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

That warning warns them of every kind of potentiality which would cause the problem all these damned stupid landbot threads are about -- namely, the supposed "stealing" of land from ignorant and careless people, REGARDLESS of whether it is by bot, or by swoop, or by any other kind of "quick snatch" technology or practice that comes along. It is stupid and pointless to specify every possible kind of method by which they might lose their land by being ignorant of the "very real danger" you refer to.

It doesn't take a whole lot of effort or research to learn how not to get screwed by misusing the land sales system. Anyone getting burned nowadays pretty much deserves what they get. The fact that landbots or landswoopers exist is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the problem. The problem is lack of user education, and when it comes right down to it, is nothing more than a bad way to learn a valuable lesson: look before you leap.



Selling and buying land in SL bears ABSOLUTELY NO RELATION to how it works in real life. It DOES work ASTOUNDINGLY similar to the way it works on websites (*shock* *horror*). As such, people should expect it to have instantaneous results (especially when a warning TELLS them so), and that the system is MASSIVELY public. IE, it works a LOT like eBay-type websites. You post your items up on them, and people can immediately see them and starting bidding on / buying them. Instant-freaking-gratification 4tw!

Even moreso now than in the past, too. There's a "Sell to this avatar only" field in the dialog. WHY would anyone NOT ponder the reason for its existence? "Gee, I could sell it by specifying Joe Buyer in there, but Nooooooo, I will just set it for sale to Anyone for L$1 and Joe Buyer standing right next to me can just buy it! How redundant!" *swoop* "Ohhhhh... THAT is why it is there.. stupid me..". Yep.



Well, the power could go out at their home, too. That's not their fault, either. Point is that THEY are ultimately responsible for the outcome of the transaction. As long as no exploit is involved (no, landbots are not exploits), LL bears no responsibility for the outcome whatsoever. A landowner puts his property up for sale to anyone for a stupidly low price and someone came along to buy it, just as the system is designed to work. If the buyer isn't the one whom he intended, then he should have done the tiny amount of due diligence required to use the sales tool right. No sympathy from me whatsoever. I learned how to use it properly; why should I kowtow to someone who is too lazy to bother to learn themselves?



I maintain it is the responsibility of the seller to educate himself and use the tool properly. There is no one more responsible than him for the eventual outcome of his actions. Not the buyer, not LL, not you, not me, not anyone else on the planet.



There's a history of people being killed from skydiving accidents, too. One would say that parachutes are not fit for purpose based on analogous evidence and occurrence metrics. It doesn't stop thousands of people a year from jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, though, and there are LOTS of warnings given for it, too.

I'm not against giving warnings until it becomes burdensome to the rest of society to do so. This "warn everybody from hurting themselves" crap is the main reason we have tons of stupid disclaimers and warnings on every finished good and its packaging material all over the place, and still we have people suffocating their kids with plastic grocery sacks.

At some point, I am for letting Darwin take over and either let the Universe itself educate the ignorant, or allow them to remove themselves from the gene pool, hopefully before they breed.

The whole sale mechanism needs to be changed, not just more popups.

How about this: Set your land for sale for a particular price and you as seller get a list of all residents willing to meet your price. You then select the name of the resident to whom you wish to sell.

There, is that so difficult? Systemic problems require systemic solutions.

..and how long do you wait for that list of residents? 5 minutes? 5 hours? 5 days? Until the seller you want to sell to makes a buy offer?

Why not just make it easier and set the land to sell for $X to Avatar Y in the sale dialog?

Seems like what we have now is VERY simple and VERY painless, as compared to the system you describe.

I believe others would find my proposal much simpler than the current system, and not prone to exploitation by greedy pricks.

So even one of the better known cases of people who value bots over people agrees in that long screed that user education is the problem. What it boils down to, is he doesn't want the sacred name of bots mentioned. Tough, their capabilities are the main reason we have this problem, and persons who want to obfuscate and cfreate diverting noise are the main reason there is still an argument. That, and perhaps being a petty sadist in the name of "education."

A warning AT THE TIME OF SALE that setting a sale to anyone can mean instantaneoous purchase by someone using an automated program is, in these circumstances, fair, right, appropriate, and in the interests of LL and all residents except exploiters of bots and those that evidently worship them; and it is stupefyingly easy and simple to do.

Making sale-to-a-person the default mode instead of sale-to-anyone is just as simple, easy, and helpful to all except those using bots exploitively to take advantage of the careless or unwary.

Explanations of how this can happen in all other informational materials aimed at preparing people to make their first sales of land is obviously appropriate - obvious to everyone except people with agendas that require keeping people as ignorant as possible of bots and their capabilities.

A short delay in execution on the order of a few minutes would be useful for catching typos and other errors, at least some problems caused by lag, and catching the unwanted-price-reset bug before it spoils a sale, and it could be a seller's option to toggle it off is so desired. This too is simple and easy to do.

So let's do it.

Those who want to see people suffer can go frequent the BDSM parlors.

Simpler,maybe. Exploitable, maybe not. But definitely cumbersome.

How about a system for land sales where you set All sales parameters, but nothing actually goes on sale until you hit the "Submit" button at the end of the land sales Page? How hard would it be for LL to set that up?
The problem is, the second you decide to sell land it's automaticly posted for sale at a default price of $1 and you have to Change it.

Another thing LL could do is simply alter the default sales price to $L999999999 and the seller has to LOWER it to the correct price instead of raise it, Now i'm sure THAT could be accomplished in about thirty seconds of Programming.

Angel.

/wave

well noone is able to screw me becuase (again) i bothered to learn everything i could before i clicked that button that could affect my bank account

go ahead get LL to put a warning in there, i bet that very same day there will be another "but a bot screwed me over" thread

if they cant be bothered to educate themselves, and obviously buzzing tru the process to not notice the options available to protect their trade, another blue box isnt going to change anything

I've done a number of land trades with others, and have always done it on the basis of setting the sale to a named person. That's because I'm incredibly clever as well as being attractive, loving, generous, etc - Anyone wants to take issue with that, they can put in their Jira and vote on it

Nevertheless, I understand how people are caught unawares. The interface makes it easier to sell to Anybody, but does not warn about the a downside that is not apparent to the user.

SO if the user selects 'Anybody' then they should get a warning along the lines of:
"If you set Anybody, be aware that the land might be purchased instantly by an unseen person or by an automated system. If you intend to sell to a specific person , you SHOULD set for sale to that person. Please confirm that you actually wish to sell to Anybody - Y/N."

The price v the market price becomes irrelevant, but a "You have set x sq.m. for sale at L$y per sq.m. for a total price of l$z might be a useful check.

Some short delay between the setting the sale and it becoming available to a buyer dialog could be useful in case of typos or system issues.

The type of warning suggested above is aimed solely at warning the unwary. It's education delivered at the point of need. It is not aimed at landbots in particular.



As for bots of whatever kind, I have nothing against them in general. I've started to look at the client source code. I can see bots having a useful purpose in AI studies, in performing arts, in product demos, in education, in games, in whatever.
If a particular application of a bot causes drain on grid resources, then it should be up to LL to restrict its activities for that reason. If a bot's activity is abusive, ditto. A bot avatar should be subject to the same rules as a 'live' avatar - and v.v.

I think there needs to be a better dialogue between LL and the residents aobut fraud in SL. It seems to be becoming rampant. SL will ultimately fail if people begin to feel unsafe here. I, myself have been avictim and found that there is little recourse. Most commercial websites that are reputable have some sort of customer protection, why not here?

you agreed to the deal you setup in the computer, its not linden labs problem that you didnt know what you were doing before you agreed

heres an idea, take you car and park it in east LA, put a large sign on it that says FREE CAR, KEYS INSIDE, make shure everyone can see it ... then call up a buddy and tell him to go get his free car, its only for him, and see if its infact still there when they arrive

There is an element here I think of as the "Gotcha!" crowd, who either seek to exploit the innocent and unwary themselves or who admire those who do out of (possibly) personal sadistic impulses.

Tolerating this sort of theing is bad for Sl and therefore LL because it alienates new Residents who get screwed and drives them out of SL and they tell their friends and whoever reads what they post online about their experience here that SL is a den of thieves protected by LL.

Leaving aside such old-fashioned, silly, we-are-all-superior-to-that concepts as common morality, THIS IS A STUPID THING TO DO AND IT IS A STUPID THING FOR LL TO TOLERATE.

Basic business practice: For God's sake, don't piss in the soup!

Not that anyone will listen, of course. Back to our regularly scheduled SL suicide program.