Newbie protection: Private-island sub-leased "starter plots" targetted at Newbies.

Sorry guys, I'm afraid its me again, in my self-appointed role as "Newbie Protector".

I've been worrying about the poor newbie faced by the sales pitch for one of the new privately-supplied land starter packages limited to avatars less than 30 days old. Such an offer is now being advertised in the "Land Sales" list, and doubtless others will follow. This is in fact offering "sub-leases" in a private sim, where the landowner is king.

Lets put aside for a second the misleading advertising used to get the newbie to the land owners website for the sales pitch (when for them "land sale" means what they read about in the documentation), and lets forget for a moment the newbie's total vulnerability to offers whose insignificance they are most unlikely to fully understand (cos most of us don't).

What are the other aspects of these offers, ignoring that they don't get full normal ownership?

It worries me that they may be misled into LOSING OUT ON BENEFITS available with the genuinely generous "first land" package which LL has designed for them.

Its not just the first land (and the $3000-odd profit that it should eventually give them on resale. No-one knows yet how the value of second-hand leases will stand up).

When they become premium members, they get a starting bonus (isn't it $1000 ?).

If they have a referring friend, THEY get $1000, part of which may possibly be shared with the Newbie.

There is a 10 times increase in stipend (for ever).

There is 512m of land free of any tier forever.

Will these privately offered "Starter Packages" replicate all these benefits ? Since one of the selling points is that you have no need to pay premium membership to "own" this land ?

For one thing, it would mean making no monthly charge for 512m of the land at all, ever. Whilst the landowner has to pay the full tier. Even if the landowner charges LL's 512 rate for 1024m, could the newbie sell off half, and live with no tier?

One way to prevent the Newbie losing out would be for the landowner to suggest that before taking the private offer, the Newbie should take out a premium subscription, then buy and immediately sell a genuine "First land" plot. Thus also pocketing the joining bonus.

Then he will need to find two other members for his group, and form the group for $100. Then finally he is ready to take the lease. Now he must struggle with operating on group-owned land, and we all know the extra permissions difficulties that imposes on the inexperienced, which are not easy to explain.

Oh, yes, then he can terminate his SL sub by downgrading his account to basic, since the stipend, unbalanced by the free tier he is not using, nowhere near compensates for the subscription. Thus, in a sense, becoming parasitic on the rest of us despite his land "holding".

Can you imagine any procedure more ludicrous and impossible to comprehend for a newbie? And yet without it, surely he may be missing out by going for the lease?

Unless ALL this complexity is explained to him, and he understands it, isn't he being further misled? How can he be making an informed decision?

Or IS every one of these benefits faithfully replicated? It is our responsibility to ask these questions on behalf of the innocent. They won't know what to ask for themselves, and LL seem reluctant to act to protect them.

Make no mistake, at least 60 new people arrive every day, and some of them ARE going to be funnelled to these peoples websites, seduced by the adverts currently showing in the "Land Sales" list, and almost certainly believing they are simply going to "buy land" as they have read.

In my opinion it would be more appropriate to FORBID the offering of private-island subleases to those less than 30 days old, rather than to allow them to be TARGETTED.

LIC comments in 3... 2... 1... jk

Well ironically, they will not lose out on their first land benefits. The only way they will do that is if they 'OWN' land before they snatch up their first land.

That aside, I have made my feelings on this matter be known so will quietly shuffle away now....

Um, I think we can accept your role as "Newbie Protector" better when we're convinced that you're not somebody's alt with an agenda to upset the market, compete unfairly, or just be an obsessed pain in the ass -- or all three at once LOL.

Let's look at a little straw poll I got going, where 40 percent of 12 respondents already check off this result within 30 minutes of the poll opening:

Did You Buy and Sell First Land?

Yes, and sold it for more than $1500 in PG and $2500 in M.

What that suggests to me is that this hilariously arrogant and condescending image of the Poor Klewless Noob is horridly off the mark.

Newbs are other people like yourself, college educated, 20-30 somethings in the IT market or the arts with credit cards, a high-speed DSL hookup, and graphics cards out the wazoo. These are people who read the directions on the box, buy the land, and resell it handily for a profit LOL.

All your silly notions that they are stumble-bums who need your very dubious help are just really suspect notions designed to enhance your credibility and gaming of the metagame reputation racket. No sale!

Let's try to look at what *really* happens. Some newbies don't care about new land and never get it, they never get off basic. Or they get premiums and never use it because they don't want the hassle of land -- this is why I feel the unused 512 power of the masses is one of the little harnessed forces of the game and could be easily approached to accomplish all manner of projects, whether commercial rentals of homes or non-profit save-the-forest plans.

Many news buy the land and resell it but don't do so well, not because they are horrifically ripped off by some rapacious bottom-fishing land dealer scouring the landscape for new land deals (a cliche not born out by fact) but because they just got impatient. All land in SL sells. It sells for something closer to the price you want if you can WAIT. 30 days is not at all too long to wait to get your price.

From my observation, the most successful land barons are simply those with the deepest pockets to pay tier and WAIT. They get their price that way, whereas others move on.

We have yet to come up with a single, live, actual case of fraud, i.e. someone actually buying from Anshe or Nexus or anybody because they've been deceived, and we haven't even been able to come up even with any genuine newb who feels annoyed at horsing out to some island said to be $0 and finding it wasn't available exactly for $0 -- i.e. something for nothing. Surprise, surprise!

I know, like Traxx Hathor, for ideological reasons and personal baggage reasons, you yourself might be out in the game scouring the landscape to find that seemingly clueless noob, and then set them up to believe all manner of things like "I wuz robbed". But those shenanigans are going to be very transparent. It's important to keep pushing back against these manipulative, tendentious, and misleading portrayals of newbs and the SL land market which only fuel hatred of the land baron class and all real estate agents, and fuel the privilege machine for the content baron class. Non pasarant!

For all these raucious yammerings, you've failed to grasp a very important point: at no time do the fingers leave the hand.

The newbie never has to right-click and buy Linden Lab type property in Ansheland or Nexusland. Therefore he can only buy after dealing with them and getting informed.

If they have set up a landowning group with the land and tier inside it, and the newb joins that group, by the mere fact of joining, NO, he does not get automatically stripped of his land-buying for $512 privilege he has as a newb.

If he donated tier ONLY would he be stripped. Interestingly, this used to NOT be the case. I know, because I joined a land-owning group early on, and put in tier, and then later bought first-land with the privilege of the $512 buy. I assumed it went on working that way. But then I saw how a newb joined our group and lost that capacity (I immediately offered to buy him whatver his pick of a 512 was anywhere as compensation, which he happily took). The Lindens then explained that this was some kind of "flag" that didn't get turned off all the way but then did.

Make no mistake about it: now that "flag" or whatever is definitely turned off (or on, or whoever it works mechanically in their game setup). If you become a member of a landed group AND you put in tier to it, you lose your 512-for-$512 privilege, and cannot get it back, because you become a part-owner of that land.

But if you merely join the group, and don't put in tier, nothing happens, because you haven't put in tier. Join the group, pay rent, leave the group, then go buy your first land if you want to, the capacity remains unspent. If it does NOT work that way then once again, something in a patch has changed that I'm not aware of but since I have seen it work this way with my own eyes, I have no reason to doubt it.

In Midge, there was a group for us to join as tenants. I don't know how this works in Ansheland now. That group wasn't landed, so it didn't matter anyway, you couldn't have lost your first-land virginity anyway even if it now works differently. Some rental operations keep two groups, one of landed tier and the other unlanded with no tier to avoid the flaw of officer recall and land theft.

It seems evident to me that a newb who goes to Ansheland, joins even a landed group as a mere member, doesn't put in tier, pays rent only, will retain their capacity to buy first land. Even if you were to enter the group as an officer, as long as you don't type in an amount of land and press "contribute" and use up the tier in your account, you will not be toggilng off the switch showing you to retain your first-land virginity.

Anshe's program is a wonderful boon to newbies in a theme -- the kind of newbies that come in with a ready-made network sometimes as friends of existing players, sometimes from other games. So let it be.

Start your own damn program and make it the way you think it should be perfect, struggle to maintain that perfect in the virtual world with all its difficulties, set an example, then come back and talk to us, instead of putting up hypothetical roadblocks in the way of people who are honestly trying to improve the game, make a buck for themselves to cover costs and have a ROI -- which is a legitimate and necessary and desirable activity -- and create customer bases of happy, not defrauded people.

It's not talking to yourself that is a bad thing. It's when you start answering yourself that you should start worrying.

You're right Hiro, of course. They can claim these benefits later on. But isn't it when they first contemplate land that they most need them? How far would you or I walk for $L1000 today? LL carefully designed a good package for them, and no-one should push them toward anything else until they understand the full implications. Which it is hard to imagine they can if they are less than 30days old.

They should not be targetted in this way in my opinion.

Am I over-reacting ? Tell me ?

Oh I still agree with you.

Thanks, Hiro. I'm relieved somebody does. Beginning to wonder if I'm going gaga. Or if concern for the vulnerable dies at the login screen.

I don't see how a typical less-than-30-day newbie would understand WTF is going on.

Not all newbies are SL-junkies that spend hours and hours online every singe day. For the average forum troll, 30 days is an eternity. If you spend just 2 hours a day logged in, that's 60 hours! (I did the math, and its true!)

But what about a NORMAL person, who might spend more like 2 or 3 hours a week on line. After 30 days they've mastered walking around, flying, teleporting, chatting with people, buying stuff from a vendor, playing tringo, and maybe getting clothing out of a box.

A better rule would be to *exclude* avatars less than 30 days old, not to target them.

Buster

.

Huh? But that's repressive and stupid, Buster, I'm sorry. Why put even more rules and exclusions on this game!

Could I remind everyone that Anshe's first land here is THEMED and for furries. That means that it exists as a very specific area for a sub-group of the community. There are already older furries who recruit into the furry movement, and I'll warrant at least some of these "newbies" of "30 days" are just new accounts of old furries. And God bless them, let them make a new start.

These new furrylings are either from other games, or friends in RL, or just people that have been found in the game, and introduced to the furry way of life (about which I know next to nothing). So it's a big of a pre-organized thing, it seems to me, and this idea of vulnerable and shaking newbies out to be exploited by ebil Anshe is so much tripe -- it's a specific, themed kind of offer, and a damn good one.

Honestly, no good deed goes unpunished.

I think the way to deal with the flow of new people in the game is to have a PLURALITY of choices. That isn't confusing but FREEING. You don't HAVE to hop on the airship and go on the FIC track, you have CHOICES.

If Lindens are so all-fired concern about people getting ripped off, let them pay the staff to have a 24/7 introduction session that explains the options.

And if oldbies are so all-fired concern, let the add to their existing menu of helper kind of stuff, but let them do it without Linden fielding of new bodies for their schemes.

Lindar is making screeching, hysterical, busybody sorts of statements based on a total crock of shit -- there are no victimized newbies anywhere on the scene, but just a couple of older and decent experienced players who are helping newbies to get a better experience, far from the kind of griefing and fuck-you hedonism that I saw as a newbie and soured me on those older feted players probably for LIFE.

I totally agree with everything in Lindar's original post. I'm sorry Prok but I cannot agree with your stance on this.

What is even more appalling is that LL appear to condone these actions by allowing them to list their rental land in 'land for sale'. This is totally wrong. It is dishonest, and I would deem anyone who did this to be untrustworthy. I also don't think they should be let anywhere near newbies for at least the first month.

Why is this only for newbies under 30 days? It surely can only be to prey on their ignorance. No-one should be allowed to approach newbies for at least a month. By then, they will have had an opportunity to consider their options and make an informed decision.

Why the hell does LL think its doing in allowing this?

Alexa

Alexa,

You don't have to apologize, ever, for disagreeing, and I'm happy to talk to you still in the game and consider you a friend. It's all good. Just don't start in with all that crap with the ass pictures and stuff.

I think probably, these attitudes are shaped by political leanings in RL, whether one votes Social Democrats, Labour, Democratic Socialists, Conservatives, Nationalist Party or whatever the parties are named in this or that country.

Lordfly used to have a saying on his profile that he considers that all the women in SL are really men in drag until proven otherwise. He just assumes that. Well, I guess he's been shown a thing or two.

I just assume that all 30-day or younger av is an alt or a trial or an extra of an existing player.

And if I am willing to let that go after about 5 minutes I assume that anybody with a credit card and a DSL line can't be that stupid and clueless and vulnerable.

How would you be able to enforce something like not letting anybody "at" newbies for 30 days? Keep them sequestered in some kind of quarantine zone? Keep people who attempt to interact with 30 day or younger on some kind of system-wide mute? That's insane.

I've yet to see a single newbie come forward in this discussion who can actually talk knowledgeably about this issue of fraud. What I see instead are happy newbs with happy little trees out in Ansheland and Nexusland.

What I'm seeing -- and you'd forgive me for being this pointed but you know I'm rude -- is -- and I'll delete my post before people begin screaming -- is all about RL politics and RL national origins. That's really ALL it's about.

Honestly. The kids are alright.

P.S. If there are any non-Brits and/or Americans who are just as angry about this Island deeding thing, come forward.

Good grief. I can't believe I've been so blind. It seems we actually had a ruling on this from Robin Linden, in a reply to Blaze. I missed it.
/invalid_link.html


Could this be clearer? He is telling us this misleading practice will be prevented in the next patch, and forbidding Blaze from using it in the interim. "Until then, you'll need to list the parcel availability through the classified forums, the sponsored links, or other in-world or 3rd party website ad options."

I am about to IM Anshe with this unequivocal quote, and politely request that she withdraws these listings(hopefully pictured below) as soon as possible. If she doesn't, I shall draw my own conclusions. (I'm attempting my first attached picture here, by the way).

The Tiger Creek ones are Anshe too. They are ALL hers. First page the newbie sees.

*Prepares for the verbal assault on Robin and LL by our resident iconoclast.*

I have just IM'd this to Anshe.
I await a reply (or perhaps action ?)
If LL didn't pass this ruling through to her, they are at fault too.
She did tell us she was seeking clarification, but got none.

"Lindar Lehane: Anshe. It seems we have a ruling from Robin Linden on the allowability of posting private sim land to "Land Sales". He says it will be prevented in the next patch, and clearly forbids Blaze from doing it in the interim........
Lindar Lehane: ...I would be grateful if you would check the following url for yourself, and then immediately withdraw all such postings from the list, as a matter of honour and respect for our community. This will do much to reinstate .....
Lindar Lehane: ..the respect I lost for you in this matter. The url is /invalid_link.html. Also relevant is http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=482007#post482007."

Geez, Lindar, we all read that statement of Robin's ages ago.

And I figured YOU had read it ages ago, when it first came out, because blaze hammered on her. And I assumed you had hammered on her.

And that's why I wondered why you continued to come on here like a ton of bricks on this subject, when people already hammered on Robin, and she already spoke under this duress.

This is what she said:



OK, read that carefully. What it says is that they will ditch this ability to list land in deeded parcels from islands on the land-for-sale list. It doesn't really belong there. Everybody has said that, including Anshe. I've called it a workaround, and I've called it that, and not a fraud and an exploit, because I've known for 2 weeks, or since Robin came up with this, and figured YOU knew, that a) the Lindens were aware of it, b) they didn't view it as a fraud on the part of those using it currently but were concerned about its misuse in the future and c) they were fixing this "hole" in the next patch.

That's why I was for leaving it alone until they changed it and for not stopping the clock on it because the Lindens had already spoken on this. That's why I couldn't figure out WTF anybody more would want from this. So all these people accusing me of advocating fraud can get off their high horses now.

And that's exactly why I thought that people who continued to yammer about this and stir up such a fuss in the forums were being so assassine, becase the Lindens already knew, had already spoken, and already said they were on the case and working the problem.

What more would you have them do? Would you have them shut the game down until they can fix this? Would you have them drop everything they're doing and put out a new patch, yet another disruption? Of course not.

And there's no need to do something extra special now BEFORE the next patch. Because everyone's aware of the issue -- and were aware, long before you started screaming here. It's precisely why I've continued to come back against you very strongly, because I see that there was *already* awareness of this and *already no need* to be hammering on Lindens with it.

Now read the next bit, which you chose to read very selectively:



What this tells me is that Robin and her Lindens are not going to triumphantly and vindictively close this loophole that makes Cristiano feel like he has unfair business competition from other sectors, or makes blaze feel like he has unfair business competition in the same sector, or whatever. Instead, they are going to close off that bit, but open up another bit -- they are going to put in other features to make this stuff work better.

Listing the rental as a rental! What a joy! That will solve 90 percent of the problems I have and Nexus has and even Anshe. I don't know about the agreement they are suggesting, I'd have to see if it significantly hampers business, as other things they've cooked up have. I have a rentals agreement that comes in the scripted box that works pretty well. I have cards to explain how to deal with conflict areas, like people sucking prims off the whole groups. I think the Lindens need to work on a Better Business Bureau approach to having players, not Lindens, solve disputes.

I also read what Robin says here as saying, blaze, Nexus, Anshe, whoever, until we get better in-world listing capacity, use the inworld stuff we have.

Under stand it that way, Lindar, because that's what is the case now.



I understand that to mean -- use the in-world option of the existing Land for Sale list. It is an in-world option that is doable now because the Lindens didn't shut it off.

Why I"ve opposed you here so vigorously for here is because you've seemed for making the Lindens do something extra special, beyond their already-state purpose of eliminating this feature in the next patch and replacing it with other kinds of listings.

So I hope you can go back to your land sales now and get out of everybody's face with this.

Excuse me, but could you leave the LIndens to doing their own policing>



This is crap on at least 4 fronts.

1. blaze was being extra careful to get "permission" on this so as not to get screwed on his investments, but I think the attitude to take in this very volatile, risky, ever-changing and often fuck-you world, is to say: "Better to beg for forgiveness rather than ask for permission."

2. Robin is she and was moved from VP of marketing just now to something-something of community liaison -- dunno if that is a lateral move or what.

3. Robin did no such thing. She said use the ingame options, but the'll be gone in the next patch, where we hope to have rentals listings, etc.

4. Anshe and Nexus have absolutely no such reason to withdraw anything merely to suit your hysterical interpretation of this.

Indeed some miles ago, I said I'd be happy if the Lindens grandfathered those two since they were on the list already before this ruling by Robin, even at my own expense, let's say, were I to go into this area (which I do not want to do ). THen you might have heard some howling from others...but actually, you didn't!

So can you knock it off now Lindar? The Lindens let this one go, and will be working on it, like we all said. Go back to your lathe and turn it.

Good post, Lin. Don't let the town jester get you down.

Lindar cited this post:


Which explicitly contradicts your claim that she told you to continue using the in-game options. Was there another post in which she told us otherwise?

No, there wasn't, but that doesn't matter to those who make up the rules as they go.

Could you imagine if some supposed "FIC" folks were exploiting a loophole in the system to sell something? Fuck, we'd never hear the end of it.

Without reading this entire thread - skimming it, really - I just want to say that I don't think newbies really need all this protection you think they do.

I moved into Nexus' Meins community when I quite new - maybe a month old, I don't remember exactly), and that was after I had lived in a supposedly free apartment (which required a percentage of your game time be spent there regardless of whether you played 6 minutes or 6 hours a week), and having also rented from Ajuk in one of his places.

The new players who have come to Andromeda or Meins that have asked me questions have been able to grasp the concept and decide whether it is for them or not.

I have to say I have seen NO PLAYER get taken advantage of in any way in Nexus's properties. Moreover, he is extremely patient when dealing with people interested in living in these communities. Both him and Adam, that is. (His patience and calm is one MAJOR reason I moved in there.)

So, yes, I think you are a bit misguided in your attempts to prevent new players from being taken advantage of, although your intentions are admirable.

The idea of limiting it to players over 30 days - well, I hate that idea.

As an aside, I'm not sure there really ARE very many players quite so casual as you describe, who play only a few minutes per week. If so, they wouldn't be able to afford living in these communities anyway, lol, especially if they are basic members.

coco

Requiring you to be on that land for any length of time is taking advantage, period. Now we start to see just how different land leases and land sales are.

Um, no, it explicityly says "until the, you'll need to list the parcel....through....other in-world ad options".

Other in-world ad options is the Land Sales List.

She didn't explicitly ban the use of the Land Sales List, ask for voluntary compliance, or indicate punishment. I've already posted this in several other threads since Lindar likes to keep at least 3 other threads going to harass what he feels are ebil land barons for reasons we've ont yet established.

I've asked in the hotline for an official Linden stance on the issue of folks insisting that it's ok to mislead people about land leases prior to the next patch.

Beyond that, I think it shows a serious character flaw to be equating a post from Robin stating that this practice is MISLEADING as permission to sally forth with more misleading ads.

That's just my opinion of course, ymmv, and if it does, remember, karma's a real bitch. Some folks will pay the piper more than others when karma comes knockin', glad I don't have that weight on my shoulders.

I think we damn well know Robin wasn't referring to the land sales list when she said "other in-world...". Semantics is sure fun though, isn't it? Hopefully a Linden will respond this weekend to my query and we can say good night John-Boy.

Umm, no. It explicitly says that "Being able to list the land in the Land Sales directory is misleading" and then suggests that "you'll need to list the parcel....through....other in-world ad options." So let's think about this. Either Robin is a horrible author who can't convey her thoughts without someone going through and omitting a bunch of text, or what she is saying is that the use of the Land Sale list is verboten and that sellers need to use "other in-world ad options."