Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

It isn't me who is arguing back and forth

SL was never a game, and will never be one.

Dude, that's the FIRST effing definition in the dictionary! Do you know how dictionaries work? They put definitions for the MOST COMMON usages first. You THINK you know what is meant by "game", and claim that (to you) SL isn't one. WE know what is meant by "game", and SL fits the definition just fine.

Then why are you still arguing?

Because I'm right Why are you arguing?

Alright. I've checked the dictionary, and I concede. SL is a game, even though it's not a game in what I believe is most commonly meant by the word. E.g. if someone is looking for an online game, they are looking to compete at something, and not just an environment in which they can do what they want.

Now that we have gone *WAY* off the original point of this thread (ad farms, in case anyone forgot) and have sorta defined 'spam' and 'game' can we talk about something a little less contentious here? More relevant to the topic would be good too.

Im all for staying on topic but I feel that all points have been made and LL simply will do as they wish. Guess its a wait and see till 10/01/08. Many questions have been put forth, also ideas and no feedback. Hence this feeling of futility or wait and see remains.

It has been hashed to death at this point. All sides have weighed in on the subject, except for the most important side, LL.

Given that Jack dodged last week's meeting, and will probably dodge this week's as well, and the fact that he is unlikely to follow through in here and respond to the questions/concerns voiced until it has long become a moot point, there really isn't anything left to talk about on the subject itself.

So, yeah, Oct 1 it will have to be.

You may be right, but I'm inclined to disagree at the moment. The thread was created for us to give feedback, and not for LL to respond, so Jack's dearth of posts here isn't an indication of anything to me.

I would be inclined to agree that LL will do what they were going to do anyway, but my gut feeling is that this feedback will be taken account of in the final rules - assuming that there will be a final set of rules, that is. My own measure will be concerning land sale signs. There is no justification for including them in the 'one ad per person per sim' rule. Some people think they aren't necessary at all, but that's different. They will be allowed, and each parcel must be allowed a sign, even if it is horizontal on the ground.

Another suggestion, why not create a voluntary relocation program:

Since it will be difficult to reclain land, small parcels specially or to make a compromisse between the parts, why not starting moving who acept to be moved first.

Step 1: Registering
The people who wants to participate in the reolcation program will fill a form. this form will have information on the actual land it owns. Ex.:

Name : Joe Doe

List of Parcels
Parcel1 location : Mary Jane xxxx,yyyy
Parcel Size : XXXX sqm
Parcel2 Location : Mary Jane xxxx,yyyy
Parcel size : xxxx sqm
Parcel3 Location : Ann Mary xxxx,yyyy
Parcel size : xxxx sqm
etc, etc
Acept Join land : Y/N
Mature or PG : Mature
Land Type : Residence or comerce or ADV or club or Mall or ETC
Accept to increase land : Y / N
Have friends to fill a SIM : Y or N

The accept increase is that so the user has a land that do not fill the Tier Ex.; 732 SQM and tier is 1024, then the user can opt to increase the land so to the max the actual tier enable, paying the market real price. This will help to make the areas easier to distribute, the residents to maximize their actuall tier and LL to sell some land.

The last one is important, if you have already some friends and togheter you can fill up a SIM, than you all can relocate at the same time without much negotiation. this will maximize the SIM reolcation, because your sim will be full and you have not to be worried with the neighborhood. But remember decisions are final the relocation will be a one time chance. So think well.

Step 2: Selecting
Based on the return of the form the LL can seletct first the people that agree to fill up a SIM, then the big land ownners so to clean big patches. Then the ones that accept to round their lands of the same type that will be easy to relocate.

Step 3: Relocation
The people that joined to get a hole sim will can opt to use or not the mole group help. If not LL just devide the plots and let then do as they wish. If yes, then the moles talk to the group to see what they want and do a quick work.

To all other LL create the plots place the roads and offer to people if they accept or not, to big land owners (ex 2 or 4 owners for a SIM) LL can call a meeting with the interested people and see if can have groups that acept to relocate togheter, again decisions are final.

To the rest of the small land owner the LL only will guarantee that the sim will be resindencial or commercial, and show the SIM, you will not have control over your neighbors but will be free of adv and porno. Who wants to change will do who not go back to the end of the list and wait for the next SIM.

This idea can grow but this is the basic plan

Actually, it was created as a discussion thread (per the blog), one of the functions of which was to give feedback. Another one of the functions was to ask questions for clarifications.

The only indication the absence of communication from LL is to me is that they intend to do whatever they want, damn the feedback. You have questions? Find out the answers after we warn/suspend you! Assuming they tell you anything at all. Generally, you get some rule quoted to you, and no context or specific application of it. It's kinda hard to know what you did wrong so you can correct it when all they are telling you is "you did wrong, you broke rule X".

As with LL's communications policies in the past, it is likely going to amount to more EPIC FAIL. I hope to be proven wrong, but I'm not raising my expectations with the way things are going at this point.

Well, the largest distribution I personally know of that I would not classify as spam, and that only because it was a one-off message to a group of people who were already involved in a discussion on the subject and was not repeated, was a single message from Microsoft to 35 members of the group comp.sys.palm in 2000, inviting them to a conference announcing Pocket PC 2000. And even then there was some criticism, since they were contacting a competitor's customers.

100 unsolicited "cold" messages over a month would definitely be too high. 50 would be marginal. 10 would be closer to what I'd consider normal business. That's total unsolicited messages from the company, not just one mailing. If you think that's a small number for a big company, consider that Microsoft is a pretty big company and they got criticism for a one time mailing (and, yes, this was pretty heavily scrutinized, it was a one-time mailing) to 35 individuals.

This kind of thing is and has to remain a rare exception. It doesn't scale.

I live in Houston. I'd be willing to bet that there's a couple of thousand companies in Houston that could credibly argue that they had a "reason" to target me once a month. And given how much is done online these days, there's probably another 200 in every city in the US the size of Houston or larger, and maybe another 100 in every similar sized city in the world.

And I'm just a sole contractor!

Most every business out there has a higher "spam network" exposure than me.

If this kind of "targeted spam" was accepted, the volume from "once only" messages would be so high that it would all be ignored. It doesn't scale, it can't scale.

I'm just tired of the spam from Phil and Talarus, each trying to sell their position to the rest of us who don't give a ...er,...don't really care, about whether or not this gaming platform is an environment or whatever. Obviously they are just trying to kill whatever remains of this forum.

/me sits eating popcorn and watching the ping pong match of definitions.

Ahhh ... No .. just some definition match about if SL is a game or not and something about spam

/me gets up to get a drink

I wish everyone would stay on topic. This is a thread about AD FARMS! Not SPAM! I know Agnetha insists on beating this topic to death here, and I really don't give a crap that she thinks unsolicited advertising for a mall is not spam. It doesn't matter! What matters is that LL said the incident in question was and that an abuse report was transacted for it. Appeal it to them if you don't like the outcome, and PLEASE stop hijacking this thread!

Please note this statement from the Terms of Service (edited for space):

I found it quite fun, what a game! )

For me ADFARMING is parcel cutting and using the parcel to exploit neighbors it is the bain of SL, and is completely seperate from advertising an advertiser doesn't set out with the intention of being a prick.



No one wants to pay high prices, it isnt a choice people make, They are forced to buy them by a few as**oles or look at a pile of crap.



Premium exposure parcels should have a high value as they do have a legitimate purpose, parcels cut anywhere else are only of value to their neighbours and the intention of those holding them was in most cases to be objectionable pr*cks, these parcels need to be swallowed up for the spirit of jacks proposal to be met.

Improvements on size and design of adverts will help to repair the mainland but, the number of fragmented small parcels are the main cause of problems and will continue to be so until they are limited in numbers.

The people who have invested in these parcels have bled the regular users dry, for long enough its time for LL to step in.

What he said. This is what I was trying to say before. Much better stated and to the point. Thanks. Yeso

Dear Mr. Linden,
in June the "Avg L$ Paid Per Square Meter" was ~ 2,3 L$/mq, actually it is 1,8 L$/mq.
Otherwise the island today are 5000 more than in June.
On Mainland, the roads are creating marketing chaos, overpricing the "pavements /ads places" underpricing the other land.
There is some problem in Linden Land Policy, maybe?
Of course there are not only financial goals.

The evidence says that in SL there are 2 kinds of investors & 2 other kinds of consumer.
The investor are "owner", as people that give servers or buy a lot of islands, "logist", with little businesses of lands sales and design/script developing.
The consumer are "tamagouchist", as people that need to have a virtual satisfaction, "chatter", that "use" SL as a 3D chat.
Linden Labs earns by all, but SL needs all 4 kinds of citizens.

Actually, on US-UE side of SL, the logist are not more than 3-400 citizens.

We are in SL because we like earn and we like realize stuff, connections, distribution,
We are the "ants" that everyday collect freebies, redistribute stuff, resell land, pay tiers to sustain our investiments.
We make SL creative, with new stuff, designs, ideas.

Without the "land cutters" who 'll re-distribute the large lots of land ?
With this high level of tiers who 'll get large lands for a long time?
Without a serious opportunity of advertising who 'll be interested to design the stuff that makes SL?

I dont criticize, I dont have solutions in my bag, but land values are 20% minus than 3 mounthes ago, tiers are always the same.
Members are locked on 3-400.000 and anonymous cannot move sufficient money to pay the cost of "SL system"; the end of campchairs, moneytrees and similars is a clear sign.

Is SL a chance of business/work or is just a relational videogame?
If the second answer is OK, please, be clear.

Friendly Yrs,
Marcantonio Vella

P.S.
A fool contribution.
If every Premium Member will have 768 mq free, everybody will expand his properties.
At the same time Linden will lose no earning, for exception of basic costs of servering.
On this way the business could restart and SL will be more stable for investors.

Another important aspect for developing is that citizens 'll really use the roads.
Bye.

Thats all well and good, the problem and fault in your logic is that parcel cutting IS NOT ad farming in the eyes of Linden Labs and will be dealt with at a later time and not with this current PROPOSED ruling. Just READ what Jack has proposed. The argument is not about what you or I feel about what is and what is not.... bla bla bla... its a simple request by Jack Linden to ask for feedback about his current Proposed Rules! Why don't you give him some?

I have mentioned in previous posts that new server upgrades could have built in throttles to avoid reselling a quantity of small parcels but that with the current existing mainland regions it will be impossible to repair since under the current TOS revamp, Linden Labs has not been able to act upon 90 percent of the AR's about multiple spam parcels in the same region selling small micro parcels. I AR them all the time, and they are still up. So I'm left to feel that as what everything else they have done, its not really enforced that well.

In closing, already some adverts have been taken down and parcels put up for sale because as I mentioned you are not going to waste your allotment on something in the middle of nowhere. Some have been abandoned and some set for sale at decent prices.

Parcel cutting in Linden Labs eyes is different then ad farming. Until they state anything different and make a ruling about Parcel Extortion, I don't see your dreams being answered.

Right. But just maybe this is all the warning they're gonna get.

There are just a handful of extortionists who account for 90% of the grief. And dealing with it in policy is just inviting them to sleaze their way into another scam. So, a very smart thing for LL to do would be to act decisively and simply close the accounts Oct 1 and be done with it. Some might threaten to sue (hey, lawyers gotta eat, too), but there is still an "any or no reason" clause in the ToS (Bragg notwithstanding); a win is by no means certain. Granted, LL has better things to do with its time than futz around in court, but the value of each of the landscammers' accounts is (generously) only a few thousand US$s. Not enough to pay Jack's salary while he ponders a perfectly worded policy.

I'm by no means sure that this is what's coming, but it would solve a lot of problems quickly. And it's what any Estate manager would do if they somehow got themselves into the dreadful state that LL finds itself on the Mainland.

Of course, if they just do nothing, or fritter away yet more time watching rose-tinted statistics, then we can conclude that crypto-Objectivists have free reign on Battery Street.

No, parcel cutting may be viewed, by LL, as something different but, Jack did mention it in his blog post...



So, we will just have to wait and see what happens in this area come 1st October.

I've been on SL over 15 months....and I don't think I have ever seen an ad farm. At least, not one that I've ever noticed.

Some people don't get out much.

That's not meant as a slight, either, just a fact. For many months, I lived on a private estate and rarely ventured anywhere. I never noticed adfarms until I bought mainland, and they sprung up all around me like untended weeds.

However, just because you or anyone else doesn't see them doesn't mean that they don't exist or aren't a blight upon the mainland. If you want, I can give you folders full of snapshots of adfarming all over the grid. Literally hundreds of sims.