the number fluctuates considerably.

It seems to me that we don't even know if tiered group members are counted.

even if we were given the exact numbers of this whole deal.... just exactly what difference will it make? Just seems to me it would mean absolutely nothing.

Oh yeah, good point.

*unsubscribes from thread*

There are a lot of useful points that can come out of knowing what percentage of players own land, and whether those who buy 512s tier up, and how much they tier up.

For one, you can see really how big the land market is, or, conversely, how big the potential rentals market might be. You can get some rough grasp of whether it makes sense for you to expan, if that number of landowners expands, if you are in the land market or other related immediate markets like building and services. IRL, people study figures like number of new homes built and mortages started, etc. to assess how that sector of the economy is doing.

Let's say you were trying to sell prefabs. You'd see that perhaps you only have 3,000 potential customers. If you saw 47 other people already selling prefabs in that same small market of 3,000 potential customers, you might think, hmm, I need to build a better prefab or figure out whether this makes sense.

If you see the number of land owners, and the rate by which the world is growing, you have a rough sense of how much land the Lindens are going to put out. You can be surprised, of course, but you can see will they be baking up a whole new load of sims or cutting back for awhile. I suppose there is a bounce effect like any office -- subscriptions suddenly gets the word to inventory that all off a sudden there is a huge influx of new subscriptions, inventory then runs out and engineering is summoned to work overtime, etc. etc. They might be behind a curve on some days (they ran out of first land a few times in first weeks as demand definitely exceeded supply to the point where people were crying out on the forums, where it the first land?

On the larger sociological issues, the percentage of land holders in any society tells you something about distribution of wealth, availability of democracy, classes of people, whether there will be, say, a latifundista kind of situation with a lot of large, wealthy landlowners with serfs, or whether you'll have smallholders' parties emerging -- that sort of thing. A society can become more civilized when there are more landed, vested people doing things like building and nesting and engaging in community activities versus clubbing, warring, griefing, etc.

I guess the biggest question I'd have finding out that only 5600 owned land is what those 22,400 do with their time. Do they log on? Do they have a reason to log on? Are they friends and partners and fellow group members of the others who own land or do they just roam through the malls and the clubs or???

... they clandestinely plot against you.

Okay I do see your points, but I for one like to think of SL as enjoyment, to me its not at all just about money. And even still if I had all these numbers available I would do nothing with them. My services seems to be always asked for nd needed. Even if it dried up I would simply not panic and rave about loosing money. To me SL isnt just about the money. Its about friends, doing whaat I enjoy, helping others. Nothing more.

Maybe they are just having a good time and not sweating any monkey math. There are myriad reasons to log on to SL... Biggest ones?... Entertainment, Fun, Creative exploration.
I guess I understand why someone could tweek over the 'math' aspects of SL, 'greed' being near the top of that assumption (or you're just a math-nerd at heart...) but IMHO if you allow THAT to be the base of your SL, that would make YOU the one with the greatest reason to not bother logging on. Here you are counting trees, missing the grandeur of the forest.

Could be, but I certainly don't let that bother me lol.



Just because you run a business in SL doesn't mean you don't also kick back and enjoy the many things there are to do and see in SL, and don't have friends. I have loads of fun in SL and have friends to hang with, too. One doesn't contradict the other. This notion of an all-or-nothing, socialize/consume or run a business/be a cut-throat, greedy exploiter or land baron just doesn't cut it with me. It's a caricature and just one that belongs to the anti-business group, and nothing more. It doesn't reflect the feels of the majority of the people who either combine both aspects of SL, or else don't mind at all that others combine them.

You can run a business AND help others AND have friends. The idea that this is all somehow mutually exclusive is strange. It's *ok* to have a profit motive just as it is in RL. Most people in RL have jobs where either they have the profit motive or their bosses do. It's fine. And they have their other aspects of their life which are for enjoyment. There's an idea that because SL is pass-time you do in the off-hours of your RL that somehow the activities in it all have to feel like off-hour RL types of things, puttering around, hanging around, a hobby, etc.

But why? If it is supposed to be the metaverse, it's supposed to be bigger than that. And it is. And will become more so.




Seems to me this is merely about using another venue for a personal attack. Questioning thoroughly about these numbers is just the scientific way -- one that many already glorify and over-glorify in SL, in fact. It's getting the numbers so that you have the facts in running a business. It's *ok* to run a business and seek the numbers in SL.

In fact, I"m not at all a math-nerd, nothing of of the kind, and you dn't have to be math nerd or a statistical junky just to ask a simple question and get a simple answer -- which we do now have, at long last.

Greed is not at all my motivation, and it's silly to attribute greed to everyone who a) starts a business in SL and b) asks the Lindens about the numbers of the population of users of their particular business. Philip Linden in fact delights in providing numerous economic statistics that many people pour over in planning or running their businesses. When Philip talks to the media, he describes how cool it is that a significant number of players in SL are entrepreneurs -- he himself says he is a "self-taught entrepreneur" and seems to be having the time of his life.

So why can't people like me have the time of my life too, run a business, have the fun and experience of making trials and errors, ask the Lindens for figures, and not be blasted by a tiny, but vocal anti-business minority in SL that accuses me of greed, exploitation, scamming, blah blah blah? Anyone can see they have an axe to grind -- it's just funny that in some cases they have *their own* business that runs at a very healthy profit with high prices of objects, and then you have to wonder if their motivation is just to make sure they've driven others out of business harnessing the anti-business minority when necessary.

Im not saying any of this..... And I do run a very profitable business. And I have done this for some time now without needing to have to crunch numbers. What I am saying is all these numbers being asked for will mean nothing to me.

I think the term you were looking for was "obsessive-compulsive" rather than "scientific". And everything is a venue for a personal attack

Well, some people like to crunch numbers, and it's all good. It doesn't mean they are "greedy" or "evil" if they crunch numbers. They mainly do it for fun in a game like this. Even if something means nothing to you, could you try to zoom out of your own personal situation a little, stop trying to represent your own personal situation as "right and true and just" and realize there are *other people in the game* who have *different opinions and values* and it is *OK*.



No, I think obsessive-compulsive is actually the term you'd apply to someone who uses the wacky developer award numbers to try to extrapolate the number of land-owners, instead of just asking the Lindens how many there are.

Furthermore, even to my own surprise, I discover that in fact the second reading I gave, as contorted as many felt it was, was indeed closer to the right one. Yes. Indeed. Because it says they drew the number from "all those who receive the most dwell" -- and they indeed did NOT use the full number of all landowners, as I suspected, they left out the 512s because they fluctuate too much. Interesting, eh? It means if you own a 512, and you manage to get 12,000 dwell points on it, say a little boutique store that suddenly became wildly popular, you would be disqualified from the developers' awards. So the developers' awards could be said to discriminate against newbie firstlanders who get a great idea and get traffic to their little humble abodes. Wild, eh?

As for venues for personal attacks, yes, I noticed. You gotta love this game in this regard, people do the damnedest things. Like this one guy? He came and rented an apartment at Ravenglass Towers. Paid $350, but then didn't put in any thing or seem to live there. So wondering if maybe something was wrong with the door and he had problems (we have lockable doors but they require that each person buy them for $0), I checked to see if his door was working OK. Then I saw inside, he had carefully and lovingly laid out like a dozen prims, all the basic sizes like cube, rectangle, square, and put ridicluous "prices" on them, like a plywood cube for $500. So being basically a believer in the good of people, I thought maybe the guy was just working on his little newbie stuff and getting it read for sale but it wasn't painted yet or whatever, but then I realized he was making a grand conceptual art kind of installation in which his point was: "Akh, the folly of people who think you need apartments in SL when it doesn't rain out, akh, the idiocy of people who buy overpriced pixel prims for furniture and lay them around" -- that is, it was a kind of amateurish irony sort of statement about some people in SL that find it fun to play house. Then I noticed the guy's rental expired and he left the groups and minutes later there was an officer recall attack, but I don't think they are related at all, just a coincidence.