Wholesale Land Sales Test

Starting next week, January 9, we are planning to test the potential for selling large blocks of mainland sims at auction. This test will explore the feasibility and process of taking the next step toward a wholesale land sales model. This process, which began with a move to demand driven auctions, is in line with our core philosophy that Second Life is a resident created world, and that resident land owners are in a better position to know what other residents want than is Linden Lab. Selling land in large blocks also allows for the creation of large regions with more interesting and uniform terrain design than would be possible if land owners were to terraform sims one at a time.

Single sims will continue to be auctioned during this experiment.

Details:
* 3 blocks of mainland sims will be offered at auction, made up of 10, 20 and 40 sim regions, respectively.
* Bidding will begin at US$1,000 per sim.
* The sims will be added to the eastern-most border of the mainland via a land bridge, expanding eastward, and will be part of the mainland.
* Initial payment for the winning bid should be made via wire transfer.
* The highest bidder for each auction will have flat land, without water, delivered when we receive the wire transfer. The owner will then have one week to terraform the land with +/- 100m levels. Those who wish to terraform in bulk can deliver a .RAW file to us. (Directions to create a RAW file are here: https://secondlife.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=RawTerrainFile#comments.) We will be happy to work with an owner to set terrain textures other than the default, if desired.
*At the end of the week Linden will lock down the limits so they are the same as the rest of the mainland -- +/-4m. At this point the winning bidder will take ownership and be responsible for tier payments.
* These sims will not be considered estates, or have estate management features. They are part of the mainland, and the advantage to the high bidder is the right to create the land and then sell it first.
* The owner can provision infrastructure land to be claimed by Linden, up to 20% of the available land in the region. This land will remain protected, and won't count toward tier payments. It will most likely remain undeveloped unless infrastructure created by the owner, such as roads, is part of the original design.
*Owners can name the sims (with Linden approval).
*Owners can rate the sims M or PG singly or in groups.