Ad Farming Persists

[Rabid Cheetah]

On 8/15/2022 at 6:57 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 6:05 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 5:06 AM, xDancingStarx said:

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

 

 

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.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

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 August 17, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, 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.

 

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]

4 hours ago, 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.)

[xDancingStarx]

6 hours ago, 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.

[Stephanie Misfit]

20 hours ago, 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 : )

 

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.

[Prokofy Neva]

9 hours ago, 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.

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.

[Prokofy Neva]

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.)

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 August 19, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Eowyn Southmoor]

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 

[Prokofy Neva]

15 hours ago, 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. 

[Eowyn Southmoor]

6 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.

 

[Feorie Frimon]

5 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. 

[redeacted personal dispute]

 

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Quartz Mole

[belindacarson]

7 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! 

 

 

were you using wacky baccy at this point?

[Prokofy Neva]

48 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! 

 

 

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 August 19, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Feorie Frimon]

1 hour ago, belindacarson said:

were you using wacky baccy at this point?

All the time. 😜

[Prokofy Neva]

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.]

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" which suits business interests.  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 August 20, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[diamond Marchant]

#prokbait I have no issues with ad farming as long as it is organic and there is no fertilizer runoff into the streams. Anyways, my activities are confined to waters, coasts and Belli. I never venture into "fly over regions" (ewww) unless I am actually flying over. We have none of these agricultural ads in Belli. It is so wonderful there, not a thing to complain about.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, diamond Marchant said:

#prokbait I have no issues with ad farming as long as it is organic and there is no fertilizer runoff into the streams. Anyways, my activities are confined to waters, coasts and Belli. I never venture into "fly over regions" (ewww) unless I am actually flying over. We have none of these agricultural ads in Belli. It is so wonderful there, not a thing to complain about.

So why the drive to "connect the continents" to this "fly-over" country? Plenty of waterways in Bellisseria!

[Qie Niangao]

Just in passing, does anybody know in what sense these things are supposed to be "teleporters"? They don't seem to be scripted, and the parcels don't appear to have any Experiences enabled, so other than role-play totems of HUD-based teleportation, at most, I can't see how they'd be involved.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 8/20/2022 at 5:12 AM, Qie Niangao said:

Just in passing, does anybody know in what sense these things are supposed to be "teleporters"? They don't seem to be scripted, and the parcels don't appear to have any Experiences enabled, so other than role-play totems of HUD-based teleportation, at most, I can't see how they'd be involved.

They aren't working teleporters of the regular kind, go and look, even by some notion of some kind of group-enabled thing UNLESS as you say they are experience/HUD enabled but I've never seen a soul use them anyway and I fly all over. Their purpose is to be a looming, highly glowing PRESENCE, and that purpose is achieved. They *used to be* something called "spawn points" but I don't know anything more about them and their related entities which are all part of some sci-fi story I only dimly comprehend.

 

[Qie Niangao]

On 8/21/2022 at 10:14 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

They aren't working teleporters of the regular kind, go and look, even by some notion of some kind of group-enabled thing UNLESS as you say they are experience/HUD enabled but I've never seen a soul use them anyway and I fly all over. Their purpose is to be a looming, highly glowing PRESENCE, and that purpose is achieved. They *used to be* something called "spawn points" but I don't know anything more about them and their related entities which are all part of some sci-fi story I only dimly comprehend.

Sorry, a bit necro. I know these obelisks came up in a more recent thread somewhere but I'm sure not finding it now; maybe it got nuked or something. In that thread I mentioned a little chat with someone who explained that the structures are intended to be reminders of the old Teen Grid for when former Teen Grid users return and maybe reconnect with their former compatriots. All of which kinda made sense for any historic sites on the Sharp Continent—and not so much on regular old Mainland.

I just encountered one of the obelisks along the SLRR in Shark. (I mean Shark, of all places. Why? What desperately lost Teen Grid refugee is going to wash ashore there?) So I followed up on a SLURL he gave me, having forgotten how I came upon it until now.

Apparently whoever is bankrolling this operation has money: He actually told me but it didn't register until now: there's a whole Estate with three clustered regions (a Moderate homestead and 20K and 22.5K-primmed Adult regions). Elaborate builds in progress, all very dark retro-futuristic military aesthetic with similar Klingon-esque "lorem ipsum" runes as on the obelisks. No obvious sign of rentals or other income-generating prospects.

Because they're pouring a pile of money into the Lab's gaping maw every month,  there doesn't seem much hope of abuse-reporting their glow-spurting phallic symbols off the Mainland. 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Sorry, a bit necro. I know these obelisks came up in a more recent thread somewhere but I'm sure not finding it now; maybe it got nuked or something.

That's a shame, any mention of the Sith should be OK!  I searched "Sith" and did not see recent mentions.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Love Zhaoying
Some say "obelisks", others say "obe-licious"!

[Elena Blossom]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Sorry, a bit necro. I know these obelisks came up in a more recent thread somewhere but I'm sure not finding it now; maybe it got nuked or something. In that thread I mentioned a little chat with someone who explained that the structures are intended to be reminders of the old Teen Grid for when former Teen Grid users return and maybe reconnect with their former compatriots. All of which kinda made sense for any historic sites on the Sharp Continent—and not so much on regular old Mainland.

I just encountered one of the obelisks along the SLRR in Shark. (I mean Shark, of all places. Why? What desperately lost Teen Grid refugee is going to wash ashore there?) So I followed up on a SLURL he gave me, having forgotten how I came upon it until now.

They are not limited to just the Teen grid; they are all over Heteroteca now, and have started expanding in Jeogeot.

I really hope the Lab does something about this, because it totally ruins the resident experience. 

[Always Incognito]

3 hours ago, Elena Core said:

They are not limited to just the Teen grid; they are all over Heteroteca now, and have started expanding in Jeogeot.

I really hope the Lab does something about this, because it totally ruins the resident experience. 

Conspiracy theory: LL wants ppl to move from mainland to Bellisseria or buy private land. Mainland cost them too much server capacity to be worth it. 🤑 My story: I owned land in Isabel until 2019 here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Isabel/174/95/56 Suddenly my neighbour on the other side of the road sold her land (beautyful) and a person started to build large buildings and a red light sort of district instead. He was in IM several days a week and tried to buy my land. Eventually i got tired of the situation and sold. Then i tried for a LL home but didnt get one. So I left SL for more than 2 years... well i wasnt a big customer so who cares  Anyway, what is interesting here is that the land is now protected LL land... so...who was the guy eager for me to sell? 🤫 😜 🤐 

[animats]

On 8/15/2022 at 1:35 AM, Qie Niangao said:

obelisks

Do they have some RP function? Aircraft guidance? Bombing targets? Or are they just there?