A General Rant…

Okay, (/me drags up box to stand on…) I want to toss in my few pennies here.

1) Those who follow this blog, know I regularly take LL to task..So the first one to call me a kiss a**, I hunt down and orbit.
2) This was a well done job by the web team.
3) While there are problems in SL for sure, it is not a burning building, a sinking ship, whatever. And while there may be competition coming, so far what I have seen sucks. HiPiHi is the best I know of, and it pales in comparison. And no english client for it either, so teach yourself some Chinese.
4) The SL database sucks, and has since I have been here. For those who may not remember, many of us lost 1000’s of L when no copy objects just disappeared from inventory X-mas of ‘06.
5) No one ever thought this could be scaled up to near this level ( I came in at 250k members and 10k concurent users, 12k crashed the place), Yet here we are, 60k concurrent users.
6) This program is not meant to run on a P3 with a 64meg Trident 3 card. If your hardware is not up to spec, you will have problems. Simple as that. If it is not, upgrade or quit. You probably can not run 85% or more of the new vid games either. This is very graphics intensive, and if you vid lacks, your SL experiance will suck.
7) I have this running on a P3 Dell with an Nvidia with 256, and it runs great.
The second biggest problem lately is LL’s ISP. When they have hi packet loss between the server farms, SL goes to crap. There is nothing LL can do about that, except maybe switch ISP. Maybe a deal with L3 directly would be in all our best interests, if they don’t have that in place already.
9) Since the last update, I have seen no real general issues. Yes it can be a bit slow, but everything seems to be working that is not a known bug.
10) LL regularly pulls some pretty bonehead stuff IMHO. The killing of in world services instead of throttling logins as they said they would, when use gets too high, is a big one. Putting out a server update with major bugs like broken spheres, etc, is another.
11) LL does not listen us in most instances, they do not seem to consider who creates the product they sell, the users, and if you think that is going to change, you should buy your meds from someone else, because the stuff you are using is no good.
12) The quality of the SL world in general has degraded a lot since I have been. Not how it works, but the content. That to me is the saddest of all. Much of it is now just plain butt ugly. That is not directly LL’s fault, it falls on those who own the land and put the crap on it.

However, complaining about everything is non-productive. As pointed out, web dev teams don’t write sever / client code. Doing this took nothing away from whatever they are doing to fix SL (little as that sometimes seems) and probably did help many for whom Deutsch is their main language.

Bottom line, while some great content creators and business owners have left, most of us are still here.
If you are tired of it all and want to leave, do it. Don’t threaten and then stay. It ruins any credibilty you might have. IM me inworld and we can talk about selling off land you might own.
LL will continue with their agenda, whatever that is, whether we like it or not. I will continue to poke them as I see fit.
Hopefully, someplace inbetween a disaster and a perfect SL, we can all find a spot to have a little fun, make a little money, and meet some new friends.
See you inWorld.

DRD

Mainland Ad Farms, Ad parcels, what ever you desire to call them, have clearly gotten completely out of hand. Some sims, especially along the Linden protected roadways, have gotten so cluttered with them, it is all you see from any view in the sim. It is time for a policy change. While free enterprise is basically the rule of SL, the ad farms are truly a blight. We have rules in SL to cover many things, with an overall policy of community standards being the governing idea, and I see no reason that one can not be created to deal with these.

There is, IMHO, simply no justifiable reason for having these eyesores. Besides being ugly, they are truly ineffective as advertising. I have been in SL going on two years and have never clicked one yet. I make a point of boycotting anyone who’s adverts are on them as well. I have repeatedly asked other residents and especially mainland owners, and their sentiment is the same.

I think treating them as spam or harassment is appropriate where it is clearly the intent, but I think a new rule needs to be put into effect, similar to the rules now in place for mature / pg parcels. My fear is that if the policy becomes one of dealing with them under current TOS, then that is all that will ever be done. As a community we have said we desire some lands to be free of mature subject. Lets do the same for these ad lands, but make all the SL mainland free of them.

Here is my proposal for a new rule governing this style of ads and would apply to the Mainland only:

1) The use of mainland parcels of any size for the sole purpose of billboard / ad farm style advertising is prohibited. This rule becomes effective on ( place a date here, the sooner the better).

2) The breaking of a Mainland parcel into pieces smaller than 512m2 is prohibited unless you own the land surrounding the parcel on all sides. The exception would be if the parcel were bounded by Linden protected land or a void boundry, where you would only be required to own the land on all sides not bounded by Linden protected land or void.

3) Land that continues to be used in violation of the policy will be forfit to LL for auction or if 64m2 or less, offered to any land owner whose land borders said parcel on at least 3 sides for the sum of L$10m2.

4) The placing of objects on any parcel perviously used for ad farm style objects, with the sole intent of creating a nuisance value for the property will cause the forfit of the property and handled per part 3 above.

5) Continued violation of this policy by any account holder will result in a permanent ban of that account and forfit of all lands owned by that account. Parcels forfit will be handled per part 3 above.

By allowing the parceling of smaller than 512m2 lands if you own the surrounding land would allow for rez areas, atms, etc.

I know several ad land owners who are currently or will soon be placing Non-SL related ads out on these signs. This is clearly not going to get any better without LL intervention. To that end, if you agree with what I am trying to do here, and the policy I have suggested, please do the following:

1) IM Jack Linden or chat with any Linden you happen across. Tell them you desire to see the ad lands outlawed. Keep it short and sweet, no name calling or nastyness. Example: Jack, I truly to desire to see the ad lands outlawed. Check out DR Dahlgren’s policy suggestion as a possible solution.

2) Boycott ( do not use the services of) any business that has ads on the ad land objects. IM these business owners and tell them you are not going to use their product as long as they advertise in this manner. Again, be pleasent and conciese.

3) Where an ad land is set for sale, compare the selling price against the local area, if it substanially higher, ( Many are well above L$500m2) file an AR on them. 

The idea is to send a message, not harrass them. These are not evil people, just business owners using tools they erroniously believe help their business or make a good business model. We want to convince them that the ads don’t work and in truth have a negative impact and that ad farms will not be tolerated as a business model any longer.

To aid in #2 and #3, I am going to start posting a list here of any businesses using these ads, and the ad land owners, I come across. If you believe in this, please do not patronize any business on the list. Again, the intent is not to hurt these businesses, but to send a message to them. And folks, tell a friend please.

Supportive and Desenting comments are welcome here, but abusive ones will be deleted.

DRD