Abandoned Land Problem

[nolanperry123456]

Through the 3 years i have been in second life, something has always been recurring whenever i am on the mainland, its abandoned, seemingly most of it is abandoned and left to Governor Linden and the maintenance group.

Looking at statistics from GridSurvey, the amount of abandoned land on the mainland has gone up

In July 2014, Abandoned Mainland made up 13.4 to 14.2% of total mainland

In Jan 2017, Abandoned Mainland made up 20.7 to 21.4% of total mainland

On Average in 2018, ~45,000 Residents are online out of the 54 Million Accounts

 

I say that Linden Labs takes say 1/2 or 1/3 of the Abandoned Mainland and lets non-profit organizations in Second Life rent it out and sell it, to help the non-profits, or they could make a week long deal where residents claim up to a certain amount of land, and they give it to them free, because otherwise the land just sits there, looking not so pretty.

 

Any Comments on That?

[Marianne Little]

I mean it is good to have land that is used, because it is good for the economy. Some may manage with only freebies, but it is some pride and a wish to keeping up with the Joneses.  LL benefits from us buying lindens, and MP sales.

I think it was a very smart move, to increase land premiums can have for free. The best LL could do was to lower the premium fee.

Non-profit organizations? How shall they prove it? Just saying it? Send a paper that says "Real name has donated xxx to the Red Cross"? I could just fake it. How to control that the claim is true, should LL take contact with every organization? Good idea but I don't think it will be fair. Drama, drama. Today LL can say it is citizen disputes. This will be claims directly to LL, when some are denied and others is given land, leading to speculation and accuses.

[Tari Landar]

14 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Non-profit organizations? How shall they prove it? Just saying it? Send a paper that says "Real name has donated xxx to the Red Cross"? I could just fake it. How to control that the claim is true, should LL take contact with every organization? Good idea but I don't think it will be fair. Drama, drama. Today LL can say it is citizen disputes. This will be claims directly to LL, when some are denied and others is given land, leading to speculation and accuses.

Proving an organization is actually non-profit, a RL organization, is trivial, at best. Allowing the use of this land that is going otherwise unused, by such organizations could, in fact, prove profitable to the entire grid, and I don't mean only in the non-tangible sense. Non-profit organizations can, and do, easily, bring others to the grid. It happens with RFL every single year(and has since its inclusion in sl, I've even talked about RFL here in sl to people participating in RFL in rl, who have joined sl-even if only for a short amount of time). I know that user retention, long term retention that is, should be the ultimate goal here, but even short term can prove beneficial-and if we give short term users a reason to stick around, regardless of how they get here/how they find us(the grid), we can keep them longer. LL isn't all that great at user retention-or figuring out HOW to retain them that is(I am not 100% convinced they want to..but I'd love for them to finally prove me wrong on that, lol), but on the flip side, we users are GREAT at keeping people here on the grid  

I mean, there IS a hell of a lot of abandoned land, both that which sits forever(seemingly forever maybe, lol) and that which, eventually gets picked up by someone. It would be nice to put it to SOME kind of use, wouldn't it? Those sims, those parcels, they're all just sitting there, it's not like they go offline until someone shows up, they are there, taking up server space-albeit it not likely MUCH space, it's still space, no matter what. We might as well use them for some good. It's all so....blank, when you wander around mainland. The least LL could do, is put something there, lol. 

ETA: I mean, I would decorate the hell out of abandoned land, and love every single second of doing so, even if it only was a way to beautify it so it didn't look so...bleak and blank, lol. I think it would be an amazing opportunity, actually. So...if LL decided NOT to let people *use/own/whatever said abandoned land, and they wanted to keep it abandoned like that...letting people decorate it would be visually far more appealing than what we have now. But, I digress..since this is something I've always wanted to do,  be given free reign to just decorate sims or parcels for the hell of it, just so they look nice/have fun stuff to do/bring people in/give the area a bit more appeal for those renting/selling land in the area. WHo wouldn't want their "neighborhood" to look better?

 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Tari Landar

[Callum Meriman]

57 minutes ago, nolanperry123456 said:

I say that Linden Labs takes say 1/2 or 1/3 of the Abandoned Mainland and lets non-profit organizations in Second Life rent it out and sell it

Why should non-profits be able to profit from land sales? That makes zero sense to me. If they want to make real money to help people then inside a video game for a few dollars isn't the way to do it.

All this call for free-stuff it is doing is destroying the business of landlords for the sake of a few dollars for the (more often then not) scam and sham charities.

Nope, they can pay for land like everyone else.

 

8 minutes ago, Tari Landar said:

Proving an organization is actually non-profit, a RL organization, is trivial, at best.

Really? How about my non-profit wombat shelter, the Maroopana North Wildlife Sanctuary.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[nolanperry123456]

1 minute ago, Callum Meriman said:

Why should non-profits be able to profit from land sales? That makes zero sense to me. If they want to make real money to help people then inside a video game for a few dollars isn't the way to do it.

All this call for free-stuff it is doing is destroying the business of landlords for the sake of a few dollars for the (more often then not) scam and sham charities.

Nope, they can pay for land like everyone else.

Similar to how the Scifi Expo donates proceeds to Cancer Charities, having non-profits be able to get money for renting/selling/overseeing land could help linden labs, as they have to much to handle apparently

[Tari Landar]

5 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

Really? How about my non-profit wombat shelter, the Maroopana North Wildlife Sanctuary.

Can you prove your non-profit is a real life non-profit?  Because that's precisely what I said, real life non-profits can EASILY prove who and what they are, where funds go, etc....

Edited June 4, 2018 by Tari Landar

[Callum Meriman]

Just now, nolanperry123456 said:

Similar to how the Scifi Expo donates proceeds to Cancer Charities, having non-profits be able to get money for renting/selling/overseeing land could help linden labs, as they have to much to handle apparently

They, like everyone, can request abandoned land at auction, in many cases they will only $1 or $0.5 per sqm. Why should they get it for free, and why should only American cancer charities benefit? Why can't my small town Aussie wombat shelter?

[Callum Meriman]

1 minute ago, Tari Landar said:

Can you prove your non-profit is a real life non-profit?  Because that's precisely what I said, real life non-profits can EASILY prove who and what they are, where funds go, etc....

Would an ABN number be sufficient?

[Tari Landar]

Just now, Callum Meriman said:

They, like everyone, can request abandoned land at auction, in many cases they will only $1 or $0.5 per sqm. Why should they get it for free, and why should only American cancer charities benefit? Why can't my small town Aussie wombat shelter?

Why are you being petulant about this? Who said your small town Aussie wombat shelter couldn't benefit? Using ONE type of charity as an example, doesn't exclude all others, lol.

There was a time in sl when LL DID in fact donate land, both to charities and even some other organizations/businesses, after all. It has merit, even LL thinks so. 

[nolanperry123456]

1 minute ago, Callum Meriman said:

They, like everyone, can request abandoned land at auction, in many cases they will only $1 or $0.5 per sqm. Why should they get it for free, and why should only American cancer charities benefit? Why can't my small town Aussie wombat shelter?

We never said only American Charities, i said that "similar to how the scifi expo donates proceeds...."

[Tari Landar]

Just now, Callum Meriman said:

Would an ABN number be sufficient?

That, I wouldn't know, but LL would. Does your ABN specify to both your government and others that the business is a no-profit, or does it only prove that it is a business? I really don't know enough about ABN numbers, personally. But those who are involved in non-profits, real life ones, would know how to prove their existence and provide all the paperwork/information necessary to prove such.

[Callum Meriman]

Just now, Tari Landar said:

Why are you being petulant about this?

Because I don't think that a charity - any charity - should get abandoned land to resell. That is NOT a good charity model.

They can purchase it at auction for $0.5 sqm and resel it for $6 sure, but this is going to take a lot of landholdings and that will be a rather large waste of money that they could be using for helping people and wombats.

I am a landlord, it is not an easy job. Getting free land to sell is not going to make them momney, but it will do the opposite, it will take away from their charity, AND it will damage the business of others.

No free ticket here. That's the last I will say on it.

[Tari Landar]

Just now, Callum Meriman said:

Because I don't think that a charity - any charity - should get abandoned land to resell. That is NOT a good charity model.

They can purchase it at auction for $0.5 sqm and resel it for $6 sure, but this is going to take a lot of landholdings and that will be a rather large waste of money that they could be using for helping people and wombats.

I am a landlord, it is not an easy job. Getting free land to sell is not going to make them momney, but it will do the opposite, it will take away from their charity, AND it will damage the business of others.

No free ticket here. That's the last I will say on it.

Okay, don't let them  sell it, why not simply let them USE it then?

I get where you're coming from on the "no free rides if I can't have one too" front-as idiotic as my wording may sound there, I do actually get it. What I don't get is why you have a problem at ALL with a non-profit being given the land, period. Ignore the selling part(and to be honest, I don't understand why a no-profit would sell the land to begin with when they can put it to FAR better uses..so, on that we definitely agree)...there is no real reason to not let them USE the land. 

You weren't in sl when LL handed out land to organizations such as non-profits and even rl businesses, were you? I'm not being argumentative, but...there was a time when this, although a lengthy process in some cases, existed. LL saw merit to having the land be USED by people, and not just sitting there.  

[Callum Meriman]

Just now, Tari Landar said:

Okay, don't let them  sell it, why not simply let them USE it then?

That's not what the OP asked. They specifically made a point of getting free land that they can rent and sell. 

And that is not a good model to base a charity on. Don't waste 8 hours a day on tenant problems, spend it instead on actual charity.

[Tari Landar]

16 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

That's not what the OP asked. They specifically made a point of getting free land that they can rent and sell. 

And that is not a good model to base a charity on. Don't waste 8 hours a day on tenant problems, spend it instead on actual charity.

OP also mentioned just letting residents grab up the land too. You focused solely on one point, and I get why now, because you've explained. But that doesn't answer the question I asked you, you quoted it right there. Which is...."why not let them USE the land". That will benefit the non-profit, won't hurt landlords, won't cause the non-profit to have to deal with tenants, won't take money from the non-profit etc...and gives the otherwise unused and rather bleak looking land, some use.

 

Hell if LL let residents, any residents, use the land, it might even benefit landlords, who may want more land too

 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Tari Landar

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, nolanperry123456 said:

Looking at statistics from GridSurvey, the amount of abandoned land on the mainland has gone up

The last statistics shown on the GridSurvey about abandoned land are from Jan 2017.  Based on info we've heard here in the forums, abandoned land is being purchased at a very high rate right now due to the recent changes in tier that LL made.  They are currently swamped with requests from Residents for abandoned land to be put up for auction or sold directly.

[Parhelion Palou]

There aren't that many nonprofits that would have any interest in SL. Other than huge-scale setups like Relay for Life, there's not much to be gained by fundraising in SL. I've told nonprofits that they'd make more money with a tin cup on a RL street corner than they'll make in SL. There are far too few visitors to use SL to advertise a nonprofit's work. That's what websites are good for. It's really not well set up to use for meetings -- nonprofits don't tend to have good enough computers to use SL well, there's a big learning curve, and there are better and easier ways to set up on-line meetings.

If LL let nonprofits sell abandoned land to raise money, who would the customers be? The reason the land was abandoned is people didn't want it. Premium members who want land already have it. They're unlikely to want to expand their land holdings enough to take up a big percentage of the abandoned land.

I've been working or volunteering at Nonprofit Commons for over 10.5 years. We offer free office space for nonprofits. Almost all of the nonprofits that enter SL to set up an office space start with high expectations and fade out within a few months. Only organizations whose representatives happen to 'get' SL stay around for long. During the hype wave (2007 - 2008 mostly), we had lots of applications from nonprofits. Now it's rare. Nonprofits mostly forgot about SL when corporations did.

[Marianne Little]

3 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

I mean, there IS a hell of a lot of abandoned land, both that which sits forever(seemingly forever maybe, lol) and that which, eventually gets picked up by someone. It would be nice to put it to SOME kind of use, wouldn't it? Those sims, those parcels, they're all just sitting there, it's not like they go offline until someone shows up, they are there, taking up server space-albeit it not likely MUCH space, it's still space, no matter what. We might as well use them for some good. It's all so....blank, when you wander around mainland. The least LL could do, is put something there, lol. 

ETA: I mean, I would decorate the hell out of abandoned land, and love every single second of doing so, even if it only was a way to beautify it so it didn't look so...bleak and blank, lol. I think it would be an amazing opportunity, actually. So...if LL decided NOT to let people *use/own/whatever said abandoned land, and they wanted to keep it abandoned like that...letting people decorate it would be visually far more appealing than what we have now. But, I digress..since this is something I've always wanted to do,  be given free reign to just decorate sims or parcels for the hell of it, just so they look nice/have fun stuff to do/bring people in/give the area a bit more appeal for those renting/selling land in the area. WHo wouldn't want their "neighborhood" to look better?

 

I would love to have the power to decorate too. I just wonder how to do it. Would we be some kind of mole? We shouldn't have "God" powers. Yea it would be nice to be almighty, but the drama... nah. Wasn't there a "helper" program a few years ago that had to stop because of drama?

I wouldn't risk my account, all my alts (who has sizeable inventories and is Premium too) on breaking a contract. Only thing that could work, let us place out objects, nothing more. And only landscaping. Of course I could break the deal, but I have too much to risk it. Would I risk it just for placing out a giant ***** or grief with spamming objects? I am too old for that.

Some would hate what we do anyways.

[Tari Landar]

18 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

I would love to have the power to decorate too. I just wonder how to do it. Would we be some kind of mole? We shouldn't have "God" powers. Yea it would be nice to be almighty, but the drama... nah. Wasn't there a "helper" program a few years ago that had to stop because of drama?

I wouldn't risk my account, all my alts (who has sizeable inventories and is Premium too) on breaking a contract. Only thing that could work, let us place out objects, nothing more. And only landscaping. Of course I could break the deal, but I have too much to risk it. Would I risk it just for placing out a giant ***** or grief with spamming objects? I am too old for that.

Some would hate what we do anyways.

Oh I wouldn't want all the god powers either, just the ability to make the land look nice again, obviously with a level of oversight to prevent most of the issues that could potentially arise( placing out crap that really has no place being there...giant freeni for example, lol). It really wouldn't have to be that complicated, if someone put a bit of forethought into it anyway. 

Something to beautify, landscape, generally make the land usable in some fashion, that would be nice. At least make it LOOK nice, even if we couldn't put things on the land that other residents would be able to use at their leisure.  I'm talking about things like parks, photogenic areas for those picture fiends (I am one, I get it, haha), nice little streams running here and there for small watercraft. Maybe amusement type sims...I dunno, I'm spitballing here. I have more ideas in my head than any human should reasonably have, to be honest, I just know that LL COULD do so much more with all that empty land. Then if they decide at a later date to offer said land to residents...all that decor can be gotten rid of super easy. 

I know it was stated above, and others have stated as well, that abandoned land is being grabbed up left and right and that LL is somehow inundated with requests for more. I doubt that latter part, but the first part I can see ONLY for land that's actually available, not the majority of abandoned land which is vastly NOT available. I can't see that it's THIS difficult for LL to make said abandoned land available for purchase..it's not an extensive process, lol, it's a few mouse clicks, at best. That all said, as a wanderer, a frequent wanderer, I don't really see folks just grabbing it all up. I still see a crap ton of empty land, land that's been this way-abandoned, for YEARS in many cases, which has so much potential...and..blah, it looks like crap. If LL can't/won't make it look better, and seemingly isn't going to take the few minutes it requires to make it available to others for purchase (do they not realize how much in tier they are down by doing this? I mean, really, lol), the LEAST they could do is let *someone make it look a lil better. At least then my travels will be far more entertaining. It's obnoxious to go from "oooh, this is kinda cool, look at all these different builds, themes, you can see progression(s) of sl in themn, look, that one's all prim, but that one's all mesh, Oh my, some animals..and..oooo look at that...this is kinda neat" to "wtf chuck, it's...empty, ugly, badly terraformed...land..who the hell did this? Oh, it's been abandoned.....wait...since....2011? That's like SEVEN years.... Yeah, I'm outta here, time to find a prettier sim". 

[Alwin Alcott]

6 hours ago, nolanperry123456 said:

On Average in 2018, ~45,000 Residents are online out of the 54 Million Accounts

Any Comments on That?

i'd like to comment on this 

 

do not forget those numbers are a average online at any time, not a daily total count.

Think the real average is even lower .. as now it's 30k .

[Chic Aeon]

Back to the OP -- 

The figures used are from BEFORE THE RECENT CHANGE IN TIER STRUCTURE -----

Since then the land team has had a difficult time keeping up with all the requests for abandoned land. This has been mentioned several times in official videos by Ebbe.  

Many people bought extra 512s, made groups with alts (many new from what was posted here) and purchased larger plots of land (this as tier costs did go down a bit too).  So those figures are likely not the same any longer. 

And, also asked and answered in a public forum and video --- the perks for non-profits mentioned are NOT going to happen -- mostly because of all the hassles of checking and paperwork and simply EXTRA work involved.  Educational institutions might get some added benefits (this seemed unclear at the moment - at least to me), but not just any non-profit. 

 

So this whole argument really doesn't matter.  I suggest a deep breath and a nice cuppa tea (or scotch if that's your form of relaxation)

 

[Marianne Little]

23 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

Back to the OP -- 

The figures used are from BEFORE THE RECENT CHANGE IN TIER STRUCTURE -----

Since then the land team has had a difficult time keeping up with all the requests for abandoned land. This has been mentioned several times in official videos by Ebbe.  

Many people bought extra 512s, made groups with alts (many new from what was posted here) and purchased larger plots of land (this as tier costs did go down a bit too).  So those figures are likely not the same any longer. 

And, also asked and answered in a public forum and video --- the perks for non-profits mentioned are NOT going to happen -- mostly because of all the hassles of checking and paperwork and simply EXTRA work involved.  Educational institutions might get some added benefits (this seemed unclear at the moment - at least to me), but not just any non-profit. 

 

So this whole argument really doesn't matter.  I suggest a deep breath and a nice cuppa tea (or scotch if that's your form of relaxation)

 

Yep... me making all the alts premium... still feeling I want more land... it is really addictive. I am sure LL got a lot of mainland bought up as a direct result of their land change.

And it helps the economy. I always, when I had land on estates and now, with mainland, buy new homes & gardens things. Buying §L so LL earn money on transactions.... buy stuff on the MP... LL earns money on it.... the stuff I buy keep merchants in business. The one I bought my latest house from, he has at least two sims. LL earn a lot of money from him.

If LL lowered the tier or gave premiums more land, I would be all over the continent, buying more. Or if the premium membership was lower, I would have some more alts and make them premium.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Marianne Little

[Alazarin Mondrian]

Wrt to Tari and Marianne's ideas for use of abandoned land, that's exactly what I did for several years. I and my group have a small parcel of land on the mainland (recently doubled in size thanks to the new land allowances). Our sim is 3/4 abandoned and LL maintenance land so, as you can imagine, it's very empty. For years I let my builds sprawl out across the abandoned land in order to fill up the empty space and make it look less deserted.

Everything was fine for years until one day when I logged in January this year a few hours before I was due to due a live music show at our home venue to find Tommy Linden merrily deleting our Arctic Roundhouse venue. I got the obligatory 'items over the parcel lines' boilerplate and then, after a short conversation, he left. Since then I've stayed within my boundary lines but, boy, that sim sure looks empty. The only positive thing is that it's very low-lag thanks to the fact that it's so empty.

There is land up for sale in sims adjacent to mine but all that seems to happen is that the land parcels bounce between land flippers.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Alazarin Mondrian
typos & grammar.

[ellestones]

53 minutes ago, Alazarin Mondrian said:

Everything was fine for years until one day when I logged in January this year a few hours before I was due to due a live music show at our home venue to find Tommy Linden merrily deleting our Arctic Roundhouse venue.

/me wonders if that Tommy is the son of GetOffMyLawn Linden

[Marianne Little]

I was teleporting around in Sansara yesterday.  It is still lots of abandoned land. If it was worse before, I really don't know what to say?! I even found land bordering protected water that was abandoned in 2017. I understand that land in the middle of a barren nowhere has no interest, but direct access to water? Not around Bay of Space Pigs, but around Mare Secundus. Going a little bit into waterways around Mare Secundus, so it is less than a region to travel by boat, it was really attractive places. I did not look further. I am maybe leaving my land in Poliahu due to that annoying guardrail (another topic) so I started looking for alternatives.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Marianne Little