Ad Farms + Beacons way up in air! Yikes!

0 + 0 = 0.

In other words it won't. As neither of the other bans have destroyed SL.

Visually muting ad farms will solve the visual pollution problem but not the lag caused by laggy ad farms. As a matter of fact if LL implemented visual muting I would expect today's ad-farm land extortionists to carry on business as usual knowing full well that their 16m lagpits will still have to be bought out in order for the residents to enjoy proper use of their sim. Ergo, no change and 'business-as-usual' for the ad farmers as well as alot of running behind the scenes by LL code monkeys to implement 'features' that will be circumvented the moment they're implemented.

Ad farms and the problems they cause for residents cannot be solved by a technological fix.

Why not just halt the ability to divide land smaller than 512M

Whatever smaller plots currently exist still can - but ad farmers would be hampered in any new sims and any portions old sims that were not already hacked up.

Since 512 is the smallest tier size, there is no real reason to allow for 16 meter plots anyway.

Telling people what they cant build on their own land is the ultimate in slippery slopes.

Well at least he is willing to stand up for something - even though he becomes a lobbyist for adfarmers.


Adfarms started out as quick and easy ways for as many people as possible to see your ad. They became land exploits when the anti-adfarm groups started to contact all of their legitimate advertisers. They will go back to being advertising plots once we all stop complaining about them. And they will be profitable and they will expand their business.


Maybe Blockbuster is not aware of what coca-Cola is aware of.

Hmm - maybe Anshe's hundreds of resident's are too repressed to realize this.

Points in reverse order: companies that pay for this "ad exposure" don't really have any real exposure anyway. I am not sure quite how they are conned into paying money for the space, but it won't be because of their in-depth knowledge of SL, that's for sure. The major business of ad farmers is harassment.

And a simple technical fix like that won't make them go away. They will be just be built with bots, or functions will be used which don't fall under muting, or nothing will change and they will just rely on the fact that, even if there's a parcel-based ban, people flying about will still see them when they are not over parcels where the content is blocked.

That's of course assuming that it is at all technically practical to have this sort of block in any case, which I am not convinced is the case.

Giving people the option to stop push didn't stop griefing and orbiting; far from it. This is a social problem, it is to do with people deliberately going out to make other people miserable until they give them money. I suppose there might be some sort of cunning technical solution but even if there is, there will be actual regulation by humans required as well.

Thats Anshe's land Isn't it?

None of her residents actually "OWN" the land.

It's not listed above.

The zoning idea sounds too much like a home owners association. Not real fond of that. Plus, I'm not sure that it's feasible to zone the already non-zoned land.

I don't see not allowing 16m plots to be created being useful. What about the already existing 16m plots? For as much as I don't like the ads, I don't support taking land off the ad farmers. Also, what about 32m, 48m, 64m, etc. plots? Maybe you need to change that to not allowing 16m plots to be sold because being able to subdivide a plot into 16m plots may be useful (i.e., as classroom where each desk is on a 16m that can have independent audio/video URLs). This idea opens a can of worms.

Making them illegal just gives someone at LL more work to do. Besides, what if it’s not floating? What if it’s not a cube? What if someone made a really nice looking roadside billboard? How exactly do you define something to be too ugly to be good enough to have? Eliminate bright yellow as color that the viewer will display? I don’t see this being feasible.

Everything suggested above is centered on restricting what people can do. Instead, I suggest we DO SOMETHING else. For instance, lobby LL to give us the ability to turn off ad plots (or any other plot for that matter) and then educate people that this option exists. This doesn’t restrict anyone’s actions, but instead, empowers the population.

--Hugsy

Simple fix: Have a max price per square meter that can be charged for land.
Make it high enough that people can turn a tidy profit for "developed" land but no so high that extortionists feel it's worth it. Say, set the max land price at 5x average going rate.

This will pull the adfarmers out, and limit the number of times parcels get chopped and resold before selling to an end user.

If land prices are averaging $10L/m, $50L/m seems like a fair cap.

I doubt many ad farmers would stay in the game if the max they could get for their 4x4 is $800L

Fine... but that doesn't stop and ad farmer buying up 32 (minimum) 16m plots in a sim. Nor does it stop and ad farmer buying a 512 parcel and sub-letting out 16m parcels to advertisers.


Hmmm.... let's leave the cancer in the patient and hope it doesn't spread?


Yes and no.... ad farmers own a bazillion 16m plots all over the grid so their tier level is prolly fairly substantial.


Burying your head in the sand and saying 'We can't do anything because it might violate some abstract principle' is the ultimate cop-out.

Suuuure, they will. And YOU are the one saying that we shouldn't ignore the problem and hope that it will go away?

As for your Blockbuster comment, I've no idea what you're talking about.

And as for Anshe...aside from the fact that I think she engages in despicable business practices, I'd point out that her empire is built on private estates, where zoning is allowed. Different situation entirely...the people renting from her know (or should) that there are building restrictions enforced there.

I give up, Lias. I've stated my case, and it's clear that I'm not going to convince you. I'll exit the debate here, rather than help the thread descend any further into silliness.

They would because they'd still be making a substantial profit on their empires of 16m plots all over the grid :\

Are you claiming that Residents desire to not have to see an eye-sore somehow trumps freedom of expression?

I was waiting for that one XD

Seriously Colette, do you really see ad farms as freedom of expression? I hope you don't complain when n00bs stick their prim penises in your face.... after all, that's freedom of expression too.

I love when they express that. Then I'm free to express my "violent dragon" side.

Similarly I could turn your 'freedom of expression' argument around to defend the person exposed for ripping off skins in a nother thread. He's excercising his 'freedom of expression' too.

No I dont see Ad Farms as freedom expression at all.

But I do see most of the proposals to limit them as limiting people who aren't ad farmers.

Any proposal to limit ad farmers HAS to only impact ad farmers.

Stealing IP isn't freedom of expression.

Fine... then why do ad farmers get so darn pissy when residents put up walls to hide their fugly adverts? they make no bones about being at war against regular residents yet are quick to play the victim card whenever a resident takes measures to reduce the visual damage caused by ad farms.

Yep.... I'm with you 100% on that one.

One thing that you can guarantee is that it won't only impact ad farmers. None of the regulations do that. Ban lines don't just stop unwelcome intruders. Banning all businesses that offer interest on investments doesn't just stop fraud. Banning ageplay doesn't just stop paedophiles (if it does that at all). Clearly we need the best solution we can have, but at the solutions are (a) buy them out (b) suffer (c) move or (d) live on an estate which has an _entirely_ autocratic and prohibitive system.

Sim lag is an ARable offense. So is abusively using up sim resources.

I don't think they will ban ad-farms for the same reason they wouldn't do anything about the Impeach Bush guy: Because someday a real-world company might want to come along and put up billboards everywhere.

coco

I never saw that stop Ms Spinach Games from sucking up all the resources her tumour of a camping club infested. And realistically, what is the likelihood of a Linden responding to such an AR? something close to nil.