Some People Get Their Way

Prokofy Neva · 2022-09-02T03:18:15Z

I noticed that a parcel of 4,302 in Tenera that has been Linden protected land since 2005, by next to a Roman-style aqueduct road, had turned purple and was put on the auction.

I then saw the once-glorious Greco-Roman style ampitheater in Tenera, the previous Volunteers HQ of the Lindens' now-defunct Volunteers group (population 8,000) has nearly all been torn down.

Some of you will remember people calling for this area to be removed; doubling back and duplicitously claiming they only meant for it to be "updated". That call remained; the strenuous objections to such changes were removed.

Of course, the Lindens can do what they want with their land, with the whole world. They can -- and do -- pick their friends and partners for "business reasons". I've just never seen them do *this*. And they did it because their attention was drawn to it. They might have left it for another 10 years, since it had been left fallow for the previous 15.

A rump of it remains, so visit it. It's unlikely to remain.

I wonder if they will send back this epic robot sculpture as well, made by a non-Linden.

For now, you can still see it.

I suppose the entire site will be auctioned off, and I expect we will see certain transportation RP outfits spring up here or some other acronym arrive here, along with glowing obelisks.

It's unlikely that this area could be returned to a Mainland sandbox, as it once was, or to some other Linden-owned build with a nice park, hangouts, etc. -- the Moles build such nice things in Bellisseria, but not on the old Mainland.

When I came here last November, I and my tenants had been chased out of a sim where a sudden, awkward auction boxed our land in from all sides when the diva who won the big put no-access on her land. The land then changed many times, being chopped by land barons -- a friend tried to make it work there as it is nice Heterocera coast, such as it is, then he was gone, and I never looked back.

The person who won the sim across from Tenera on the auction, from whom I purchased land, thought she was purchasing land to "protected Linden land" that does not change. Now that concept is eroded. I've seen the Lindens sell off some of their parkland; as we know, all the old Linden Home areas are going to be knocked down and it's not clear what will survive.

Still, she sold it for a good price which is why I got it, and the roadside even cheaper, as roadside next to a looming aqueduct isn't so practical. Perhaps that road -- if that, too, won't be removed -- will now provide some "protection" from whatever emerges in the place of a once amazing build. Lots of Linden builds that once had purposes for them (not us), like their Waterhead office -- still stand. This doesn't.

It's sad.

Sylvia Tamalyn · 2022-09-02T04:05:36Z

That *is* sad. When this area was a topic of conversation before, I paid another visit to the region, and I'm glad I did. I expect the robot will go before too long, too.

People wonder why some of us push back against the "let's update all the Mainland and make it new and shiny" bunch. This destruction of SL history is an example of why I do it.

animats · 2022-09-02T05:18:45Z

Oh, I liked that place. Even though it was totally useless.

However, there are maybe fifty Linden amphitheaters in world that are never used.

Prokofy Neva · 2022-09-02T07:42:18Z

So, the community center in Newbank, traffic 25, is useful, would you say? I have visited maybe 10 times and never saw a soul there.

I recently visited it because I was literally dragged there from the whirlpool in the lake where the sims meet in the lake at Porridge Pot. That's how Moles get people there.

Sure, it's a much better build -- it was just made (the land claim date says oddly June 30, 2004, but it was just made as we all know.

The Moles of course have advanced, as the platform has, in 15 years.

At least the drinks dispense here as the Moles are using residents' creations. Since I live in a large city, I personally am not drawn to urban builds in SL, of which there are no shortage. Some people are, and no doubt it has its fans, as everything like this does in Bellisseria. But...the traffic doesn't lie.

If a build is outdated (and as I noted in the past, the info givers in fact were up to date except the international language kiosks) -- it can be updated and optimized -- as the Moth Temple in Iris was a few years ago. Or is that next? Surely not? But I think nothing is safe.

This land parcel in Tenera, now empty,, which is 8192 plus plus the nearby sandbox also strangely kept empty for years (with a notice to go elsewhere) will simply be auctioned, and that means more transportation RP around these rail yards.

Qie Niangao · 2022-09-02T07:59:39Z

The southwest corner that's currently up for auction, I'm not sure what that was before; I'd never noticed it until it turned purple on the map. VRC has owned the far northeast tip of Tenera for years and I always thought of it as the only "privately-owned" land in the region. So I guess the auction parcel used to be prims for the "Volunteer HQ" build that's mostly gone now? Or maybe there was something else on that parcel that I never noticed.

There had long been scattered detritus floating around the Volunteer HQ build, but I assumed the whole thing would remain—forever, I guess.

The sandbox used to be across from the robot, inside the loop of SLRR tracks, and would generate the most frequent floods of travelling griefer prims on the SLRR. (Coincidentally, as if for old time sake, the SLRR had a little griefer incident this past Sunday. Must be time for school to start.) Perhaps Governance tired of tidying up that mess and shuttered the sandbox just for their own sanity, quite a few years ago now.

The robot isn't the very best of the resident-created SLRR stations from 2005-2006, but it's distinctive. One of those, Alazarin Mondrian's terminal in Bhaga, was later replaced by Michael Linden's big passenger terminal there. I really hope they don't poof all of them, they add interest and variety to the continent's "rail infrastructure."

Aethelwine · 2022-09-02T08:17:44Z

I am curious to know more about what was there. A quick Google search has brought up this reference.

https://lindenlab.wordpress.com/2006/05/16/volunteers-working-together/

It would be interesting to know more about it.

Prokofy Neva · 2022-09-02T08:18:29Z

18 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

The southwest corner that's currently up for auction, I'm not sure what that was before; I'd never noticed it until it turned purple on the map. VRC has owned the far northeast tip of Tenera for years and I always thought of it as the only "privately-owned" land in the region. So I guess the auction parcel used to be prims for the "Volunteer HQ" build that's mostly gone now? Or maybe there was something else on that parcel that I never noticed.

There had long been scattered detritus floating around the Volunteer HQ build, but I assumed the whole thing would remain—forever, I guess.

The sandbox used to be across from the robot, inside the loop of SLRR tracks, and would generate the most frequent floods of travelling griefer prims on the SLRR. (Coincidentally, as if for old time sake, the SLRR had a little griefer incident this past Sunday. Must be time for school to start.) Perhaps Governance tired of tidying up that mess and shuttered the sandbox just for their own sanity, quite a few years ago now.

The robot isn't the very best of the resident-created SLRR stations from 2005-2006, but it's distinctive. One of those, Alazarin Mondrian's terminal in Bhaga, was later replaced by Michael Linden's big passenger terminal there. I really hope they don't poof all of them, they add interest and variety to the continent's "rail infrastructure."

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Qie, the entire HUGE Greco-Roman build, on what is now divided into 23,680 plus 1856 (where Shawn's statue is) and 2016 (where the rump of the palace is left) was entirely Linden Land, not private, owned by the Lindens' Volunteer HQ group created by Lexie Linden.

I think despite having land there you just haven't studied the Linden part of it? I have, since I bought land across from it last November and I an my tenants hung out there often. I put a castle nearby which encroaches on the lot that was empty even before this tear down and I expect to find it in Lost & Found tomorrow. Whee. I couldn't get it straightened out once it encroached (error messages tell you that always) and hadn't gotten to take it to a sandbox to fix it.

The roadside parcel of some 4096 m2 + on the opposite side of the aqueduct road, now on the auction was also definitely Volunteer HQ lawn and just left empty -- for prims. It was quite a primmy build.

There wasn't any detritus at all. I have no idea what you're talking about. Did the old planar trees give you that impression, some of them flexis I think? There was the large build, with flexi flags as well, all Linden owned (some can be seen). There was one very small item that belonged to a resident on the steps of the ampitheater -- is that what you mean? Like a microphone or little sign. But not "detritus."

To be sure, up in the sky, one enterprising lucky fellow who was in the Volunteer HQ group and therefore could place prims on the land built himself a tree house in the sky, quite far up. I found it one day when cleaning up my own sky.

All sandboxes had griefing problems. Maybe because this was next to your land, you noticed it more. Maybe somebody just got a burr in their saddle for this one and it got more reports and more bans which can often then spur more griefer activity. It hardly seemed a cure to close the entire thing and do nothing with it (that ground was empty) as a solution for 17 years, but yeah.

I was on the sim Obscure for many years, a public rather than Linden sandbox, which was nicely managed and seldom griefed. The Lindens just didn't police their own sandboxes.

I'm not sure that the robot was a "created station". Perhaps it was, although it's not in the Crumbli junction, but on the Tenera land. I find it perfectly fine, perhaps not at a "Starax" level but quite good. No need to tear it down, it's quite distinctive. Maybe it didn't fit the Greco-Roman theme but it seemed to fit with the railroads. The Crumbli Junction is nothing special - *that* is what is not superior to other stations built with the Lindens' resident builder contest, such as by Jauani Wu in Tuliptree and Cellardoor in Neumogen.

It seems like you're looking for ways to justify this, and I guess I'm not surprised.

And yet you want the Lindens not to take down the railroad stations, although they are all pretty much great builds, even if prim, do not take up much space (not more than 4096) and I can't imagine selling them to transportation RP groups improves them -- because then it doesn't have the same civic feel.

I didn't realize Michael Linden's terminal replaced Mondrian's terminal -- what a shame. And why? When the Lindens have always had a shed-load of abandoned land to use for their projects?

Prokofy Neva · 2022-09-02T08:22:44Z

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21 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

I am curious to know more about what was there. A quick Google search has brought up this reference.

https://lindenlab.wordpress.com/2006/05/16/volunteers-working-together/

It would be interesting to know more about it.

Vick Forcella · 2022-09-02T08:57:52Z

I recall this place as being build on, on several levels in a roman temple style. I remember it most because of a sewage pipe hanging from it. Weird find while exploring, that makes exploring fun. Discovering things like this. For that I'm sad it's dumped. I hope the new owner will be nice to it.
Also, roads are not save and are not protected. I have seen roads change ownership and vanish.

Prokofy Neva · 2022-09-02T08:58:13Z

For the record, as the blog post notes, re: the Volunteer HQ build -- while the group was created and run by Lexie Linden (long gone from the Lab), this build was made by residents.

o Lethe Naumova - foundation

o mera Pixel (merosaur) pillars and flags

o Tateru Nino (benches)

o Khamon Fate (trees)

o Shawn Pertwee (robot)

Arguably the robot goes with the train station -- it is labeled "train station 1/3" in three parts, and placed by Nigel Linden (Garth Fairchild, who died in RL some years ago sadly), who handled the SLRR. Yet it is on the sim Tenera, not on Crumbli, where the junction is, and train station built by Hyper Mole, not a resident.

I believe it was Lethe who built the treehouse in the sky (only a wooden fence remains now) which no doubt was for the Resident Help Network (RHN), a subset of the large Volunteers group.

Ozymandias

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Edited just now by Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva · 2022-09-02T09:02:28Z

4 minutes ago, Vick Forcella said:

I recall this place as being build on, on several levels in a roman temple style. I remember it most because of a sewage pipe hanging from it. Weird find while exploring, that makes exploring fun. Discovering things like this. For that I'm sad it's dumped. I hope the new owner will be nice to it.
Also, roads are not save and are not protected. I have seen roads change ownership and vanish.

Yes, I saw the entire bridge in Palomarian, which was a fine old light cobblestone or limestone block sort of bridge, all prim work, made by Xenon Linden I believe, just like other bridges very similar in other areas, completely demolished, and in its place, a build that didn't fit the area at all, in this black, smooth industrial texture right out of Zindra. There didn't seem to be any reason for this. The Linden land is sequestered from the sim in its own group, and prim or mesh, it is what it is, and often the land impact doesn't take up that parcel. It's not like they "needed the prims".

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Posted 21 minutes ago (edited)

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There wasn't any detritus at all. I have no idea what you're talking about.

It wasn't a big deal, but some prims were scattered in midair over and around the palace/amphitheatre build, possibly left over from the original building process because they never got returned, so must have been set to the building group. They were kinda like the eight little cylinders that remain above the remaining build (e.g., secondlife:///app/objectim/d07b873b-383d-2e9c-4f8e-386bb8d0e431?name=Object&owner=86364c59-dc92-42d8-9622-ea5709c0bf02&slurl=Tenera/62.569480/94.939130/94.830820 ) but I'm not sure those are actually among the ones I'd noticed before, and may have washed up there in the process of demolishing the rest of the surrounding build. (I don't think I ever noticed the item you mentioned on the steps of the amphitheatre, just stuff in the air.)

The reason the Tenera sandbox was an especially problematic griefer site was that it was adjacent—nearly surrounded by—Linden land that allowed object entry, so self-replicating stuff could spread from there all around the SLRR. Certainly other sandboxes had griefing, and there are rez areas at every train station so it was always easy for a griefer to find somewhere to start spreading stuff, but Tenera launched more than its fair share of trouble. (At Tenera and next door Crumbi junction, the SLRR mainline connects with both north- and northwest-bound branches.)

[ETA: For some reason you took my post as "looking for ways to justify this" so perhaps I should clarify. I want the robot to stay, and I was fine with the Volunteer HQ build, but I do think this was a difficult spot for a sandbox and never blamed the Lab for shutting it down here in favor of a bunch more full-region sandboxes, some on void-surrounded islands. FWIW, my favorite resident-built SLRR station is Crenulate, and I'm also especially fond of Tuliptree and Epirrhoe.]

Edited 13 minutes ago by Qie Niangao

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36 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

It wasn't a big deal, but some prims were scattered in midair over and around the palace/amphitheatre build, possibly left over from the original building process because they never got returned, so must have been set to the building group. They were kinda like the eight little cylinders that remain above the remaining build (e.g., secondlife:///app/objectim/d07b873b-383d-2e9c-4f8e-386bb8d0e431?name=Object&owner=86364c59-dc92-42d8-9622-ea5709c0bf02&slurl=Tenera/62.569480/94.939130/94.830820 ) but I'm not sure those are actually among the ones I'd noticed before, and may have washed up there in the process of demolishing the rest of the surrounding build. (I don't think I ever noticed the item you mentioned on the steps of the amphitheatre, just stuff in the air.)

The reason the Tenera sandbox was an especially problematic griefer site was that it was adjacent—nearly surrounded by—Linden land that allowed object entry, so self-replicating stuff could spread from there all around the SLRR. Certainly other sandboxes had griefing, and there are rez areas at every train station so it was always easy for a griefer to find somewhere to start spreading stuff, but Tenera launched more than its fair share of trouble. (At Tenera and next door Crumbi junction, the SLRR mainline connects with both north- and northwest-bound branches.)

[ETA: For some reason you took my post as "looking for ways to justify this" so perhaps I should clarify. I want the robot to stay, and I was fine with the Volunteer HQ build, but I do think this was a difficult spot for a sandbox and never blamed the Lab for shutting it down here in favor of a bunch more full-region sandboxes, some on void-surrounded islands. FWIW, my favorite resident-built SLRR station is Crenulate, and I'm also especially fond of Tuliptree and Epirrhoe.]

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1. I think what you were seeing was indeed a product of the demolition, because I don't recall seeing it, but maybe they were there. The entire building had the atmosphere of being austere and well built, like the architectural sites of the ancients, so I didn't perceive it in this way.

2. Obscure is also next to a railroad, and even has a resident-built train station, and was happy to stay open all this time, and is still open, because it was managed properly.

3. I don't think griefing and the problem of self-replicating prims, which hasn't been as common as it was 18 years ago, would be enough of a reason to leave it vacant all this time, never made into a park or any other kind of Linden/Mole build, or for that matter, sold. Perhaps this was a subset of big plans about the SLRR entertained by both former Linden/Moles and resident fans that never came about. I mean, there are a lot of railroads in SL, and they don't get used. Now the Lindens are focusing on the one in Bellisseria -- I never see anyone but myself using it.

4. Instead of treating griefing as an endless series of individual griefers, the Lindens should have closed down the groups that continued to spawn them. Philip did this once, with Something Awful, but then he and his staff were so harassed over this (needlessly) that they took their time in dismantling other notorious groups and to this day some remain. They were also wedded to the idea of anonymizers in the illusion that freedom fighters in Iran and China were using these to access SL.

5. Imagine, on the Mainland, I have "build" and "object entry" left open on all my rentals so that people can immediately join the open group and build without waiting for a landlord to invite them. Then I give them resident powers to access features on the "about land" menu and some of the more cautious ones turn it off. Sometimes they turn everything off and wonder why their own scripts don't work and they can't build.

I believe in having the land open. The horror! Imagine! Gasp! And 99% of the time, it is not griefed or misused. As you know, there was one particular determined group that wanted to make an object lesson of this freedom I established, to try to remove it, but ultimately they failed. It really isn't the terror people imagine. If you are persistent in having people fight back with ARs and bans, you win, even if it takes time. I'm not for distorting the world around the capacity of griefers to exploit some of the freedoms. if it was truly the problem you claim, I wouldn't be in business.

And here's the difference: I managed my property and I empowered my tenants to manage their rented properties with the group tools. So did the Obscure sandbox people. All those volunteers, all those rail lovers -- they couldn't "adopt" these Linden spaces and serve as deterrents?

The Lindens didn't want to spend time doing this, even with a cursory circuit riding; and again, this LEGION of volunteers they developed never addressed this socially (I'm not for giving them ban powers, but they could have had a presence and been a deterrence). They didn't want to remove groups, in the theory that there were "only a few bad apples" which is not how groups work in SL in particular.

Perhaps the robot will stay now that you have blessed it, my bet is the rest will be scrubbed and auctioned.

It would be nice to know how this decision came about and what the plan is. It seems obvious to me how this came about but it's always good to hear the Lindens' cover story..

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Posted 1 hour ago

15 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I wonder if they will send back this epic robot sculpture as well, made by a non-Linden.

I believe the epic robot sculpture will persist for several reasons. It is a railway station (Tenera Station). It is a wonderful example of pure prim building. Patch Linden is sentimental and has a fondness for Second Life history. Finally, as long as the railbed stays, what could go there that would be better?

</speculation>

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Again, the statue, while more linked to Crumbi Junction, is not in the region Crumbi. It's in Tenera, where the Volunteer HQ, now torn down, was located. It is awkwardly put on a small parcel now and actually rooted on one parcel, while somewhat extending to another. It's at risk of return just for that reason. While the author last logged into SL in April 2022, it's not clear if he knows what is happening to his statue and has a copy.

This idea that Patch is sentimental about SL history, and is an "archivist" is extremely relative and unpredictable. Yes, I've heard him answer the question about "what is to happen with Linden historical builds" with this very claim, that he has a soft spot for old Linden structures and is an archivist at heart. But we've never heard whether the Dragon build in the old Linden Homes, for example, will definitely be saved, or for that matter, all the other park builds there, and where they will go. We have no idea what might be slated next, any or all of the railroad builds, some of which Qie has identified as "not as good as others"? What is the criteria?

We just saw how the Archivist either ordered or allowed an entire historical build to be torn down, with no announcement (so that people could take pictures) and no indication of what will come in its place. We have no idea if the Archivist likes robots or is ensuring this build is properly parceled, if the owner can't be reached. (Of course, Lindens can take a copy of a resident build if they must). We have no idea if the parcels will get a new Linden build (unlikely) or be offered at least intact to encourage the new owner to put something attractive there.

The claim has been made that residents can contact Patch with ideas for "updating" and "repurposing" old Linden builds, and we never, ever heard whether this claim is true, and if so, whether it will be done on a "first come, first served" random basis or through the JIRA (which I think is a terrible idea) or merely quietly by the Lindens themselves, by their own lights.

All we know for certain is that "Linden protection" is a seriously eroded term now. Nobody should be purchasing land on the auction on that basis. Any or all old Linden builds of any type, whether "good" or "bad," whether Patch can be assumed to be "sentimental" or not, are up to grabs. You can cite reasons for why *this* build was different -- it had a lot of wasted, empty space after the sandbox was moved; it was large and primmy and belonged to a group that the Lindens didn't wish to maintain (maybe they are making a new one?) even if it looked like the Coliseum. *It was built by residents, not Moles* -- that made it more vulnerable for sure. You could say "but the Moth Temple, built only by Xenon Linden, is different, that has been updated and optimized recently, is an infohub, and has up to date signs". Or you could say "The Lindens have no reason to remove all the resident-built train stations, they don't take up much space." But you can't know, especially after how dramatically quickly the Volunteer HQ build was removed, within days, with no notice, following a call to do so some months ago.

The fact is, the Lindens, without any notice, heard a build declared "useless" or in need of "removal" or "repurposing" and as always, some people got their ear, and they acted. You have no idea when and how they might act again. The call for making a plan and making a criteria is not being heeded because it does not have to be. We have seen how the Lindens arbitrarily took one resident RP group and elevated it to the BBB, then enabled that group to design and deploy a stamp game on their own historical builds. Other resident groups didn't get to do this and began agitating about and around these builds, and got attention and concessions.

While once, the Lindens themselves created the concept of "Linden protected roads" and "Linden protected civic spaces" as a way to make their own land more valuable and sold it on the auctions -- and still do -- with that concept. Now, we see its limitations.

It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that for the Lindens, the civic space -- parks, rez areas, railroad, bridle paths, etc. -- in Bellisseria is way, way more important than the Mainland. Nothing on the legacy Mainland has been *added*, even if some roads have been fixed or even completed in one case, even as others are deliberately left undone.

With every program they have opted to do with residents, the BBB ambassadors, stamp game and events, like the recent very elaborate and complex NatureCon involving only select "preservation" groups, the Lindens have let us know that they view the old Mainland as at best, a safari destination or temporary event location to provide "things to do" -- with partners that they select on their own criteria. They don't view it as a place where people buy land and live in residences or have small stores or even nature projects on their own. What they would rather have are large transportation RP games that again, are in the "things to do" category for the masses and help sell premium accounts and content. "Nature" is about railroads and developed park or story destinations, not "the wilds" in any sense of the old Mainland, good or bad.

Prokofy Neva · August 11

I was dismayed to hear on a recent prominent SL vlog with Lindens that the "ad farm problem has been eliminated". Not on your life. I don't know where this idea could come from.

Those of us who live here know that they persist, everywhere. Sometimes they are cut-up 16m2 squares set to extortionist prices, more than one per sim. THAT should be actionable by Linden, as far as I know, even today, although any ARs or tickets on Legacy Mainland can take forever to get attention now that Bellisseria gets the lion's share of CS (e.g. took me 9 months to get coloured prims in the sky and on the ground all on physics to be removed from a no-show neighbour's lot.)

In this example, there's also improper use of the LL logo and terminology.

Buggy Show Landowner Function

BTW here's a vivid example of one of the many annoyances that persist for months and years on end crippling Mainland work these days -- the entire world goes dark when you set "show" to "land owners". So you can hardly tell the colours apart and you move around in the dark trying to determine if there are any hidden traps in a given piece of land for sale or abandoned. That should be fixable. That it hasn't been fixed is merely a function of how few people use the regular SL viewer especially for more advanced actions like this.

What is Extortion?

One issue is that the Lindens (and anybody) can differ on what is meant by "extortion". In a free land market, you want to enable the quality land like Blake waterfront to be as high as anyone will pay, and the scrub land like the flat checkerboard of post-land-baron chop-ups *behind* a Blake Sea sim to go for the price of dog food before the current recession, i.e. $0.02/m.

So if ad farm land is set to $200 for a 16m, some might think this "reasonable" and a civic-minded person might thing, "Let me buy that and beautify it so that it doesn't turn to junk."

Not Good Neighbours

Everyone's idea of beauty can differ, but I hope by now that people understand that the cynical way in which Abnor Mole's well-intentioned "Good Neighbour" obelisk has been deployed by cynical advertising micro-barons means that no one else should ever put out this outdated sculpty. Flowers or a bench? A tasteful sign directing people to some public nature preserve? I think that temptation should be resisted, as you are only fueling the madness even with a $200 or even $50 purchase. Unless a neighbour who wanted to tier down sold you that 16 m or 32 m for $1/m or less, it is suspect in our environment.

Bring Back Arbor?

To be sure, there was a time when a campaign around such parcels seemed merited, namely, the Arbor Project, whereby people would actually buy such nuisances and beautify them and put only tasteful signage or benches regarding the project itself. This was to make a point with the Lindens. Can that point be made now? I don't think so. But maybe?

Mr. Lee's Hong Kong

Years ago, at a Virtual Worlds conference, I ran into an individual who the man behind "Mr. Lee's Hongkong" -- the name obviously taken from the Snowcrash character -- no longer in SL. He would chop up parcels of 16 m or 32 m, even next to pristine waterfront, and charge $10,000 for them. In my newbier days, I bought one out of exasperation with land I treasured in one of my favourite sims never renting due to this blight. "Why?" I asked.

"It was an interesting experiment." This person didn't need to make money; he was a computer programmer at a top firm making in the high six figures (this was 15 years ago).

The history of failed Mainland experiments and policies is littered with such individuals with ambitious for grid-wide fame, nearly all of whom are no longer in SL.

Ecology of Ad Farming

The ecology of ad farming isn't just about one bad individual chopping up his auction win or abandoned grab into bits because it wouldn't sell in a bigger piece (a very common reason for ad farming). If a newb starting out makes this mistake and ruins his reputation, it's fixable, but that's not the lion's share of cases.

It's because there are powerful enablers of this type of predatory business -- and not only LL indifference.

Several large barons unabashedly rent out or sell micro-parcels for big money to large ad agencies keen on despoiling the roadside or even the middle of a waterfront parcel with their large and often spinning signs. Why? Because some people click on them, even if only to attempt to AR them and find out the names.

There are others with obscure missions and purposes who keep scripted boxes on such parcel, to do what, who knows. Scrape land for sale to buy, now that land bots are banned? Merely follow traffic, to see if that sim might be worth placing a store in? Just to gather data because it's fun? I have no idea. You can't see the script, and some of these scripted box owners seem to have long since become inactive in SL.

There are also artists who join these little, repetitive trios of bottom-scraping micro-barons, ad agencies, and big land barons to put out "art" -- about which people also differ -- in part to "greenwash" their ad-farming operations.

BTW, as has been the case for years, among the key users of roadside billboards are island dealers. "Come to the private islands and you won't have an ugly view like this Mainland you see, which I, too, and helping to make ugly." I recall in the days of yore, a certain gentleman island baron put up humorous signs of the Victorian etching type -- "Charles, you worm!" where the wives would urge their husbands to take them away from the Mainland.

But we live here.

Ban Sale or Even Rezzing on Microparcels?

The Lindens could also ban the renting of such parcels, which are publicly advertised. In fact, I think if they could write code to make all abandoned land dissolve into 16m 2 chunks as they used to before 2005, which sparked this insanity, they can write code making it impossible even to rez a prim, let alone set for sale, any land smaller than X. Preventing re-sale alone might be helpful, but given that the way around the rules, such as they are, is now to rent out rather than sell these parcels (so it seems as if one person doesn't have more than one per sim), even preventing rezzing might be a solution, although that's sure to meet with protest somewhere.

Don't Be Part of the Problem

And my own feeling is that outside my two roadside offices, I don't want to be part of the roadside signage problem, just like I don't want to be part of the pollution of the sky with signs. I have exactly 3 such roadside signs across 55 sims. One is in an area where I once owned a fair amount of land by a lake, but was forced out by blight engendered from rapacious land barons and chopping. I decided to keep my roadside sign there. In another newer area across from an old historical build, I put up a billboard, the only one I have ever put up. My neighbours on all sides have giant billboards and on this raised aqueduct road, it didn't seem to be such blight. The third one is on a sim where I needed more prims, and bought up some smaller parcels and put them in the group, then put out a few of my signs. It is by chopped-up land with no-access mysteriously near it, by a huge build involving encroachment over a Linden bridge (well, we all have done that) so there haven't been any complaints. If there ever were, I would act. So far, I've only had one complaint about a micro-parcel I kept underwater near a Linden easter egg with a fairy door which could take you to a site in the land preserve. Being a fairy door, and underwater, it's unobtrusive. But a nearby owner claims to have been driven mad by this parcel, mainly because for the weeks before I put the fairy door, she couldn't understand why I kept such a parcel. I wish she'd ask this question more broadly, regarding the obvious extortionist ad farms and billboards on and around this sim as they are the greater vexation.

Linden-Run Networked Roadside Ad Agency

Again, my solution is for LL to take over roadside advertising service and put up a variety of tasteful billboards, small signs, and little parks with tasteful signage for reasonable prices. This networked system could also supply to the ad buyer more granulated information like time of day and day of week and number of clicks.

I think when you have a problem like this, you can't eliminate it and leave empty land that will always demand to be filled by somebody. You need to displace it with another program.

Linden Resistance to Ad Agency

Brent accepted my question about this in a recent SLB19 meeting but then got it all wrong. His reply was that "we don't want ugly billboards" -- and the understanding that the ad farm problem was "solved" -- but in fact WE ALREADY HAVE ugly billboards, chopped up land, extortionist prices, and curiously, a world with too much advertising of the wrong kind and not enough of the right kind, making it hard to put a willing seller in front of a willing buyer of any type.

The Lindens could make this a source, not a sink, they could rotate the ads and also demand that they be PG, and make revenue. They need cash like everyone else in the Recession. They should also go back to selling their splash screen space to big ad buyers. A networked ad system that looks good and functions and doesn't try to make you buy the land under it to "buy back the view" is what the Mainland sorely needs. Rejecting this idea in the name of "avoiding blight" is merely to concede that other actors with worse intent get to keep occupying the space.

And my long-standing request to put the ad capacity back at infohubs like Waterhead, where they once functioned just fine, can't cite "blight" or "large billboards" as the reason, as they were small tablet sized signs. The Lindens should have staff circuit-ride through their infohubs more often and remove obscene babblers in Voice, eject lost bots, and look at uploaded ad signs to make sure they are PG.

Edited August 11 by Prokofy Neva

belindacarson · August 12

Nice rant but it's a buyer's market.

If people are stupid enough to pay that kind of RL money for a piece of virtual land, hey I'll sell you a box of fresh sl air for $5k, 2 for 8k

Aethelwine · August 12

On 8/11/2022 at 8:48 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

I was dismayed to hear on a recent prominent SL vlog with Lindens that the "ad farm problem has been eliminated". Not on your life. I don't know where this idea could come from.

Those of us who live here know that they persist, everywhere. Sometimes they are cut-up 16m2 squares set to extortionist prices, more than one per sim. THAT should be actionable by Linden, as far as I know, even today, although any ARs or tickets on Legacy Mainland can take forever to get attention now that Bellisseria gets the lion's share of CS (e.g. took me 9 months to get coloured prims in the sky and on the ground all on physics to be removed from a no-show neighbour's lot.)

Expand

It is interesting to me that they intervened. I had thought that they maybe intervened a few years ago when I reported an absent neighbours floating remains of a conference suite, the structure had gone leaving an assortment of chairs, a pot plant and half a table floating 20m in the air. hovering over the back of my parcel. It looked very much like they had got tired of returning their stuff and then just left the job of clearing it half done. I reported it and nothing happened for months and then it was gone. Leaving me unsure if my report had been effective or if the tidy up was just coincidental.

The prevailing opinion on the forums is expressed by Belinda above that people can do what they want on their mainland without consequence. Your experience and mine would seem to indicate whilst not high on Governance's priorities they do sometimes intervene.

That is to me interesting.

For the most part my neighbours all seem considerate. Although there is one that has left assorted junk on their parcel and bumped up the cost to buy it to 150,000L$. I have built up around them, it hides their trash and their banlines, I have no need to buy them out and I can't see anyone else paying that sort of money for a landlocked mess.

Edited August 12 by Aethelwine

Prokofy Neva · August 12

On 8/12/2022 at 1:13 AM, Aethelwine said:

It is interesting to me that they intervened. I had thought that they maybe intervened a few years ago when I reported an absent neighbours floating remains of a conference suite, the structure had gone leaving an assortment of chairs, a pot plant and half a table floating 20m in the air. hovering over the back of my parcel. It looked very much like they had got tired of returning their stuff and then just left the job of clearing it half done. I reported it and nothing happened for months and then it was gone. Leaving me unsure if my report had been effective or if the tidy up was just coincidental.

The prevailing opinion on the forums is expressed by Belinda above that people can do what they want on their mainland without consequence. Your experience and mine would seem to indicate whilst not high on Governance's priorities they do sometimes intervene.

That is to me interesting.

For the most part my neighbours all seem considerate. Although there is one that has left assorted junk on their parcel and bumped up the cost to buy it to 150,000L$. I have built up around them, I have no need to buy them out and I can't see anyone else paying that sort of money for a landlocked mess.

Expand

Well, I think there are gradations of junk the Lindens will respond to.

Yes, there is the sacrosanct core of SL, "I get to do WTF I want on my land" and the Lindens uphold this if the items don't violate their TOS as such, but are just an aesthetic or noise problem, like unfinished plywood left out in the sun for years or a noisy YouTube player that no one can find in a complex build to block and shut up. These things they won't touch.

Except...very rarely, they do. When autoreturn is left off in 2007 by one of those accounts that got a free parcel, evidently, and never came back, and where junk piles up crazily on it, sometimes Lindens can be persuaded to remove everything but the owners' prims and put on autoreturn.

Something up in the air driving you crazy for years -- no, they don't usually respond.

In the case of those prims on physics, that was a multi-sim-wide griefer attack. The watermelon colour prims were all over -- I and others removed them and AR'd the griefer. this wasn't enough for them to entirely remove them from the sim -- and that account.

This "Governance2 Linden" (they never seem to have more human names apparently in an effort to prevent cults of personality -- and therefore vectors of attack -- growing up around them as happens with other Moles) told me that I should always make sure ARs have the name of the owner of the prim, a picture, and as much detail as possible.

Sometimes in grief attacks, unless you turn off particles soon enough and grab one of the prims, you can't see a name, so in those cases I just put "Governor Linden" herself as the name.

The real crux of this issue, however, is this: must you remain in AR purgatory and even hell, or can you go to SUPPORT and file a normal ticket as you would if it were only a Linden tree encroaching on your land?

I wish things of this nature would be treated just as natural disasters that just require garbage removal and not require a whole "Governance" study as to actors, their intentions, and their actions.

In this latest Governance video, the Lindens seem to imply you *can* send tickets to Support and not merely AR them. They mention that you cannot complain about griefing/garbage in Live Help or on telephone help, but then they say it can be filed with Support.

I almost wondered if they misspoke, as we are always told that they must be AR'd and Support won't act.

Even so, after I've filed repeated abuse reports, as have others, I usually do go to Support and try to get them to agree to escalate the ticket, citing all the past email copies of my ARs, and sometimes it works.

Edited August 12 by Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva · August 12

On 8/12/2022 at 12:44 AM, belindacarson said:

Nice rant but it's a buyer's market.

If people are stupid enough to pay that kind of RL money for a piece of virtual land, hey I'll sell you a box of fresh sl air for $5k, 2 for 8k

So when it's a "buyers' market," sellers get to behave badly and devalue all the land already previously purchased by previous buyers? Why?

belindacarson · August 12

On 8/12/2022 at 1:39 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

So when it's a "buyers' market," sellers get to behave badly and devalue all the land already previously purchased by previous buyers? Why?

Because they can.

Aethelwine · August 12

On 8/12/2022 at 3:04 AM, belindacarson said:

Because they can.

Apart from where doing so results in governance applying the consequences of the ad farming policy to them?

Edited August 12 by Aethelwine

Aethelwine · August 12

A neighbour on a parcel can create dozens of alts sit them on prims blockading access, they can fill up parcels pushing objects into them, they can create insulting textures and display them on prims overlooking you. Ultimately the neighbour and the hundred and more alts were banned and lost there land. They were banned for things they could do and anyone can do.

Because someone can is not a good reason.

Qie Niangao · August 12

On 8/11/2022 at 8:48 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

… the entire world goes dark when you set "show" to "land owners". So you can hardly tell the colours apart and you move around in the dark trying to determine if there are any hidden traps in a given piece of land for sale or abandoned.

Now that you mention it, that is pretty awful, but I haven't used World / Show / "Land owners" in any viewer for years, instead choosing the "Property Lines" option; using that seems easier to detect who owns what in a region—especially compared to the murky mess of "Land owners". To me, it looks equally gloomy in Catznip and Firestorm, at least with my settings, so I wonder if it was maybe some change coinciding with EEP that made it so dark.

I'd probably quibble about Arbor Project's history (although it ended up owning some microparcels, I don't think it ever supported anybody buying them). Anyway, the group still exists and I could imagine it playing a useful role in a renewed anti-adfarm struggle. Pretty sure I've seen it get some landcutting fixed within the last year, using Policy-citing abuse reports by multiple Concierge-level accounts. (Maybe now we should expand the ranks with some Premium Plus members, to add gravitas. 😛 )

There's more in this thread I haven't even read yet. I see the Radical Free Market Fundamentalists have a spokesperson, so it's bound to be a bloodbath eventually. I feel a sermon on the Tragedy of the Commons coming on! Maybe we could get a senior Linden to join the thread for a responsive reading of the Mainland Policy for the practicality challenged.

Prokofy Neva · August 12

On 8/12/2022 at 1:30 PM, Qie Niangao said:

Now that you mention it, that is pretty awful, but I haven't used World / Show / "Land owners" in any viewer for years, instead choosing the "Property Lines" option; using that seems easier to detect who owns what in a region—especially compared to the murky mess of "Land owners". To me, it looks equally gloomy in Catznip and Firestorm, at least with my settings, so I wonder if it was maybe some change coinciding with EEP that made it so dark.

I'd probably quibble about Arbor Project's history (although it ended up owning some microparcels, I don't think it ever supported anybody buying them). Anyway, the group still exists and I could imagine it playing a useful role in a renewed anti-adfarm struggle. Pretty sure I've seen it get some landcutting fixed within the last year, using Policy-citing abuse reports by multiple Concierge-level accounts. (Maybe now we should expand the ranks with some Premium Plus members, to add gravitas. 😛 )

There's more in this thread I haven't even read yet. I see the Radical Free Market Fundamentalists have a spokesperson, so it's bound to be a bloodbath eventually. I feel a sermon on the Tragedy of the Commons coming on! Maybe we could get a senior Linden to join the thread for a responsive reading of the Mainland Policy for the practicality challenged.

Expand

I use "Property Lines" of course, and generally keep that turned on all the time, but it's really not enough. And I'm not for advocating workarounds when there are bugs this bad that really would be showstoppers if more people used the SL Viewer. If it is also in Firestorm, then evidently few people use the feature so maybe the Lindens don't feel any motivation, but it seems crazy to me to allow EEP to darken a separate function like this.

Arbor did buy microparcels because how else could they have put their own trees and signs on them? Although not at the high extortionist level, of course. Yes, sometimes they and others get some action, but usually not. What happened is that first, the highly cynical effort to use Abnor's "Good Neighbour" pillar was allowed to persist, often encroaching even on Linden roads, and was designed as such to be psychologically bullet proof and hard to ban. That enabled the other notorious obelisk to persist and spread and still others. As I noted, I think displacement by an official LL system and not banning is ultimately the only solution at this point. I'm certainly not a radical free market fundamentalist and no one can in fact pursue such an agenda in a world where the currency and land supply are controlled by one company. Rather, it's more that *that* state of affairs enables oligarchy as it did in post-communist states in RL and regulation is gamed or worked around.

The Lindens have already basically said their solution to Mainland problems is not on the Mainland, but in Bellisseria, and if people persist that they still want to sail or drive on the Mainland and combat blight, their solution is to say, create enclaves which we will work with, and to which we will funnel events and traffic. I don't find this as viable of course, but then my own solution has always been just to try to account for the land I actually own and rent out and try to keep that nice, cooperating with neighbours where possible, which is more possible than many realize, but also to prudently "buy the view". "Buying the view" has switched in recent years to "abandoning the whole thing" and looking for other untouched areas and hoping the same process doesn't repeat.

I do think it's worth the Lindens re-visiting the resident-to-resident auction system again, but for that to happen we'd need to know about what went wrong with the original system. I personally found it complicated and didn't play it because I felt land barons were still lurking in it. I never have understood why it is so hard to code a system whereby first, let's say for 30 days, only people already owners on a sim are eligible to buy land that goes for sale on that sim. Given that everything on a sim is coded as to size and nature of parcels and owners already, is it really so hard to structure it so only other accounts in that class of data can purchase the land? Of course I may be missing some complications but if PP with all its choices could be coded, so could something like that, no?

Edited August 12 by Prokofy Neva

Qie Niangao · August 12

On 8/12/2022 at 2:13 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

Arbor did buy microparcels because how else could they have put their own trees and signs on them?

Donated. I spent many hours as part of a team trying to give them away to neighboring landowners. The ones that couldn't find new homes immediately were handed over to the "gardeners" to beautify, but every few months we'd try again, in case there were new neighbors. It was a ridiculous amount of work and recordkeeping.

Prokofy Neva · August 12

On 8/12/2022 at 2:38 PM, Qie Niangao said:

Donated. I spent many hours as part of a team trying to give them away to neighboring landowners. The ones that couldn't find new homes immediately were handed over to the "gardeners" to beautify, but every few months we'd try again, in case there were new neighbors. It was a ridiculous amount of work and recordkeeping.

Yes, I realize there were donations, but it's my understanding that there were some "preventive purchases" or "salvaging" as well. I will ask Timo. There may be brand confusion as Arbor was not the only group trying to do this and some individuals felt they were helping by taking some of these plots out of their misery. Of course it fueled the system. I have refused to buy the extortion ones for years and will wait out any exploiter forever. Sometimes they go away, sometimes not.

BilliJo Aldrin · August 12

On 8/11/2022 at 8:48 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

So if ad farm land is set to $200 for a 16m, some might think this "reasonable" and a civic-minded person might thing, "Let me buy that and beautify it so that it doesn't turn to junk."

Interesting that you mention that figure.

I used to own forty seven 16 sq m 2x protected parcels, but a rules change made my purpose for having them illegal, so I sold all of them, for a profit I might add.

Lately I've been searching again for micro parcels, and so far have acquired three 16 sq m 2x protected parcels. I would pay up to $200 L for them, but two I got for less. I use them for self advertising, and yes they conform to ALL the ad farming rules. If and when I get tired of them, i can relist them for $500 L each, and I guarantee every one will sell fast (and be immediately relisted for $1000 L or more)

xDancingStarx · August 12

On 8/11/2022 at 8:48 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

they can write code making it impossible even to rez a prim, let alone set for sale, any land smaller than X

I like that idea. That said, the recent ad signs on micro parcels that I've encountered looked okay, means the mesh boards that the ads were presented on suited the surroundings kind of. I usually find the way, way more visually annoying signs (or annoyances in general) on bigger parcels.

Edited August 12 by xDancingStarx

Prokofy Neva · August 12

On 8/12/2022 at 5:11 PM, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Interesting that you mention that figure.

I used to own forty seven 16 sq m 2x protected parcels, but a rules change made my purpose for having them illegal, so I sold all of them, for a profit I might add.

Lately I've been searching again for micro parcels, and so far have acquired three 16 sq m 2x protected parcels. I would pay up to $200 L for them, but two I got for less. I use them for self advertising, and yes they conform to ALL the ad farming rules. If and when I get tired of them, i can relist them for $500 L each, and I guarantee every one will sell fast (and be immediately relisted for $1000 L or more)

Expand

Well, as you can imagine, I think what you are saying is part of the problem, not part of the solution. But I also imagine you will tell me that people click on your ads and make it worth it. And that's the reasoning behind all ads, attractive or not.

@xDancingStarx I haven't seen these "more beautiful" mesh signs of which you speak but I think it is surely possible to make these sorts of signs better looking and certainly not to have them spin, which is why I suggest the Lindens run such a system.

Stephanie Lovely · Sunday at 07:59 PM

And then we have these things on 16m parcels all over G land, tons of them. I have had the view from more than one parcel ruined by these. I don't know if they would even be against the rules because they aren't advertising, they are just blight.

xDancingStarx · Sunday at 09:05 PM

On 8/14/2022 at 7:59 PM, Stephanie Lovely said:

And then we have these things on 16m parcels all over G land, tons of them.

There are surely more than 100 micro parcels with these obelisks on the maingrid, all belonging to the same group. Google says it's some military group that may not even be active anymore. The mesh itself looks fine but it's damn big. It's way too inexpensive to hold this many micro parcels. The visual impact of these parcels is disproportionate compared to the money spent.

Edited Sunday at 09:11 PM by xDancingStarx

Qie Niangao · Monday at 04:35 AM

On 8/14/2022 at 9:05 PM, xDancingStarx said:

It's way too inexpensive to hold this many micro parcels. The visual impact of these parcels is disproportionate compared to the money spent.

That's one of the arguments we made that seemed to carry some weight with the Lindens, back when adfarms were a huge problem. Back then, the Lab still entertained the bogus argument that advertising on SL roadways might actually be a thing, as opposed to an exercise in petty extortion as it has always been. It may have sunk in that it was their revenue that adfarms erode, not that of us whining Mainlanders. Eventually they must have realized that all the microparcels owned by every adfarmer, ever, wouldn't total a full region, yet they destroy value of the Lab's whole Land product—vastly exceeding what little they earn in tier. (Something was enough to get the Lindens to overcome their then rabid Libertarian/crypto-anarchist faith, look out for their own interests, and finally regulate the damned things.)

I'm guessing those obelisks are more common on the old Teen Grid regions (now the "Sharp Continent" I guess), based on the "military group that may not even be active anymore" and the Snowlands look of the image: I don't recall encountering any on the Sansara Snowlands, at least along the ONSR where I haunt.

I'd want to measure to be sure, but based on that image they look susceptible to ARs directly citing the official adfarm policy, at least the terms about "must be grounded to the terrain, not floating" and "extend no higher than 8 m from the ground", and maybe others.

[EDIT: Yeah, they're not difficult to find on the Sharp Continent, that's for sure. And they're way taller than 8m, and also non-phantom. I can imagine a Governance person fretting that somebody might find them "historical" and not explicit advertising and on parcels slightly larger than 16 m² —although smaller than the 128 m² size historically considered too suspicious to list in search. They might be worth ARing anyway, just because there are so many of them and they're so intrusive, but it's that very scale that should really be documented in a letter to @Patch Linden because it's his profit center that Governance might be too timid to defend. Do we know: Is there a census of them? And are they all on Sharp?]

[EDIT2: Well, nuts. The owner of (many of?) those obelisks is still active in SL, in fact was logged-in today, according to the member list of an open group. And the obelisk-associated groups still own some larger parcels, too, so it's not a classic adfarm situation. The obelisks are quite the eyesores, scattered on tiny parcels all over that continent for negligible tier, but I can see a legit question of whether they might nonetheless be legit.]

Edited Monday at 05:20 AM by Qie Niangao

Elena Core · Monday at 06:51 AM

On 8/15/2022 at 4:35 AM, Qie Niangao said:

[EDIT: Yeah, they're not difficult to find on the Sharp Continent, that's for sure. And they're way taller than 8m, and also non-phantom. I can imagine a Governance person fretting that somebody might find them "historical" and not explicit advertising and on parcels slightly larger than 16 m² —although smaller than the 128 m² size historically considered too suspicious to list in search. They might be worth ARing anyway, just because there are so many of them and they're so intrusive, but it's that very scale that should really be documented in a letter to @Patch Linden because it's his profit center that Governance might be too timid to defend. Do we know: Is there a census of them? And are they all on Sharp?]

[EDIT2: Well, nuts. The owner of (many of?) those obelisks is still active in SL, in fact was logged-in today, according to the member list of an open group. And the obelisk-associated groups still own some larger parcels, too, so it's not a classic adfarm situation. The obelisks are quite the eyesores, scattered on tiny parcels all over that continent for negligible tier, but I can see a legit question of whether they might nonetheless be legit.]

Expand

Those obelisks have been ARed several times, by several residents and, as far as I know, nothing has been done. Actually, they are growing in number.

Several months ago, there was a discussion on them here in the forum, and the owner of those obelisks contacted most of us who were discussing about it. He mentioned they were going to be replace them by something smaller that wouldn't interfere with other parcels. Again, nothing has changed...

Edited Monday at 06:53 AM by Elena Core

xDancingStarx · Monday at 08:06 AM

On 8/15/2022 at 4:35 AM, Qie Niangao said:

It may have sunk in that it was their revenue that adfarms erode

The problem is, if you go by revenue as argument, you would have to prove that people aren't buying land adjacent/close to the microparcels, and I didn't see that in the obelisk case (having looked at a very few examples only, not considering land that is unwanted in the first place.) Maybe land next to them would have a significantly higher L$ value if they weren't present but that's speculation.

I've added the following screenshots just for fun and in reference to my point earlier in this thread. Same position and viewing angle, second screenshot has a 16m wider draw distance. I admit that the obelisk triggers me way less than the large parcel that appears in the background.

Love Zhaoying · Monday at 08:34 AM

Idea: Require Ad Farms to use an entire Region. That way, they actually contribute to the Second Life economy.

Brilliant!

Prokofy Neva · Monday at 08:47 AM

On 8/14/2022 at 7:59 PM, Stephanie Lovely said:

And then we have these things on 16m parcels all over G land, tons of them. I have had the view from more than one parcel ruined by these. I don't know if they would even be against the rules because they aren't advertising, they are just blight.

There is a lot I could say about these.

Love Zhaoying · Monday at 09:32 AM

On 8/15/2022 at 8:47 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

There is a lot I could say about these.

Please do! I would like to know your thoughts.

Feorie Frimon · Monday at 09:57 AM

On 8/15/2022 at 6:51 AM, Elena Core said:

Those obelisks have been ARed several times, by several residents and, as far as I know, nothing has been done. Actually, they are growing in number.

Several months ago, there was a discussion on them here in the forum, and the owner of those obelisks contacted most of us who were discussing about it. He mentioned they were going to be replace them by something smaller that wouldn't interfere with other parcels. Again, nothing has changed...

I was actually going to say the same thing - he messaged me as well to let me pass along that they were swapping them out for something smaller and shorter…. But it doesn’t look like they have.

It’s my understanding that they are teleporters for an old teen grid combat group.

Keira Linden · Tuesday at 10:30 AM

On 8/12/2022 at 1:38 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

Well, I think there are gradations of junk the Lindens will respond to.

Yes, there is the sacrosanct core of SL, "I get to do WTF I want on my land" and the Lindens uphold this if the items don't violate their TOS as such, but are just an aesthetic or noise problem, like unfinished plywood left out in the sun for years or a noisy YouTube player that no one can find in a complex build to block and shut up. These things they won't touch.

Except...very rarely, they do. When autoreturn is left off in 2007 by one of those accounts that got a free parcel, evidently, and never came back, and where junk piles up crazily on it, sometimes Lindens can be persuaded to remove everything but the owners' prims and put on autoreturn.

Something up in the air driving you crazy for years -- no, they don't usually respond.

In the case of those prims on physics, that was a multi-sim-wide griefer attack. The watermelon colour prims were all over -- I and others removed them and AR'd the griefer. this wasn't enough for them to entirely remove them from the sim -- and that account.

This "Governance2 Linden" (they never seem to have more human names apparently in an effort to prevent cults of personality -- and therefore vectors of attack -- growing up around them as happens with other Moles) told me that I should always make sure ARs have the name of the owner of the prim, a picture, and as much detail as possible.

Sometimes in grief attacks, unless you turn off particles soon enough and grab one of the prims, you can't see a name, so in those cases I just put "Governor Linden" herself as the name.

The real crux of this issue, however, is this: must you remain in AR purgatory and even hell, or can you go to SUPPORT and file a normal ticket as you would if it were only a Linden tree encroaching on your land?

I wish things of this nature would be treated just as natural disasters that just require garbage removal and not require a whole "Governance" study as to actors, their intentions, and their actions.

In this latest Governance video, the Lindens seem to imply you *can* send tickets to Support and not merely AR them. They mention that you cannot complain about griefing/garbage in Live Help or on telephone help, but then they say it can be filed with Support.

I almost wondered if they misspoke, as we are always told that they must be AR'd and Support won't act.

Even so, after I've filed repeated abuse reports, as have others, I usually do go to Support and try to get them to agree to escalate the ticket, citing all the past email copies of my ARs, and sometimes it works.

Expand

Hi Prokofy,

Apologies if that was wasn't clear, but Abuse Related issues cannot be addressed by Support via Live Chat, Phone or Support Ticket. Abuse Reports are needed for this and these do go to the Governance Team to review. As you said, in cases where you can't get the owner of the objects name for the report (such as when particles are floating through the entire region), using Governor Linden is best. In these cases, the location and screen shot of the offending objects are important. When Governance comes out to clean it up, they can get the name of the owner at that time and complete their investigation after things are cleaned up and back to normal again. Otherwise, if it's just one or a few objects, it's best to make sure you have the correct owners name, just in case the object is gone by the time Governance has the chance to come out and take a look.

Posted Tuesday at 10:53 PM

On 8/15/2022 at 9:57 AM, Feorie Frimon said:

It’s my understanding that they are teleporters for an old teen grid combat group.

I remember that from your tour/interview video of the area. It was nice to see that some ancient structures from Second Life's early days are still around.

I don't see these as AR-able, but what do I know?

My experiences with AR-ing actual ad-farms on the former teen continent have been that the issue never gets taken care of. But that's just my experiences, and I went through the tedious process of derendering them all. I'm much more concerned that, while it was eventually resolved, it took months for Linden to act upon numerous AR's to remove a statue glorifying Hitler from a roadside parcel.

On 8/14/2022 at 9:05 PM, xDancingStarx said:

The mesh itself looks fine but it's damn big.

Pretty sure, assuming these are the actual legacy objects made from way back when mesh wasn't even available and not updated copies, that they're made out of good old fashioned prims.

On 8/15/2022 at 8:06 AM, xDancingStarx said:

I admit that the obelisk triggers me way less than the large parcel that appears in the background.

Expand

Same here, those low-flying sky-boxes are the real eye-sore. But that's how the Mainland is. Folks can't just AR something because they find it fugly; There needs to be an actual Ar-able violation of TOS. Without that, all folks can do is derender, and that obelisk & teleporter combo is just two objects -- derendering all that stuff in the skyboxes will take forever.

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Posted Wednesday at 12:43 AM (edited)

On 8/15/2022 at 9:57 AM, Feorie Frimon said:

I was actually going to say the same thing - he messaged me as well to let me pass along that they were swapping them out for something smaller and shorter…. But it doesn’t look like they have.

It’s my understanding that they are teleporters for an old teen grid combat group.

They are objects in an old RP on the Teen Grid that involved Siths.

But these owners are now long past the teen age and the current obelisks are not even for a game.

The owner has no intention of moving them and delights in their annoyance factor as they don't fit under existing TOS rules (seemingly). I have interviewed him at length. They are on a high glow to ensure annoyance is maximum.

But "targeted behaviour intended to annoy" is one of the offenses you can AR ("ad-farming" doesn't exist as an offense at all on the AR menu but is a policy so you can try "targeted behaviour" both for extortion and obelisks of any kind -- and there are at least two deliberately targeted so as to annoy). So I think it's worth ARingn them although years of annoying them to date has had zero effect on Lindens.

This is a resident-to-resident dispute and as such the Lindens will do nothing AND close this thread AND remove content, but let's see how much/whose they remove : )

Edited Wednesday at 12:44 AM by Prokofy Neva

Elena Core, Stephanie Lovely, Eirynne Sieyes and 1 other
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Posted Wednesday at 12:46 AM

On 8/16/2022 at 10:53 PM, Rabid Cheetah said:

I remember that from your tour/interview video of the area. It was nice to see that some ancient structures from Second Life's early days are still around.

I don't see these as AR-able, but what do I know?

My experiences with AR-ing actual ad-farms on the former teen continent have been that the issue never gets taken care of. But that's just my experiences, and I went through the tedious process of derendering them all. I'm much more concerned that, while it was eventually resolved, it took months for Linden to act upon numerous AR's to remove a statue glorifying Hitler from a roadside parcel.

Pretty sure, assuming these are the actual legacy objects made from way back when mesh wasn't even available and not updated copies, that they're made out of good old fashioned prims.

Same here, those low-flying sky-boxes are the real eye-sore. But that's how the Mainland is. Folks can't just AR something because they find it fugly; There needs to be an actual Ar-able violation of TOS. Without that, all folks can do is derender, and that obelisk & teleporter combo is just two objects -- derendering all that stuff in the skyboxes will take forever.

Expand

De-render is not the panacea you imagine, as each new visitor you have then has to de-render, and each new traveler to that sim -- and they are lined up for miles and miles across many sims and you can't just go around de-renderinng them. PS they are in parts to make it not a single-click option, that's deliberate.

It is "targeted behaviour intended to annoy" so can be AR'd as such.

Qie Niangao, Elena Core, Stephanie Lovely and 2 others
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Posted Wednesday at 03:36 AM

On 8/16/2022 at 10:53 PM, Rabid Cheetah said:

Pretty sure, assuming these are the actual legacy objects made from way back when mesh wasn't even available and not updated copies, that they're made out of good old fashioned prims.

Nah, they're mesh. Well, a combination of mesh (the obelisk itself) and prims (the fullbright cyan glowy bits). Appear to date from 2020. The mesh has proper material maps for the rune gibberish on the side, and they're not the most hideous constructions, really, just horridly out of scale, an obviously very intentional F-you to anybody else with land in the vicinity.

On 8/15/2022 at 8:06 AM, xDancingStarx said:

The problem is, if you go by revenue as argument, you would have to prove that people aren't buying land adjacent/close to the microparcels, [...]

That would be a smoking gun, yeah, but that wasn't the argument we made. Rather, the entire Land product was devalued by the risk that an adfarm could suddenly crop up anywhere (and for years, they really did) so it was foolish to buy land, particularly on Mainland. Originally, though, the Lab made (even) more revenue from Estate regions than from Mainland, so they had a perverse incentive to let the adfarmers terrorize residents off the Mainland. (There was speculation that one of the big adfarmers was a Linden alt, but even if true I doubt "petty extortion" was a line item on the Linden balance sheet.)

You, Eirynne Sieyes, Sylvia Tamalyn and 1 other
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Posted Wednesday at 07:48 AM

On 8/17/2022 at 12:46 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

De-render is not the panacea you imagine, as each new visitor you have then has to de-render

Without wanting to drive this thread off topic I just wanna mention that I wish there were the chance to not only blacklist items for myself (as it is the case in at least some viewers) but actually have a parcel blacklist that I can add objects to and that are automatically derendered by parcel visitors.

Qie Niangao, Eirynne Sieyes, Feorie Frimon and 1 other
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Posted Wednesday at 09:53 PM

On 8/17/2022 at 12:43 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

They are objects in an old RP on the Teen Grid that involved Siths.

But these owners are now long past the teen age and the current obelisks are not even for a game.

The owner has no intention of moving them and delights in their annoyance factor as they don't fit under existing TOS rules (seemingly). I have interviewed him at length. They are on a high glow to ensure annoyance is maximum.

But "targeted behaviour intended to annoy" is one of the offenses you can AR ("ad-farming" doesn't exist as an offense at all on the AR menu but is a policy so you can try "targeted behaviour" both for extortion and obelisks of any kind -- and there are at least two deliberately targeted so as to annoy). So I think it's worth ARingn them although years of annoying them to date has had zero effect on Lindens.

This is a resident-to-resident dispute and as such the Lindens will do nothing AND close this thread AND remove content, but let's see how much/whose they remove : )

Expand

I certainly do believe they are targeted to annoy when you are trying to sell land next to one, and I often see these next to land for sale and have been in the position of having to sell land right next door to them more than once. And what happens when the neighbouring land is sold, usually for less than it would have been worth before? It gets carved up for more obelisks. I love the old teen grid and these just ruin so much of it. I won't buy G land anymore because of the problems with these. Just recently I was looking at some mountain land, it was really nice, I gave it some consideration, went back a couple of days later and there were obelisks all over the sim. For me, the impact is exactly the same as living next door to an ad farm, maybe worse because a lot of ad farms aren't tall and glowing. I wish these did fall under the policy because of the nature and sheer quantity of the objects. They are ruining a lot of people's enjoyment of their land. Of course ruining your neighbour's enjoyment of their land with an ugly build is not ARable, but in this case, it is systematic, and it is one person or group having a negative impact on many residents across a large number of regions - exactly the same as ad farms.

You, Qie Niangao, Eirynne Sieyes and 1 other
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Posted yesterday at 07:12 AM

On 8/17/2022 at 9:53 PM, Stephanie Lovely said:

I certainly do believe they are targeted to annoy when you are trying to sell land next to one, and I often see these next to land for sale and have been in the position of having to sell land right next door to them more than once. And what happens when the neighbouring land is sold, usually for less than it would have been worth before? It gets carved up for more obelisks. I love the old teen grid and these just ruin so much of it. I won't buy G land anymore because of the problems with these. Just recently I was looking at some mountain land, it was really nice, I gave it some consideration, went back a couple of days later and there were obelisks all over the sim. For me, the impact is exactly the same as living next door to an ad farm, maybe worse because a lot of ad farms aren't tall and glowing. I wish these did fall under the policy because of the nature and sheer quantity of the objects. They are ruining a lot of people's enjoyment of their land. Of course ruining your neighbour's enjoyment of their land with an ugly build is not ARable, but in this case, it is systematic, and it is one person or group having a negative impact on many residents across a large number of regions - exactly the same as ad farms.

Expand

I AR them any way. And so should you. And so should everyone. Eventually the Lindens get the message. I have them near existing land I've had for ages -- they've spread quite far. And I bought some land where they are anyway, because I don't let them take over. So I'll get a petition going against them and continue to investigate the symbiosis as to how they persist, they have enablers.

Basically, this is part of a wider problem that isn't just "the tragedy of the commons" but is about the ambition some people have to deploy grid-wide programs, even imagined "solutions," and to be visible everywhere, constantly. And I don't think these types should be indulged in this.

Stephanie Lovely and Eirynne Sieyes
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Posted yesterday at 07:19 AM (edited)

On 8/17/2022 at 3:36 AM, Qie Niangao said:

Nah, they're mesh. Well, a combination of mesh (the obelisk itself) and prims (the fullbright cyan glowy bits). Appear to date from 2020. The mesh has proper material maps for the rune gibberish on the side, and they're not the most hideous constructions, really, just horridly out of scale, an obviously very intentional F-you to anybody else with land in the vicinity.

That would be a smoking gun, yeah, but that wasn't the argument we made. Rather, the entire Land product was devalued by the risk that an adfarm could suddenly crop up anywhere (and for years, they really did) so it was foolish to buy land, particularly on Mainland. Originally, though, the Lab made (even) more revenue from Estate regions than from Mainland, so they had a perverse incentive to let the adfarmers terrorize residents off the Mainland. (There was speculation that one of the big adfarmers was a Linden alt, but even if true I doubt "petty extortion" was a line item on the Linden balance sheet.)

Expand

I've never seen evidence that the ad farmers were a Linden alt; it was more like the Lindens were the kind of modern parents that indulged their miscreant children and then didn't know what to do with them. If at one time they had "freedom of expression" and "creativity" as their guiding mantras, they certainly don't now. If at one time they might have cynically encouraged ads and situations to force people to the islands, they don't need to do that now -- and PS they have Bellisseria. Their answer to everything everyone says here is "Bellisseria".

Well, that's not the answer for me and some others, and the rule of law and authentic good neighbourly acts.

I remember as a rank newbie I struggled to build something and left plywood pieces scattered over a nice riverside lot for weeks on end. And someone pointed out to me that this was bad behaviour, that it ruined the view, and if I couldn't finish the build, I should put it up in the sky or go to a skybox.

I was covered with shame when I came out of my tunnel and saw this, not far from where a nearby plywood deployer has left his works out for a year or more despite numerous IMs from me and others.

Why aren't more people covered in shame? What does it take to induce it?

On another front involving domes put too low in the sky, I gathered signatures to a petition, I put up protest billboards, and in a few places, there appeared to be action -- but I actually think the motivation was that the domes weren't renting and so they removed them.

Those so motivated endlessly have the ability to tier up 16m parcels --after all, with merely 4096, you could have 256 of them!

I do think there is a symbiosis here whereby the same or related individuals buy abandoned land, then abandon it -- or unscrupulous dealers carve off 16 m to them. No reputable land dealer should buy, sell, or rent 16m parcels. But it only takes one to ruin the grid.

Edited 10 hours ago by Prokofy Neva

Qie Niangao, Eirynne Sieyes and Stephanie Lovely
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Posted yesterday at 09:06 AM

I'm always travelling round mainland (every day in fact), and honestly, I don't find those sci-fi looking obelisks to be that bad. Sure, in some areas they look out of place - but frankly you can say that about a lot of stuff you pass by on mainland.

At the very least they look fairly well made - certainly much better to look at than all the large square box structures some people have rezzed that are nothing more that a few prim walls using the default plywood texture

Rabid Cheetah, Gabriele Graves, Sylvia Tamalyn and 2 others
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Posted 10 hours ago

On 8/18/2022 at 9:06 AM, Eowyn Southmoor said:

I'm always travelling round mainland (every day in fact), and honestly, I don't find those sci-fi looking obelisks to be that bad. Sure, in some areas they look out of place - but frankly you can say that about a lot of stuff you pass by on mainland.

At the very least they look fairly well made - certainly much better to look at than all the large square box structures some people have rezzed that are nothing more that a few prim walls using the default plywood texture

So the bright glowing doesn't bother you and others in the "like" train. OK then.

Stephanie Lovely and SarahThe Wanderer
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Posted 3 hours ago

10 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

So the bright glowing doesn't bother you and others in the "like" train. OK then.

Nope, none of the ones i've passed seem to be glowing excessively, certainly no worse than going past other kinds of light sources in SL.

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Posted 10 minutes ago

3 hours ago, Eowyn Southmoor said:

Nope, none of the ones i've passed seem to be glowing excessively, certainly no worse than going past other kinds of light sources in SL.

I agree on this one. It’s not my thing, and sure, there are a ton of them…. But isn’t that what mainland is about? We get into dangerous ground if we start saying one persons ‘tastes’ count for everyone and one person gets to decide what’s okay on the mainland.

I mean…. Can’t I erect a reasonably sized full bright low hanging Cheeto and live in it if I want…. on the mainland? I get that people don’t like it, but that is to be expected as we all have different likes and dislikes.

What I’m confused about is I seem to remember being ‘run over the coals’ on these very forums for daring to mention that the Lindens MIGHT USE land in a way that someone else didn’t want to use it - you know… just like this thread is about how some other person is using the Teen Grid teleporty things with their own tier.

And…. the teleporter things aren’t ads? so I they don’t count towards Ad Farming?

The OP keeps saying ‘we live here’… but I dare say that the teen grid teleporty people AlSO live here too. And me, with my make believe full bright giant Cheeto house. And whatever else any other mainlanders wants. We all live here… and we ALL have to find ways to make living here work for all of us - even the people with the giant teen grid teleporter things.

And finally, Prof - You can’t call people names and try to humiliate them publicly, mute them when you don’t want to hear what they have to say, then sneakily unmute months later to engage them again when you want to have someone to fight about something with. You are still muted for me (in all ways) on all platforms for being generally toxic and hateful to me. Honestly, it’s been nice not having to see all the hate you send my way. I am only responding to this one because someone told me that you are talking directly to me. FYI - For unmuting, that has not and will not, change on my end….. even if you add passive aggressive jabs to your posts on these forums. ‘Like train’? Really? Fine.

CHOO CHOO! Chugging chugga chugga

This exact topic has been hashed out at least three times in the last year. This post feels like ‘forum fight’ bait to me from the OP. So, for that reason… I’m out of this thread. Good luck everyone!

Quote

Posted 4 minutes ago

10 minutes ago, Feorie Frimon said:

I agree on this one. It’s not my thing, and sure, there are a ton of them…. But isn’t that what mainland is about? We get into dangerous ground if we start saying one persons ‘tastes’ count for everyone and one person gets to decide what’s okay on the mainland.

I mean…. Can’t I erect a reasonably sized full bright low hanging Cheeto and live in it if I want…. on the mainland? I get that people don’t like it, but that is to be expected as we all have different likes and dislikes.

What I’m confused about is I seem to remember being ‘run over the coals’ on these very forums for daring to mention that the Lindens MIGHT USE land in a way that someone else didn’t want to use it - you know… just like this thread is about how some other person is using the Teen Grid teleporty things with their own tier.

And…. the teleporter things aren’t ads? so I they don’t count towards Ad Farming?

The OP keeps saying ‘we live here’… but I dare say that the teen grid teleporty people AlSO live here too. And me, with my make believe full bright giant Cheeto house. And whatever else any other mainlanders wants. We all live here… and we ALL have to find ways to make living here work for all of us - even the people with the giant teen grid teleporter things.

And finally, Prof - You can’t call people names and try to humiliate them publicly, mute them when you don’t want to hear what they have to say, then sneakily unmute months later to engage them again when you want to have someone to fight about something with. You are still muted for me (in all ways) on all platforms for being generally toxic and hateful to me. Honestly, it’s been nice not having to see all the hate you send my way. I am only responding to this one because someone told me that you are talking directly to me. FYI - For unmuting, that has not and will not, change on my end….. even if you add passive aggressive jabs to your posts on these forums. ‘Like train’? Really? Fine.

CHOO CHOO! Chugging chugga chugga

This exact topic has been hashed out at least three times in the last year. This post feels like ‘forum fight’ bait to me from the OP. So, for that reason… I’m out of this thread. Good luck everyone!

Expand

were you using wacky baccy at this point?

Quote

Author

Posted 2 minutes ago

10 minutes ago, Feorie Frimon said:

I agree on this one. It’s not my thing, and sure, there are a ton of them…. But isn’t that what mainland is about? We get into dangerous ground if we start saying one persons ‘tastes’ count for everyone and one person gets to decide what’s okay on the mainland.

I mean…. Can’t I erect a reasonably sized full bright low hanging Cheeto and live in it if I want…. on the mainland? I get that people don’t like it, but that is to be expected as we all have different likes and dislikes.

What I’m confused about is I seem to remember being ‘run over the coals’ on these very forums for daring to mention that the Lindens MIGHT USE land in a way that someone else didn’t want to use it - you know… just like this thread is about how some other person is using the Teen Grid teleporty things with their own tier.

And…. the teleporter things aren’t ads? so I they don’t count towards Ad Farming?

The OP keeps saying ‘we live here’… but I dare say that the teen grid teleporty people AlSO live here too. And me, with my make believe full bright giant Cheeto house. And whatever else any other mainlanders wants. We all live here… and we ALL have to find ways to make living here work for all of us - even the people with the giant teen grid teleporter things.

And finally, Prof - You can’t call people names and try to humiliate them publicly, mute them when you don’t want to hear what they have to say, then sneakily unmute months later to engage them again when you want to have someone to fight about something with. You are still muted for me (in all ways) on all platforms for being generally toxic and hateful to me. Honestly, it’s been nice not having to see all the hate you send my way. I am only responding to this one because someone told me that you are talking directly to me. FYI - For unmuting, that has not and will not, change on my end….. even if you add passive aggressive jabs to your posts on these forums. ‘Like train’? Really? Fine.

CHOO CHOO! Chugging chugga chugga

This exact topic has been hashed out at least three times in the last year. This post feels like ‘forum fight’ bait to me from the OP. So, for that reason… I’m out of this thread. Good luck everyone!

Expand

Why am I not surprised that Feorie is endorsing the obelisks?

We do live here, and people who have hundreds of 16m parcels of any kind on sims where they do not live or have a store do *not*, most decidedly. THAT is the issue.

They aren't teleporters and no longer have any function.

It's one thing to have something on a parcel where you made a home or business; it's another thing altogether to go across the grid with it and be in many, many people's view. The idea of tolerance is being distorted when it morphs from being tolerant of a neighbour and getting along, to being indulgent to grid-wide projects that are eyesores.

The rest of your notions don't make sense but need not be discussed.

The generic issue here of public interest -- despite concerted efforts to turn it into a "personal dispute" that is "not for the forums" etc. is that some people have grid-wide projects where they put their ads, businesses, builds, and egos into the view all over. So naturally they protect *other* people who do the same. I'm not for grid-wide projects of this type. Again, I think the Lindens are the only ones who should have a networked road-side ad system given the propensity for too many to take over the grid and make people "buy the view". I also think in a world where you can fly and use the map for PTP, you don't need all these other elaborate systems and builds.

Quote

Posted 2 hours ago

2 hours ago, Feorie Frimon said:

I agree on this one. It’s not my thing, and sure, there are a ton of them…. But isn’t that what mainland is about? We get into dangerous ground if we start saying one persons ‘tastes’ count for everyone and one person gets to decide what’s okay on the mainland.

I mean…. Can’t I erect a reasonably sized full bright low hanging Cheeto and live in it if I want…. on the mainland? I get that people don’t like it, but that is to be expected as we all have different likes and dislikes.

What I’m confused about is I seem to remember being ‘run over the coals’ on these very forums for daring to mention that the Lindens MIGHT USE land in a way that someone else didn’t want to use it - you know… just like this thread is about how some other person is using the Teen Grid teleporty things with their own tier.

And…. the teleporter things aren’t ads? so I they don’t count towards Ad Farming?

The OP keeps saying ‘we live here’… but I dare say that the teen grid teleporty people AlSO live here too. And me, with my make believe full bright giant Cheeto house. And whatever else any other mainlanders wants. We all live here… and we ALL have to find ways to make living here work for all of us - even the people with the giant teen grid teleporter things.

And finally, Prof - You can’t call people names and try to humiliate them publicly, mute them when you don’t want to hear what they have to say, then sneakily unmute months later to engage them again when you want to have someone to fight about something with. You are still muted for me (in all ways) on all platforms for being generally toxic and hateful to me. Honestly, it’s been nice not having to see all the hate you send my way. I am only responding to this one because someone told me that you are talking directly to me. FYI - For unmuting, that has not and will not, change on my end….. even if you add passive aggressive jabs to your posts on these forums. ‘Like train’? Really? Fine.

CHOO CHOO! Chugging chugga chugga

This exact topic has been hashed out at least three times in the last year. This post feels like ‘forum fight’ bait to me from the OP. So, for that reason… I’m out of this thread. Good luck everyone!

Expand

were you using wacky baccy at this point?

Quote

Author

Posted 2 hours ago (edited)

2 hours ago, Feorie Frimon said:

I agree on this one. It’s not my thing, and sure, there are a ton of them…. But isn’t that what mainland is about? We get into dangerous ground if we start saying one persons ‘tastes’ count for everyone and one person gets to decide what’s okay on the mainland.

I mean…. Can’t I erect a reasonably sized full bright low hanging Cheeto and live in it if I want…. on the mainland? I get that people don’t like it, but that is to be expected as we all have different likes and dislikes.

What I’m confused about is I seem to remember being ‘run over the coals’ on these very forums for daring to mention that the Lindens MIGHT USE land in a way that someone else didn’t want to use it - you know… just like this thread is about how some other person is using the Teen Grid teleporty things with their own tier.

And…. the teleporter things aren’t ads? so I they don’t count towards Ad Farming?

The OP keeps saying ‘we live here’… but I dare say that the teen grid teleporty people AlSO live here too. And me, with my make believe full bright giant Cheeto house. And whatever else any other mainlanders wants. We all live here… and we ALL have to find ways to make living here work for all of us - even the people with the giant teen grid teleporter things.

And finally, Prof - You can’t call people names and try to humiliate them publicly, mute them when you don’t want to hear what they have to say, then sneakily unmute months later to engage them again when you want to have someone to fight about something with. You are still muted for me (in all ways) on all platforms for being generally toxic and hateful to me. Honestly, it’s been nice not having to see all the hate you send my way. I am only responding to this one because someone told me that you are talking directly to me. FYI - For unmuting, that has not and will not, change on my end….. even if you add passive aggressive jabs to your posts on these forums. ‘Like train’? Really? Fine.

CHOO CHOO! Chugging chugga chugga

This exact topic has been hashed out at least three times in the last year. This post feels like ‘forum fight’ bait to me from the OP. So, for that reason… I’m out of this thread. Good luck everyone!

Expand

Why am I not surprised that Feorie is endorsing the obelisks?

We do live here, and people who have hundreds of 16m parcels of any kind on sims where they do not live or have a store do *not*, most decidedly. THAT is the issue.

They aren't teleporters and no longer have any function.

It's one thing to have something on a parcel where you made a home or business; it's another thing altogether to go across the grid with it and be in many, many people's view. The idea of tolerance is being distorted when it morphs from being tolerant of a neighbour and getting along, to being indulgent to grid-wide projects that are eyesores.

The rest of your notions don't make sense but need not be discussed.

The generic issue here of public interest -- despite concerted efforts to turn it into a "personal dispute" that is "not for the forums" etc. is that some people have grid-wide projects where they put their ads, businesses, builds, and egos into the view all over. So naturally they protect *other* people who do the same. I'm not for grid-wide projects of this type. Again, I think the Lindens are the only ones who should have a networked road-side ad system given the propensity for too many to take over the grid and make people "buy the view". I also think in a world where you can fly and use the map for PTP, you don't need all these other elaborate systems and builds.

Edited 1 hour ago by Prokofy Neva

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Posted 1 hour ago

2 hours ago, belindacarson said:

were you using wacky baccy at this point?

All the time. 😜

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Author

Posted just now

On 8/15/2022 at 4:35 AM, Qie Niangao said:

That's one of the arguments we made that seemed to carry some weight with the Lindens, back when adfarms were a huge problem. Back then, the Lab still entertained the bogus argument that advertising on SL roadways might actually be a thing, as opposed to an exercise in petty extortion as it has always been. It may have sunk in that it was their revenue that adfarms erode, not that of us whining Mainlanders. Eventually they must have realized that all the microparcels owned by every adfarmer, ever, wouldn't total a full region, yet they destroy value of the Lab's whole Land product—vastly exceeding what little they earn in tier. (Something was enough to get the Lindens to overcome their then rabid Libertarian/crypto-anarchist faith, look out for their own interests, and finally regulate the damned things.)

I'm guessing those obelisks are more common on the old Teen Grid regions (now the "Sharp Continent" I guess), based on the "military group that may not even be active anymore" and the Snowlands look of the image: I don't recall encountering any on the Sansara Snowlands, at least along the ONSR where I haunt.

I'd want to measure to be sure, but based on that image they look susceptible to ARs directly citing the official adfarm policy, at least the terms about "must be grounded to the terrain, not floating" and "extend no higher than 8 m from the ground", and maybe others.

[EDIT: Yeah, they're not difficult to find on the Sharp Continent, that's for sure. And they're way taller than 8m, and also non-phantom. I can imagine a Governance person fretting that somebody might find them "historical" and not explicit advertising and on parcels slightly larger than 16 m² —although smaller than the 128 m² size historically considered too suspicious to list in search. They might be worth ARing anyway, just because there are so many of them and they're so intrusive, but it's that very scale that should really be documented in a letter to @Patch Linden because it's his profit center that Governance might be too timid to defend. Do we know: Is there a census of them? And are they all on Sharp?]

[EDIT2: Well, nuts. The owner of (many of?) those obelisks is still active in SL, in fact was logged-in today, according to the member list of an open group. And the obelisk-associated groups still own some larger parcels, too, so it's not a classic adfarm situation. The obelisks are quite the eyesores, scattered on tiny parcels all over that continent for negligible tier, but I can see a legit question of whether they might nonetheless be legit.]

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There is a list of them and there are more than 200 and counting.

They started in Sharp in the days of the Teen Grid, persisted there, and now are all over on many continents -- and spreading.

Sure, efforts should be made to compile a letter to Patch and I will work on that.

They are often on 16 m parcels which they obtained likely by first getting a larger parcel and then abandoning it (Lindens won't sell abandoned 16m parcels any more -- they tell me -- they link them up, unless you can show adjacent land). Or enabling land agents cutting up land on a sim sell them a corner out of another plot.

They put one on each sim, and since the policy is about "one per sim" when it is ads or billboards, then no doubt they think they are "in compliance".

It's all a cynical manipulation of the system.

The ad farm policy isn't just for ad farms, as it was used on people who put scripted boxes to scan land all over and other mysterious purposes.

At this point, there are at least a few more people aware than Ad Farms and their ilk do persist, whereas they may not have before; they get it about the obelisks more than they did -- or they are identified as supporting grid-wide vanity/business/reputation enhancing "community" projects.

The Lindens award the game title "community manager" to people who do enough of these and make them visible enough, and their actual benefit to the public, their actual use by avatars -- all that is beside the point. It's the "idea" of "community". That's why I bother to raise it.

By funneling people with big ideas for the use of the entire grid, or even Linden protected land, to the JIRA, the Lindens in one way get rid of complainers but in another way enable them. Because everyone knows that if your "community management" is aggressive enough, you will get Linden collaboration and Mole glitter. I just think it's worth pointing out that this isn't always in the demonstrable true public's interest. The true public is made up of people who pay tier whose land is devalued by grid-wide projects. I don't think much more can be accomplished on the forums but you can:

1) IM me for a free art work on this subject

2) Discuss inworld a petition campaign.

Edited just now by Prokofy Neva

Mike McGregor · Monday at 09:07 AM

Plea for the best idea, which I expect/suspect is already in the making,...?

I really expect the Second Life Operations team to come up with better ideas for the huge new contignent Belisseria ect. accessible via roads, water and air. You have to think big about such planning.

Namely, the solution regarding the connections by air, water and road - which are currently not there along the entire West Coast on Satori (which will not be solved with the proposals placed above) - must be tackled in a much more structural way and I think the SL Operations team can only solve this with a wide two water sims waterway and one or two huge bridges between the new and the old land: between the continents

One can connect this new waterway in the South with Buffalo Springs and Carmine Sky. Then all the way up to Tuulikki and Atanua: there the connection with the old land has to end and from there you can continue your trip by boat or plane on the existing waterway, because from those sims the route is wide enough.

Actually, I am sure The SL Operating Team wil know how to follow the route with watersims,... In the South a complete fill of the gap with water sims and depending on how they place more North other (water) sims and take a good look at how all this can be solved halfway through Satori. As noted, I'm assuming a waterway that is at least two watersims wide! A new large open sea would then arise. In my view, such a new sea is very justified, if you have housed such gigantic numbers of people in an enormous new contignent and do not place normal infrastructural connections against it.

Moreover, in addition to the fact that on the west coast of Satori it is now not possible to fly and sail (or drive). I would like to say, there are people as well in that part of Satori, who currently lack all connections, and find it necessary to have those. They also pay their bills neatly to LindenLabs every month, they also want to fly or sail to the Blake Sea.

Just imagine what a huge improvement that will be and what new possibilities will arise. Such as for example inter-continental sailing and flying races. The essential connection to the Blake Sea, but also to the entire other ancient land, cannot be completed via the 10 meter wide ditch on the sim Lamashtu.

Petros Aabye · Monday at 09:45 AM

On 8/8/2022 at 9:07 AM, Mike McGregor said:

Plea for the best idea, which I expect/suspect is already in the making,...?

I really expect the Second Life Operations team to come up with better ideas for the huge new contignent Belisseria ect. accessible via roads, water and air. You have to think big about such planning.

Namely, the solution regarding the connections by air, water and road - which are currently not there along the entire West Coast on Satori (which will not be solved with the proposals placed above) - must be tackled in a much more structural way and I think the SL Operations team can only solve this with a wide two water sims waterway and one or two huge bridges between the new and the old land: between the continents

One can connect this new waterway in the South with Buffalo Springs and Carmine Sky. Then all the way up to Tuulikki and Atanua: there the connection with the old land has to end and from there you can continue your trip by boat or plane on the existing waterway, because from those sims the route is wide enough.

Actually, I am sure The SL Operating Team wil know how to follow the route with watersims,... In the South a complete fill of the gap with water sims and depending on how they place more North other (water) sims and take a good look at how all this can be solved halfway through Satori. As noted, I'm assuming a waterway that is at least two watersims wide! A new large open sea would then arise. In my view, such a new sea is very justified, if you have housed such gigantic numbers of people in an enormous new contignent and do not place normal infrastructural connections against it.

Moreover, in addition to the fact that on the west coast of Satori it is now not possible to fly and sail (or drive). I would like to say, there are people as well in that part of Satori, who currently lack all connections, and find it necessary to have those. They also pay their bills neatly to LindenLabs every month, they also want to fly or sail to the Blake Sea.

Just imagine what a huge improvement that will be and what new possibilities will arise. Such as for example inter-continental sailing and flying races. The essential connection to the Blake Sea, but also to the entire other ancient land, cannot be completed via the 10 meter wide ditch on the sim Lamashtu.

Expand

Thoroughly agree with you there Mike. Would be interesting to know at least if there are any further long term plans for additional water. Sailing can't be treated like a Linden railway line, seeing boats feebly struggle to keep to a track or squeeze along a tiny channel carved at the edge os a region. LL know that the lure of the water is big otherwise the explosion / demand of houseboats & Stilts would not have happened, or the myriad of rivers in some of the new land. There creation of Blake's Sea many years ago after the approach by the sailing community brought a whole new life to SL that still thrives to this day. Developing new, wider areas of sea would also take the pressure off the coastal areas of Blake where group purchase of land with Protected Water access for rental concerns is rife. There is another complication as you touched on, which is the one of aviation. Due to banlines, insta blocks, the interior of mainland is a nightmare for flyers, therefore they prefer to fly along the Protected Waterways, understandably. However this also means airports are contructed along the coasts, generally between 50 & 100m high (so that owners can try to make some money with mooring rentals beneath). Unfortunately we don't know how much abandoned land there is in the interior but no doubt LL have land management maps they can easily refer to - but if there is a general glut of dormant land in there, could there be a case for LL creating 'Air Corridors' across continents, the land over which they cross be subject to a build covenant (height restrictions, less Li, No Ban Lines etc) but then offered for sale at a reduced Tier. Yes, less tier revenue on the face of it but increased because in the long run there would be less abandoned land. Aviation Groups would see the practicalities of cheaper land (most of it tarmac & concrete) joined by guaranteed air routes. This may at last see some of the coastline revealed once more instead of buried under massive airports. (Just fly along the north shore of Satori and see how many airports stand at 60m along there with no coastline to be seen). I know this may seem at fist glance to be off topic but the creation of new Linden Home Regions should be done with a global picture - which I'm sure it is........ by the way has anyone seen that Evergreen container ship blocking the Belli ship canal?

SarahKB7 Koskinen · Monday at 09:51 AM

I disagree. New water sims north of Stromberg are not needed.

I was able to sail HMS Dragon (10m wide and 120m long) from Atanua southwards through the narrow protected water channel in Chloris and Atira to the new pier in Chiffre. And it was easy.

All you need to do is ride along the outer border edge of these sims at a low speed. As long as the root/physics prim of your vessel stays in the water channel, it's quite an easy manoeuvre.

Also, the wider water which lays between Satori proper and these coastal parcels is also fully navigable, although one parcel has a 45 second timer that will kick you home.

Using your minimap Property Lines filter to show parcel boundaries helps with navigation too.

Edited Monday at 10:55 AM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

Mike McGregor · Monday at 10:00 AM

I really like virtual sailing and up-wind you just need the space. I hope the Lindens read my plea and I hope they take into account essential amenities appropriate to the size of the world (read: Bellisseria) they've created.

diamond Marchant · Monday at 01:17 PM

On 8/8/2022 at 10:00 AM, Mike McGregor said:

I really like virtual sailing and up-wind you just need the space. I hope the Lindens read my plea and I hope they take into account essential amenities appropriate to the size of the world (read: Bellisseria) they've created.

Happy to have you aboard team "connect the continents". At present, most of us are looking for any connectivity of Linden protected waters and if that is a mere 10m channel on a region edge, so be it. We are but 6 regions from connecting Bellisseria to the Blake YaY! These things are coming in baby steps, but steps none the less.

diamond Marchant · Monday at 01:37 PM

On 8/8/2022 at 9:45 AM, Petros Aabye said:

by the way has anyone seen that Evergreen container ship blocking the Belli ship canal?

ha ha I checked... all is well

btw, PBS Nova made an episode about it... Why Ships Crash quick take... wind blew the Evergreen toward the bank. It speeded up to get more control but the hydrodynamics of increased speed and the shallow bank resulted in an effect of sucking the ship towards the bank. Ships that did not speed up did ok.

Edited Monday at 01:42 PM by diamond Marchant
usual typos

Nika Talaj · Monday at 01:49 PM

On 8/8/2022 at 9:51 AM, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I was able to sail HMS Dragon (10m wide and 120m long) from Atanua southwards through the narrow protected water channel in Chloris and Atira to the new pier in Chiffre.

Just to be very clear about Mike's point, you did not "sail" your Dragon through those channels. You BOATED under power through those channels.

If you are attempting to actually sail, a10m wide waterway can be a nightmare of continuous tacking and jibing, something Abnor at least knows well. But SL sailors who are not absolute purists have options:

1. Change the wind so you can run downwind for the entire channel.

2. Get a sailboat where you can drop sail and proceed under power if need be - I believe all the Bwind and Bandit boats can. For verisimilitude, SL sailboats under power often have slower top speeds than actual power boats.

Having a rez zone at both ends of a multiregion narrow channel could help the situation, too - you could change to a speedboat until open water is available.

diamond Marchant · Monday at 05:01 PM

On 8/8/2022 at 1:49 PM, Nika Talaj said:

If you are attempting to actually sail, a10m wide waterway can be a nightmare of continuous tacking and jibing, something Abnor at least knows well. But SL sailors who are not absolute purists have options:

Yes. In groups such as the Leeward Crusing Club, we actually enjoy venturing into channels. As you mention, we have the option of charting a course ahead of time, configuring navigation HUDs, and setting the wind so that using sails (rather than a motor) works. We also make it clear that sailors are free to use any wind speed/direction and/or a motor. Below is a sample chart.

Edited Monday at 05:02 PM by diamond Marchant

Marianne Little · Tuesday at 04:15 AM

On 8/8/2022 at 9:51 AM, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I disagree. New water sims north of Stromberg are not needed.

I was able to sail HMS Dragon (10m wide and 120m long) from Atanua southwards through the narrow protected water channel in Chloris and Atira to the new pier in Chiffre. And it was easy.

All you need to do is ride along the outer border edge of these sims at a low speed. As long as the root/physics prim of your vessel stays in the water channel, it's quite an easy manoeuvre.

Also, the wider water which lays between Satori proper and these coastal parcels is also fully navigable, although one parcel has a 45 second timer that will kick you home.

Using your minimap Property Lines filter to show parcel boundaries helps with navigation too.

Expand

I do not call that sailing, as much as transportation from A to B.

Riding on a border edge is very restrictive, the boat is set on a track it can not move from. You can move away from the edge, but in reality you can't because it is no room over long distances.

That is how I am thinking. The point is to sail as long a distance as possible.

Mike McGregor · Tuesday at 04:25 AM

On 8/8/2022 at 1:49 PM, Nika Talaj said:

But SL sailors who are not absolute purists have options:

Thank you Nika,
With races a Race Director [RD] tells us how the wind blows and what the speed must be. And of course I never cheat.

My plea is for the complete West Coast of Satori, Inclusieve from Imelza up to Stromberg. Those shoreline sims there are currently among the slums of Second Life. While it is so easy to solve that right away.

Edited Tuesday at 05:18 AM by Mike McGregor

SarahKB7 Koskinen · Tuesday at 05:24 AM

So you want a two region wide Satori coastal boat channel from Imelza up to Stromberg? This would be a total of 38 water sim regions.

Who pays for these 38 regions? They aren't "free" just because they're empty water spaces. They would need space on the AWS servers, all of which need to be paid for each day/week/month/year.

I also once had similar hopes for that same route, but "only" using 19 regions, which was ultimately rejected because I was told 19 new water regions would be too expensive.

And you want 38 of them, plus possibly an additional 11 more north of Stromberg too because you're too much of a "sailing purist" to ride along some sim border edges?! 🤣

Edited Tuesday at 07:15 AM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

Mike McGregor · Tuesday at 06:39 AM

On 8/9/2022 at 5:24 AM, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I also once had similar hopes for that same route, but "only" using 19 regions, which was ultimately rejected because I was told 19 new water regions would be too expensive.

If I may ask, who told you that? Was that on this forum and when (where)?

SarahKB7 Koskinen · Tuesday at 06:47 AM

Through my own and other people's various Feature Request JIRA proposals to LL.

Edited Tuesday at 07:06 AM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

Aethelwine · Tuesday at 08:33 AM

On 8/9/2022 at 6:47 AM, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Through my own and other people's various Feature Request JIRA proposals to LL.

I think I would take your Jira response as a not now (back a year ago?) rather than a never type reply.

I will be over the moon with a Stromberg connection and will happily use it for cruise routes, but I think Atanua still something to hope for.

The 10m wide channel from Stromberg is very narrow and especially so on the corner. Reliably traversing the route depends on the goodwill of landowners especially on that corner. As a recent thread illustrated many would see no wrong buying that land up and effectively blocking it with security measures. No other intercontinental connection are so narrow. A one region wide line of regions up to Atanua is a relatively modest proposal compared to the two region wide connections elsewhere.

diamond Marchant · Tuesday at 10:56 AM

On 8/9/2022 at 4:25 AM, Mike McGregor said:

My plea is for the complete West Coast of Satori, Inclusieve from Imelza up to Stromberg.

That is not needed by sailors as we already have a north/south route to Satori via new regions in Bellisseria.

Thought experiment... if stacks of protected open water regions were constructed there... what would actually happen?

1) Sailors would have a second north/south route.

2) Linden Lab would have additional expenses.

3) Coastal landowners in the newly connected regions would experience windfall profits.

Should Linden Lab have some extra regions, I would prioritize connecting Bellisseria to the East River in Sansara.

SarahKB7 Koskinen · Tuesday at 11:10 AM

In an ideal virtual world where south-west Satori had a wider coastline, I would hope to see the respective parcel owners in these numerous regions being a lot more cooperative with each other and organising communal water space areas in each sim, creating harbours and boat channels to allow boats to sail in (and out) from the wider grid.

Edited Tuesday at 02:35 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

diamond Marchant · Tuesday at 11:31 AM

On 8/9/2022 at 8:33 AM, Aethelwine said:

The 10m wide channel from Stromberg is very narrow and especially so on the corner.

Here is a slightly revised map of the protected water path from Stromberg to Atanua, showing channel widths. There is a 90 degree corner in the SW corner of Eostre and a 90 degree corner in the NW corner of Chuginadak. We do depend on governance to keep these channels free from overhangs.

Coffee Pancake · Tuesday at 11:38 AM

On 8/9/2022 at 4:25 AM, Mike McGregor said:

Those shoreline sims there are currently among the slums of Second Life. While it is so easy to solve that right away.

The sailing community winning friends as usual ...

Posted Tuesday at 11:47 AM

On 8/9/2022 at 11:38 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

On 8/9/2022 at 4:25 AM, Mike McGregor said:

Those shoreline sims there are currently among the slums of Second Life. While it is so easy to solve that right away.

The sailing community winning friends as usual ...

Many of those properties are quite nice There are occasional challenges when flying over them

Petros Aabye, Mike McGregor and Persephone Emerald
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Posted Tuesday at 12:00 PM

On 8/9/2022 at 11:31 AM, diamond Marchant said:

Here is a slightly revised map of the protected water path from Stromberg to Atanua, showing channel widths. There is a 90 degree corner in the SW corner of Eostre and a 90 degree corner in the NW corner of Chuginadak. We do depend on governance to keep these channels free from overhangs.

Expand

It doesn't take much of a slow handover in that Chuginodak corner to end up on someone's land. There are 3 parcels there fortunately currently in sympathetic land owner's hands... but depending on their goodwill for an intercontinental connection doesn't seem wise as a long-term plan.

Persephone Emerald, Eirynne Sieyes, diamond Marchant and 1 other
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Posted Tuesday at 12:31 PM

on another topic:

Anyone have a clue as to what we can expect next from LL regarding the homes? Will there be any additional styles this calendar year? How about updates to the Traditionals?

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Posted Tuesday at 12:52 PM

In the real world projects on this scale are exposed in the open by the initiators and project developers. The users may then shoot or embrace it. Apparently things are different in Secondlife. In this world we have to wait and see what 'people' (I don't know them) have come up with for us. In itself this is remarkable and at the same time the source of all speculation. It would be so much better if LindenLabs were a little more transparant, clearer. I can handle that. And it's always nice to be surprised!

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Posted Tuesday at 02:02 PM

On 8/9/2022 at 11:38 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

The sailing community winning friends as usual ...

I've tried to smarten up and open up some of this area, showed Diamond a part last year.

Most of the water is open, with most neighbours leaving it that way for passage.

I will put an LCC Rez post & clubhouse in there if it was ever open to the sea. Currently the area is openly adevtised as a place for mermaid community to swim around. Fendhal & Absorbaloff.

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Posted Tuesday at 04:50 PM (edited)

This plea was also posted by one of the land holders in Khan (where there is a small corner of protected water connecting to the strip at Blofeld and Klebb).

The region owners at Blofeld have it all accessible. Most of the water at Klebb is currently as well, though a large parcel of land and water there is for sale, so that could soon become blocked.

I think it's wonderful that Bellisseria is getting all this water to go boating on, but owners of mainland are paying for Premium subscriptions, so it would be nice if they could get a bit more sailable coastline too.

Edited Tuesday at 04:54 PM by Persephone Emerald

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Posted Tuesday at 07:58 PM (edited)

Now that's very interesting, I never realised until now that there are protected boat channels along the coasts of Blofeld and Klebb. I'll have to go looking for more!

EDIT: I've just finished looking around all the 19 sims south of Stromberg and have confirmed Blofeld, Klebb and a tiny southwest corner area of Khan are the only sims with protected coastlines.

Edited yesterday at 08:47 AM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

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Posted Tuesday at 09:36 PM

On 8/9/2022 at 12:52 PM, Mike McGregor said:

Apparently things are different in Secondlife. In this world we have to wait and see what 'people' (I don't know them) have come up with for us. In itself this is remarkable

Is it remarkable? It might be better to compare SL to other "games", rather than the real world (tempting tho that may be because of SL's extensive continents). There are many MMOGs that allow users to create content, but are there any that give users a voice in defining new content that the game makers are developing?

[Honest question, I know very little about other MMOGs]

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Posted yesterday at 03:01 AM (edited)

On 8/9/2022 at 9:36 PM, Nika Talaj said:

Is it remarkable? It might be better to compare SL to other "games", rather than the real world (tempting tho that may be because of SL's extensive continents).

You are absolutely right, of course it is more realistic to compare SL with other games and not with real life. But I don't know anything about other 'games', if you can call SL a game? The moment you yell 'Hi' in my IM, you are already in my real life. That's how I feel.

I'm someone who even thinks it's a good idea to create an electable civilian board in SL, hence. An electable participation committee would be a good start. This is just a wish! I am not telling others what to do, please. Sure hell, SL would become ungovernable,...

I do know that the residents in SL build the content (partly), but at the moment they have nothing to say about the infrastructure. That's a little 'shame', I won't change that, my contribution may even be undesirable if I read some of the comments here. I'm just trying to create a better and, above all, optimally usable world. No, I don't pay attention to the costs. A new sea strait between Bellisseria and the Blake Sea (the old land) is also just a wish, but probably the best idea.

Edited yesterday at 06:45 AM by Mike McGregor

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Posted yesterday at 10:53 AM

On 8/10/2022 at 3:01 AM, Mike McGregor said:

You are absolutely right, of course it is more realistic to compare SL with other games and not with real life. But I don't know anything about other 'games', if you can call SL a game? The moment you yell 'Hi' in my IM, you are already in my real life. That's how I feel.

The moment you sit down to use a game or any other application on your computer, you're already in your real life, just like every other moment between your birth and death.

Alexina Proctor, Mike McGregor, Petros Aabye and 1 other
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Posted yesterday at 12:00 PM

On 8/10/2022 at 3:01 AM, Mike McGregor said:

I'm someone who even thinks it's a good idea to create an electable civilian board in SL, hence. An electable participation committee would be a good start. This is just a wish! I am not telling others what to do, please. Sure hell, SL would become ungovernable,...

This thread will be FOUR years old on August 20. It has provided hours of entertainment for those of us who enjoy speculating about something we have no real knowledge about. The policy of Linden Labs has been to provide no details about the future... just vague statements about "new themes" or something might happen "soon". A good insight comes from @Abnor Mole, who has shared that "regions must pay for themselves".

Given the current state of affairs, I believe this policy of opaqueness is entirely justified. In the scheme of things, Second Life is super tiny. We have but 40,000 active users on a good day... we could all sit in Fenway Park and watch a Red Sox game (baseball). Additionally, we are not growing which is not a good look for any business. The best we can hope for is that Linden Labs is breaking even so that the decision to shut us down is not a no-brainer. They do not have the luxury of telling us what they are planning, much less allowing us to participate in any meaningful way.

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Posted yesterday at 12:07 PM

On 8/10/2022 at 12:00 PM, diamond Marchant said:

This thread will be FOUR years old on August 20. It has provided hours of entertainment for those of us who enjoy speculating about something we have no real knowledge about. The policy of Linden Labs has been to provide no details about the future... just vague statements about "new themes" or something might happen "soon". A good insight comes from @Abnor Mole, who has shared that "regions must pay for themselves".

Given the current state of affairs, I believe this policy of opaqueness is entirely justified. In the scheme of things, Second Life is super tiny. We have but 40,000 active users on a good day... we could all sit in Fenway Park and watch a Red Sox game (baseball). Additionally, we are not growing which is not a good look for any business. The best we can hope for is that Linden Labs is breaking even so that the decision to shut us down is not a no-brainer. They do not have the luxury of telling us what they are planning, much less allowing us to participate in any meaningful way.

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This is so insightful and a sad reality about Second Life. They're not giving us actual metrics so we don't know the actual growth rate, but if it is growing at all, I would guess not by much. In some ways I think Linden Lab is not trying to please the current user base, they already have our money and attention. What they want is to attract younger crowds, the tiktok-ers, etc. What do THEY want? Linden Lab is spending a lot of time and money attracting them with music venues (Club Arcane), comic regions, games, etc.

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Posted yesterday at 12:48 PM (edited)

On 8/10/2022 at 12:07 PM, AzureWaves said:

This is so insightful and a sad reality about Second Life. They're not giving us actual metrics so we don't know the actual growth rate, but if it is growing at all, I would guess not by much. In some ways I think Linden Lab is not trying to please the current user base, they already have our money and attention. What they want is to attract younger crowds, the tiktok-ers, etc. What do THEY want? Linden Lab is spending a lot of time and money attracting them with music venues (Club Arcane), comic regions, games, etc.

I think it should be at least moderately encouraging that Bellisseria is growing so fast. Remember that LL doesn't want to build new regions if they don't think they'll pay off. Every one of these regions represent about 20 people paying for a Premium subscription. Of course some houses will be empty, but LL must have data to make them think there won't be too many empty ones.

I suspect some of this growth is in preparation for removing the old Linden Home regions, but those aren't that full. What is being added is far more than what will be necessary to absorb those Premium account holders.

Edited yesterday at 12:59 PM by Persephone Emerald

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Posted yesterday at 02:50 PM

On 8/10/2022 at 10:53 AM, Theresa Tennyson said:

The moment you sit down to use a game or any other application on your computer, you're already in your real life, just like every other moment between your birth and death.

Yes and no. I think it is important to remember that for a WHOLE LOT of people, gaming, particularly SL, is all about escapism. In SL you can easily escape to be a completely new persona, you can use SL as a scratch pad to develop new traits, you can escape limitations of your real life to be the person that you may always have imagined yourself to be ... a person whom those who see you daily in real life DO NOT KNOW.

A person whom those who you interact with daily (perhaps not positively) ... cannot reach.

Persephone Emerald, Marisa Starbrook, Leora Greenwood and 4 others
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Posted yesterday at 02:57 PM (edited)

On 8/10/2022 at 10:53 AM, Theresa Tennyson said:

The moment you sit down to use a game or any other application on your computer, you're already in your real life, just like every other moment between your birth and death.

Now we're getting philosophical,...

(Sometimes I meet people that like to separate there SL from there RL)

All is Real Life, I agree!! This means there are (yes/no) computer games, and (yes/no) virtual worlds, but indeed if you look at it that way. That, then, is the moment my father impregnated my mother,... That, me, when I was 15, and bought a computer, is an afterthought. It won't be long before I die, I'm so terribly old already. Kiss, smarty pants. I think I have said enough and move on.

I think this forum is perfect, I am just joking!

Edited yesterday at 03:29 PM by Mike McGregor
I think this forum is perfect, I am just joking!

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Posted yesterday at 03:35 PM

Second Life is not actively trying to attract the under-25s, they can't because that age group is playing games like FFXIV, Genshin Impact, League of Legends, PUBG, Smite, Apex, Fortnite, even Overwatch. They want to build a house? They play Minecraft or Roblox.

SL's largest population is aging and happy with opening our wallets to pay for fake houses and bodies/faces. We are what is referred to in the gaming industry as "whales" (FFXIV even has a flying whale mount you can buy in an ironic meta humor reference). One of my gamer friends calls people like us "wallet warriors" since we pay to win - and winning in SL means more land, bigger houses, more clothes/accessories, etc.

People over the past few years have been whisper-screaming "metaverse!" and I think the Lab figured they might be able to capitalize on this trend. I just don't think they can make it happen, and I think the whole idea of a true metaverse is a fallacy anyway. When a company only gets a couple thousand views on their You-Tube videos about their product, Twitch has banned them because mass amounts of adult content could pop out at any time, and there's no real way to make TikTok vids within the game - Linden Lab has bigger problems than being a part of the "metaverse."

The fact that the Lab is investing money in expanding Bellisseria is proof that the wallet warriors are the true kings and queens of SL and the ones who pay their bills. They've never been 100% forthcoming with what their future plans are about anything in the game, but that is typical of all gaming companies. Bless their hearts, though, Linden Lab keeps trying to evolve even as they come up with Premium Plus to help keep the lights on, the moles paid and the servers running while they try (once again) to figure out how to be more socially relevant. I truly wish them luck, after all I've been kicking around this game for over 19 years myself.

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Posted yesterday at 07:06 PM

I think the LDPW has made the channel at SSP Landho and SSP Josie Banks wider than it was originally. Looking at the channel on the north east end of what might be a water passage between the Newbrooks and Chalets, I wonder if they'll widen it on that end too?

Leora Greenwood, Marianne Little, vahiti Yiwama and 1 other
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Posted 7 hours ago

Remarkable progress by the moles, this is how far north the new land now extends:

Leora Greenwood, Persephone Emerald, Nika Talaj and 3 others
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Posted 6 hours ago

The new area is largish. I flew around its edges and did not see any sharply cut off land, but Abnor is still there creating it, so didn't take pics. On its east edge it extends straight up for 4 new regions from the current regions, is 3 regions wide at its top, and then on the west there are a couple of stairsteps making it broader until it rejoins the existing houseboat regions. If that whole area will be houseboats, when they're done they will have built a continent of houseboats larger than Sakura now is.

Also, in other news, I've never seen this before. Most of the tile buildout area up in SSP land are offline, except for specially named ones. The regions seem to still exist at this moment, tho who knows, perhaps on their way out ...

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Moles

Posted 5 hours ago (edited)

On 8/10/2022 at 7:06 PM, Persephone Emerald said:

I wonder if they'll widen it on that end too?

Hmmm. Considering that would essentially involve moving and redoing everything on at least half the region... including terraforming, parcels, infrastructure, and every bit of content squeezed by the widening of the waterway... AND another full QA pass... If the question is "Are we going to take a region that is completed, done and ready for release to make a water channel a few meters wider?" Let me see...

Edited 5 hours ago by Abnor Mole

Lloyd Overland, Persephone Emerald, Alexina Proctor and 6 others
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Posted 5 hours ago (edited)

5 hours ago, Abnor Mole said:

Hmmm. Since that would essentially involve moving everything on at least half the region... including terraforming, parcels, infrastructure, and every bit of content squeezed by the widening of the waterway... If the question is "Are we going to take a region that is completed, done and ready for release to make a water channel a few meters wider?" Let me see...

Expand

I was not expecting all that anyway. Maybe one house changed from a 1024 m to a 512 m parcel and then the sidewalk in front of it moved back? But given that the region is close to release, I didn't really expect that either.

Thanks for the reply, and it's better than "Reply hazy, ask again".

Edited 5 hours ago by Persephone Emerald

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Posted 5 hours ago (edited)

From the official SL Map website... https://maps.secondlife.com/index.php?q=Stromberg

Stromberg: "I've been expecting you, Mr Bond!"

SSPTiedown Inlet: "Eh? Err, I'm not James Bond and how the hell did you find me?"

Stromberg: "By using my Super Secret Pointy-clicky (SSP) SL Map machine!"

SSPTiedown Inlet: "Oh okaaaaay.... err, nice to meet you?!"

Stromberg: "And I see you've brought fifteen other spies too!"

SSPTiedown Inlet: "Are you feeling quite alright, Mr Stromberg?! It can't be easy being stuck out here alone for so very long."

Stromberg: "But Mr Bond! I am not alone! *manic laughter* This continent is full of other SPECTRE Agent named sims!"

SSPTiedown Inlet: *blinks*

😜

Edited 4 hours ago by SarahKB7 Koskinen

Daniel Voyager, Persephone Emerald and Leora Greenwood
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Posted 5 hours ago

5 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

From the official SL Map website...

Stromberg: "Hello there! I've been expecting you for a very long time, Mr Bond!"

SSPTiedown Inlet: "Eh? Err, I'm not James Bond and how the hell did you find me?"

Stromberg: "From my Super Secret Pointy-clicky (SSP) SL Map machine!"

SSPTiedown Inlet: "Oh okaaaaay.... Anyway, nice to meet you, neighbour!"

Stromberg: "And I see you've brought fifteen other secret agents too!"

SSPTiedown Inlet: "Are you feeling quite alright, Mr Stromberg?!"

😜

Expand

Two more regions! Two more regions!

/me does a happy dance. 💃 😃

Leora Greenwood, SarahKB7 Koskinen and Daniel Voyager
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Posted 4 hours ago (edited)

I found Stromberg is also the name of a German comedy series inspired by The Office.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0428167/

Edited 4 hours ago by Persephone Emerald

SarahKB7 Koskinen and Leora Greenwood
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Posted 4 hours ago (edited)

There's a replica of the James Bond villain Karl Stromberg's secret underwater lair (called Atlantis) hidden in SL. But unlike in the film, it's not underwater. It's inside a huge volcano found in the final level stage sim of the Linden Realms game regions!

Try not to steal Magellan's whisky if you find it....

Edited 3 hours ago by SarahKB7 Koskinen

Posted 2 hours ago

SSP Shell Yeah has an interesting island with a flat green top.

SSP Tiedown Inlet has a deep channel facing Stromberg.

Daniel Voyager, Nando Yip, Nika Talaj and 2 others
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Posted 2 hours ago

Bugs bunny views the new land area 😂

Not much here for rabbits.

Nika Talaj, Persephone Emerald, Nando Yip and 1 other
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Posted 57 minutes ago (edited)

copy that.... just a two region connector and OMG!!!! we at Stromberg. They added rows of 5, 4, 4, and 3... total of 12 regions, mixed Newbrookes and Houseboats. Appears to be THE END of northeasterly expansion as this block is surrounded by water channels on all nothern borders.

Edited 13 minutes ago by diamond Marchant

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Posted 52 minutes ago (edited)

On 8/9/2022 at 9:36 PM, Nika Talaj said:

Is it remarkable? It might be better to compare SL to other "games", rather than the real world (tempting tho that may be because of SL's extensive continents). There are many MMOGs that allow users to create content, but are there any that give users a voice in defining new content that the game makers are developing?

[Honest question, I know very little about other MMOGs]

FreeSO, which is a reverse-engineered and updated version of the old EA.com The Sims Online, which has a small but avid core of devs and users, put in the commuty voting program for "mayors" which used to (sort of) function in the original TSO. And then there are options to chose which regions go in the community and their themes and activities. It's not exactly democracy, because you need an independent judiciary and free press and free civil society for democracy to function, and no virtual world ever has that.

I continue to think that the JIRA is the worst place for land requests, as it is supposed to be for software and is quite undemocratic and wonky to use.

I think the Features Voting System we once had should be returned, and collect a simple up-and-down yes/no vote on each proposal, and when a proposal reaches X minimal votes, it should get a Linden comment of "can't do" or "do," whereupon it can continue to collect votes, but with the understanding is that it will not be a priority.

Edited 51 minutes ago by Prokofy Neva

Nika Talaj
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Posted 38 minutes ago

51 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I think the Features Voting System we once had should be returned, and collect a simple up-and-down yes/no vote on each proposal

Prok, read the room. We are all wetting our pants over the new regions that just dropped. No time atm for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (sorry for the worn out cliche).

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Posted 29 minutes ago (edited)

On 8/10/2022 at 3:01 AM, Mike McGregor said:

You are absolutely right, of course it is more realistic to compare SL with other games and not with real life. But I don't know anything about other 'games', if you can call SL a game? The moment you yell 'Hi' in my IM, you are already in my real life. That's how I feel.

I'm someone who even thinks it's a good idea to create an electable civilian board in SL, hence. An electable participation committee would be a good start. This is just a wish! I am not telling others what to do, please. Sure hell, SL would become ungovernable,...

I do know that the residents in SL build the content (partly), but at the moment they have nothing to say about the infrastructure. That's a little 'shame', I won't change that, my contribution may even be undesirable if I read some of the comments here. I'm just trying to create a better and, above all, optimally usable world. No, I don't pay attention to the costs. A new sea strait between Bellisseria and the Blake Sea (the old land) is also just a wish, but probably the best idea.

Expand

I don't know if you're aware of the fact that one group of residents who started an RP group for fun called "Bellisserian Bureaucratic Bureaucracy" in fact surprisingly (or not, if you know SL history) morphed into *the* resident "civilian board" that the Lindens now deal with on Bellisseria on a variety of issues, whether "exploration" with their stamp game or events on public lands or various schemes to encourage premium accounts and Mainland "nature".

So you could try to get into this group, which seems to have a very severe vetting process both on the Linden side and the resident side (it's a hybrid group really) -- good luck!

As for Mainland proper, or "Legacy Mainland" (the Lindens do not treat Bellisseria as "Mainland" and it is not part of Governor Linden's large Estate, which is all of the old Mainland) -- nothing can stop you from forming something like the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, which is on islands. You can start it, and see who shows up. You can try to get the Lindens to pay attention. Good luck!

In the old days, there were meaningful Town Halls, meaningful workshops (such as on reform of the Group Tools) and meaningful meetings with Philip Linden and other top Lindens on vital matters such as a code of conduct for LL, a policy to end Linden endorsement of resident businesses (since abandoned), deployment of telehubs, and the telehub land buyback plan. I think since those days, following the "Virtual World Winter" after the boom in 2006-2007, there hasn't been anything like this "Magna Carta" effort of sorts.

I find there is only one way to "vote" in SL: 1) pay tier or 2) abandon land. When enough people pay tier or buy premiums, the Lindens keep doing the thing (Bellisseria). When enough people abandon land (continents without roads and water), the Lindens don't keep doing a thing (maintenance, building).

The only real way to get something done on land is to buy it, alone or in groups, and put in what you want, like Corsica South Coast and other such Mainland communities.

Again, in the old days, when there were furious fights over resources on every level, three main political groupings were formed to lobby the Lindens, and their antics on the forums cause the Lindens to entirely shut down "General Discussion" to control them (I'm not counting the griefers' group which led to Philip banning about 50 accounts in the early days).

Roughtly speaking, these groups were:

1) Leftists, consisting of oldbies, scripters, designers, Linden friends or even past/future Lindens, who treated SL as a "platform" and were known as "platformistas";

2) Centrists, who wanted regulated commerce, rules for Mainland to encourage nice verisimilitude - they were "worlders".

3) Conservatives, mainly big land barons who wanted less regulated commerce or policies favourable to themselves like bulk discounts.

Thus groups like "Metaverse Justice Watch" was born and hotly contested by warring factions.

Today, most of the loudest voices in these old groups are gone completely from SL.

I do think it is time to have a more conscious Mainland lobbying group, which is why I started Mainland Appreciation Society, by I really don't have the capacity to lobby Lindens other than by those two methods I mentioned above: 1) pay tier 2) abandon land. Pro tip: MonCierge meetings are NOT a place to lobby Lindens, as these Lindens are among the most powerless, with the least amount of clout within management.

The real action is in the code-cave meetings like "Web Developer" or "Server" etc which are meetings largely populated by computer specialists but which could really use some attendance and sharp questioning from informed "norms". Follow all the YouTubes thoughtfully provided by Pantera on YouTube; read all of Inara Pey's summaries, and jump in with pointed requests.

It's shocking to compare and contrast the MonCierge and the code meetings. In the former, very nice and helpful Lindens listen to your woes, and try to suggest remedies, but are reduced mainly to telling you to file a ticket and then fill the silence by reading off the Linden blog which we already read.

By contrast, the code meetings often have more Lindens than residents, and powerful Lindens who actually run the code and decide on their own about the features from that code, without even "troika" input (and I'm not even sure which Lindens make up the troika these days). Firestorm developers laze along the decks of Linden offices, or skate around or jump with their shoulder pets while Lindens lavish them with praise for doing this or that code chore and ask how fast they need this or that little thing to be coded *and it is*. It's just SHOCKING.

Of course, the things they ask for and do sometimes seem obscure, like "fix avatar foot shadows" or "the rising moon is blue" or "jpegs of X size won't load under Y and Z odd circumstances". Yet occasionally, they casually announce that they're "going to get rid of the ability to comment on reviews on the MP" -- because some diva's feelings were hurt in these meetings and stamped her little foot until it was done.

Nota bene: when these very forums were recently nerfed, and there simply *had* to be some outlet for protest and Linden engagement, the Lindens steered those people who could break away during the work day to a Web meeting (coders) and wheeled out Kiera Linden to field questions. This at least created a pipeline in theory for complaints by emailing her (see how far that goes).

As I said it is SHOCKING. But it all cries out for engagement if you have the stamina. I go to one meeting a year. I may increase this to two. But I'm old and sick. You sound like a strong young fellow.

Edited 25 minutes ago by Prokofy Neva

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Posted 21 minutes ago (edited)

38 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Prok, read the room. We are all wetting our pants over the new regions that just dropped. No time atm for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (sorry for the worn out cliche).

I'm not answering the pants-wetters but the person who made the interesting comment, McGregor. The "room" that you imagine needs to be "read" consists only of the tiny percentage of people who can play "Game of Homes" with multiple accounts, not the bulk of even the Bellisserian residents.

The issue of how the continents connect up, and the issue of how waterways on Legacy Mainland function especially on the way to Bellisseria, remains BURNING. Read THAT room which isn't only in this thread. As a non-sailor (I just ride the railroads or my Megapuss on the roads), I don't have a stake in this issue, except to note that apparently major commercial/reputational forces seem to be at play, as it is a windfall for both the sailing communities and their commerce and those landowners fortunate enough to have bought land proximate to these areas where they can put rentals.

The Lindens still see the Mainland useful as a safari destination and a place to prospect for new premium accounts. I don't notice them turning away the large payments on the auctions for Blake Sea land and any sailing land on the way to/near Bellisseria.

Edited 21 minutes ago by Prokofy Neva

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Posted 11 minutes ago

21 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

The "room" that you imagine needs to be "read"

This room is called "SSP?" and the topic is regions beginning with SSP.

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Posted 3 minutes ago (edited)

11 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

This room is called "SSP?" and the topic is regions beginning with SSP.

I realize how you view SSP as a topic within your own business realm.

But SSP as a topic inspired two other residents, namely Mike MacGregor and Nija Talaj, to comment that there really is no mechanism for having a say in how the land is managed, or how/when/what styles are rolled out with Bellisseria, and how unlike RL this. And "how unlike RL this is" is the theme song of the entire Metaverse these days, and makes it or breaks it. So I replied to them as I think their concerns are valid.

And when a tasty-looking new region is rolled out, it always invokes all the usual mixed feelings of awe coupled with envy of those who can play "Game of Homes" avidly with hundreds of accounts and dollars, and the kind of sailing challenges that persist in and around those SSPs. SSPs are not in a vacuum.

You can always AR a post you find "off topic" and see if you can get the post removed.

Edited 2 minutes ago by Prokofy Neva

Posted Thursday at 10:40 PM

On 8/11/2022 at 10:04 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

You can always AR a post you find "off topic" and see if you can get the post removed.

Don't tempt me, Prok. If I report your posts for being OT, the Mods might decide to lock the whole thread instead. It's safer to just ignore them.

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Posted Thursday at 10:54 PM

On 8/11/2022 at 10:40 PM, Persephone Emerald said:

Don't tempt me, Prok. If I report your posts for being OT, the Mods might decide to lock the whole thread instead. It's safer to just ignore them.

Well, not everyone is as prudent as you are, but I do hope those with their hands at the ready on the AR button AR the people to whom I responded, not just me, but ok, I saved the entire thread and it can be discussed on my blog if you like.

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Posted Friday at 06:10 AM (edited)

The SSP regions (closed the public ones) are now saying offline / invalid location. This is a major change this week after months of not much activity over there. Only a handful of regions remain it seems that still online.

Edited Friday at 06:50 AM by Daniel Voyager

Lloyd Overland, Marianne Little, Persephone Emerald and 4 others
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Second Thoughts

10/01/2022

Dear Lindens, I've Sketched Out a Few Ideas...

By Prokofy Neva, Virtualtor

#1962241

Dear Lindens,

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