Lock this too, Cyna..... it informs residents, after all

*Elex Dusk sighs and rolls his eyes*

Comparing landbots to Bragg v. Linden Lab is dubious at best as it simply shows a person doesn't understand how a market works nor how actual fraud can happen within it. It's an apples versus oranges argument.

Allow me to repeat:

In the case of landbots the seller places the land on the market (and anyone can potentially buy the land).
OUTCOME: No fraud (Apples)

In the case of Bragg v. Linden Lab the buyer placed the land on the market (and also excluded all other potential buyers from bidding on the auction).
OUTCOME: Fraud (Oranges)

Marketplaces work by transmitting price information between buyer and seller. The seller sets his price. The buyer is under no obligation, when purchasing the goods, to point out to the seller that they've underpriced their goods.

It does not matter what an individual feels about landbots as they're not forbidden under the Terms of Service (excluding overuse of system resources). Also, according to the Terms of Service, the Lindens do not get involved in these types of disputes.

Note that the land is being priced at L$1 (or some other low price) and that is the price set by the seller. In monetary terms that is the VALUE of the land based on the PRICE set by the seller. To the seller, the parcel in question is worth X Linden dollars. After the deal goes awry they cannot now claim the parcel was worth a bazillion jillion dollars as: They set the price.

They can also not now claim they intended the land to be purchased by Resident Y as they set the parcel for sale to Anyone. The seller placed the parcel for sale within the marketplace. The buyer did not manipulate the seller to price it low and sell it to anyone. The seller did that.

Read the blog again, read the parts about bad feeling, read the parts about transparency, these are affected by land bots. That's the comparison. Then read the comments from those who feel Bragg took advantage of a mistake. He made an actual transaction, he was billed, he took advantage, that's what bots do. He shouldn't have been able to do what he did. You can't do what he did anymore, they've rectified the mistake and rightly so.

One more BIG difference. LL handled the Bragg situation appropriately, based on my limited knowledge of the case. They acted because THEY were the victims of Bragg's gaming of the system. With the land bots, LL's customers are the victims and LL stands idly by, holding theland bot's coat while he or she rapes LL's customers.

I will let you all draw your own conclusions from this.

My conclusion is no one understands that these situations are the seller's own damn fault.

Yes, it's obviously a rape. The parcel seller prices their land for L$1 (bends over) and then marks it for sale to anyone (greases up).

Is the key problem then that the buyer does not give the seller a "reacharound"?

Gina is a land trader? Well, that explains a lot. "They steal from me by buying faster than I can".

No, the key problem is that too many neophyte land sellers are unaware of the problem or having lapses of attention - or are running into the unwanted-sale-price-reset bug reported here and are unaware of that too. The key problem is that LL can and should take the several QUITE EASY steps necessary to warn people, including a final pop-up saying "This is what you have just done, are you sure you want to do this?" before executing the sale. World of Warcraft supplies such a pop-up on virtually every transaction in their game; why can't LL? Also, just maybe LL should take care of the unwanted-sale-price-reset bug too, hhmm?

If these outraged people who post here certainly had adequate warning of the hazards they ran into, first, they would almost universally not go ahead and let themselves get screwed; and second, if they did, would almost certainly not post here about their folly; and thirdly, if they did, then everybody including me would join in the chorus singing the RTFM song - Read The F***ing Manual! But see, THERE IS NO MANUAL.

So after you get through trashing people for not knowing what you know, maybe you might join in on the effort for getting people educated so this sort of thread wouldn't come up any more, hhmm? Or are you having too much fun feeling superior to actually do something that might be constructive?

i couldn't agree more, elex.



har, this IS what sl does. after you set your land for sale ... it lists your plot size, amount of sale and person to which this sale is intended .. and asks if this is okay.

Full disclosure: I have never sold land and don't expect to. So if that is true, Egon, I stand corrected on that point.

Nevertheless, it seems clear that a lot of people are getting screwed by the present set-up - as set up by LL - who plainly are not stupid or so genetically inferior they should be removed from the gene pool, but are merely - human.

I am not one of those who curse the landbot exploiters; they are vultures, that is their nature, they didn't create or provoke or create the error, so what is the point?

Nor am I one who wants everyone to be cosseted from and relieved of responsibility for their own actions. Individual responsibility, IMO, is the foundation of human existence, if human existence is going to continue.

I think these two duelling positions are missing the real point.

The real point, IMO, is that LL is a customer-oriented service business that has a deep interest in keeping people in SL and putting actual cash money into it, and they are failing to serve their own interests in this particular matter. They need to operate as if they were such a business - because they are. IT WOULD BE CHEAP AND EASY FOR THEM TO PUT EDUCATIONAL DATA, WARNINGS, AND SIMPLE FAIL-SAFE MECHANISMS IN PLACE THAT WOULD CORRECT THE LAND-SWOOP PROBLEM. Leaving only the handful of incorrigibles no-one could help. So why don't they do that?

I don't want to score high in this forum free-for-all, I just want to fix the problem. Let's do that, ok?

Too facile by half.

We're not talking about "two persons." We are talking about one person and an automated robot that can buy land before the human even has the chance to re-check his numbers.

coco

Where does that money from the robot go?

To a safety deposit bot.

hehe

So do landbot users get together and hang out? If so do they talk about their spoils for the day and say "so tell me what you bot!"

Is one who studies the habits of landbots called a "Bot-anist?"

I could go on for days thinking of bot puns, but I have other things to do. Maybe if I made a Pun-bot...

Don't boter me, I'm eating.

Land bot users get together each night, count up their thousands in profit and give Elex his 10% cut for being their public spokesperson.

It goes toward alienating people from SL because they got screwed for a small accident or for not knowing about a hazard they had no reason to imagine existed and subsequently got treated with contempt, and therefore the money goes toward damaging SL, which is what all of us depend on to continue this virtual existence LL has made possible. I mean, how much is it worth to people to be able to diss others for making all-too-human mistakes?

Yes it boggles my mind too that anyone takes the bot runner's side just because he is hiding under the terms of a flawed TOS while he exploits a flawed system. Perhaps it's because we sympathize with the people who made the mistakes and some people feel we are coddling them.

When I was new, I was editing land and lost a ton of it to a land swooper. This exploit was fixed by LL. Now when you join parcels, the land you had for sale defaults to not for sale. All I am looking for is a similar fix here. While I am waiting for that fix, I choose not to kick the folks who lost land to a remorseless bot runner while they are down. But that's just me.

I thought you already were one..........

hehe that was a good one.

You win this battle, Brenda, but not the war!!

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Honestly, if the makers of these landbots made them transform into rocks or trees or patches of grass then people wouldn't hate them so much.

I'm just stoked I'm seeing Transformers tonight!

Anyway...pointlessly fight on, people!

The new Die Hard was surprisingly good too.

So this genii pops out of a jar and tells me I have three wishes.

Me: 1. World Peace
Genii - OK!
Me: 2. A cuddly white kitten
Genii - OK!
Me: 3. A Linden to terminate Elex's account
Genii - OK!
Me: 4. To be a fly on the wall when Elex queries his termination and just gets section 2.6 of the TOS thrown back at him. He's so keen on the letter of the wording of the TOS. The spirit of anything doesn't enter into it.
Genii - Sorry! You only had three! But I'll give you a chance. You can swap your (4) for your (1)
Me: OK!




Hey! What's the term for a gathering of bot runners?
Answer - A botulism

You have reached the bot-tom.

when landbots start looking old or otherwise a little worse for wear they get bot-ox injections.

I have taken measures and saved all the pages/posts, in case they get deleted.
God knows, if threads get locked, they may as well be deleted, why not. I see this very situation, a bit like in a movie, you know, when people try to destroy evidence. Apparently my poll was locked because of an other poll disapproving it, and apparently duplicated?
Never mind, you know there is an expression, it always come back to you...

I wonder what the karmic payback is for being indirectly responsible for having a redundant thread closed? *trembles and waits*