About those resident-to-resident auctions

[Qie Niangao]

The Lab has a new blog post about the auctions page.

Apparently the resident-to-resident class of auction is suspended, pending review and rework.

I have no idea if anybody would look at suggestions here, but I don't see a better way to provide input, so...

... any input?

I'd suggest a couple things myself:

• First, to rein-in the setting of irrationally optimistic minimum bids, I'd require sellers to pay the sales commission up front on the minimum bid amount. They don't get that back whether the parcel sells or not; if it does sell for more than the minimum, commission is also taken from the sales amount exceeding the minimum. (It's a little more complicated to exempt a base L$0.5/sq.m. minimum, which might be better, but I'm not sure.)
• Second, I'd augment the table of listings to include columns for more data that can be automatically extracted from the associated Place Page, to overcome the tendency of sellers to provide no useful information in the name of the listing. At a bare minimum, there should be columns for region name and rating, information that's always included for Linden auctions but often omitted from resident-auctioned parcels.

[Mollymews]

^^ i vote for the above two

i think a non-refundable listing fee (percentage of min. bid, not less than L$x) is fine

i think also that the pre-existing main issue is how the auction system has been used by some (coupled with no listing fee) as a method of advertising a business

i would suggest that no reference to a business activity be permitted in auction information. The only place where it can be allowed is in the name of the account selling the parcel. I.e. Parcel: SomeName, Pooley (128, 128, 28). Owner: abcrentals.resident

[Raspberry Crystal]

Erroneous use of the word protected, or false claims for water access seem a problem also. Also descriptions talking about views which may of course disappear. I wonder if some of this could be automated?

[Love Zhaoying]

11 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Apparently the resident-to-resident class of auction is suspended, pending review and rework.

Because of bugs, abuse, or ?

[Alyona Su]

55 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Because of bugs, abuse, or ?

You appear to have never looked t them. Pick one: Bugs or Abuse. You get three guesses and the first two don't count. Hint: Linden Lab plans to rework the R-to-R Auctions, they did not use the word fix.

[Pussycat Catnap]

If you restrict minimum bids... why would anyone EVER risk selling a plot there?

Either leave it for sale for your desired price inworld, or just toss it to a land baron if you need to get rid of it quickly.

 

I think we want to step back and think about the purpose of this system.

 

Is it:

1. Designed to fire sell land fast regardless of potential to get back your cost of purchase?
2. Designed to lets sellers and buyers find each other easily without working through land baron middle-people?
3. Designed to make profit for sellers?

 

I suspect it's number 2

Number 3 would let you keep a parcel in there for months, and number 1 would restrict minimum bids.

Number 1 is already better served by listing my lost for $0.1L/sqm and watching a land baron bot rez in front of me and snag it. I can sell any plot in seconds that way...

Number 3 is already served by just letting me place my plot on the map for any price and waiting... for years...

Number 2 lets a buyer know what other residents have, so we can more easily skip past blightly spots held by barons or just skip barons because we have attitude against them for some reason or other...

 

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Pussycat Catnap

[Prokofy Neva]

On 10/11/2019 at 8:27 PM, Qie Niangao said:

The Lab has a new blog post about the auctions page.

Apparently the resident-to-resident class of auction is suspended, pending review and rework.

I have no idea if anybody would look at suggestions here, but I don't see a better way to provide input, so...

... any input?

I'd suggest a couple things myself:

• First, to rein-in the setting of irrationally optimistic minimum bids, I'd require sellers to pay the sales commission up front on the minimum bid amount. They don't get that back whether the parcel sells or not; if it does sell for more than the minimum, commission is also taken from the sales amount exceeding the minimum. (It's a little more complicated to exempt a base L$0.5/sq.m. minimum, which might be better, but I'm not sure.)
• Second, I'd augment the table of listings to include columns for more data that can be automatically extracted from the associated Place Page, to overcome the tendency of sellers to provide no useful information in the name of the listing. At a bare minimum, there should be columns for region name and rating, information that's always included for Linden auctions but often omitted from resident-auctioned parcels.

I don't have an informed opinion on this because first, I couldn't get it to work and gave up. Then, I noticed that land barons were doing it, and I was puzzled, because I thought it was for "end users" to sell to others on their sim or other end users.

But of course an automated system can't really distinguish "end user" from "land flipper" in any fair and rational way, I guess.

Except...there is a simple thing that should be done, which is to enable the selling of land on a sim FIRST to any other owner on that sim before anyone else gets it. Perhaps the Lindens figure there are too many empty sims to bother with such a plan, but I have to say, it causes havoc to those of us trying to just get by and keep our sims nice.

Example: a land baron who has bit off more than he can chew tries to get me to pay a high price for some waterfront on a not really spectacular sim where I already have a fair amount of land (I like it, but New England rock isn't to everyone's liking). I refuse to pay it. He chops it up and a lot of other small or big rentals agencies buy it up and try to rent it and fail, then either abandon it or let it go for less and then God knows what ends up on it. Meanwhile, there's a huge parcel that says "Linden" and "auction" that is a mystery to me because I'm not sure where I "go" to buy this. It's no longer abandoned but on auction. But then...it isn't. It had no takers? or? Then I noticed *the same* land baron who was starting to firesale his other parcels has it, and then nearly instantly he flips it to someone else who really doesn't appear to be an alt. Then...I notice it's Linden again. Who knows what goes on. But if the Lindens would just enable any land in any sim to be FIRST reviewed by existing residents on that sim (or even on the adjacent sim) that would be helpful. I now see that with the Linden auction stalled, that big parcel will sit there and not likely even be eligible for purchase by others in the old-fashioned "$1/m abandoned land" fashion.

Speaking of which, a large, nice waterfront parcel suddenly was abandoned next to me on a sim where I had a lot of intensive projects for years next door, and where I had land -- some of which I had been chased from by this self-same abandoner who put up a big build, blocked the view, then topped it off with access-only, making all of us in the area have to fly around it. I finally sold my land for a song, but then when I saw somebody else doing the same thing a year later with one near it, I bought it because I like the sim. So I thought, hmm, I wonder if the Lindens would accept an offer to buy abandoned waterfront on a large parcel -- something that in my experience they used not to do. They would tell you that it might go on the auction -- where you would fight with land barons to get a parcel next to your existing one. Especially waterfront.

So while I was trying to make up my mind to reason with Lindens to try to get this 8192+ waterfront that was abandoned, whoops, a land baron asked the Lindens for it and grabbed it and was about to put it for sale. I asked him if he'd be willing to sell it to me for a low price since I knew he just got it for only $1/m. He wasn't willing to part with it for $1/m and I wound up paying $13,000. Ouch. That's the difference between US $50 and US $30. That was painful. But thinking how this nice parcel could soon fill up with a store (ever notice how stores LOVE to go on waterfront, and even building gigantic concrete parking lots on waterfront? They like looking at the view!) or some vampire castle with access-only again, or who knows what, I decided I better "buy the view". Now I need to sell the equivalent because I don't want to be holding more land.

Really, it's all the same to the Lindens -- they just need the land under tier. To be sure, they get some percentage of a currency exchange or cashout with land deals like this, so maybe they need to encourage it, but it's depressing. I suppose the mechanics of engineering local auctions that detect if someone is already a parcel owner are too complicated to do...

PS When I talk about giant parking lots on the waterfront, this isn't an abstraction. Here you see my little house next to a giant parking lot extension on the waterfront. Oh, that was a dream I had last year of being on the outermost waterfront of SL (a dream my neighbour had before me). We had coexisted for a long time happily and then...this. What some people do in a situation like this is sell out. That's why you see nice waterfront on the map going for a song -- and you TP in excitedly and then realize it's in a situation like...this. 

How can such a thing be stopped? Well, I could point out that this land now occupied by a huge fast food restaurant was once abandoned, yet I never asked for it (nor did other long-time neighbours) because we thought you couldn't buy waterfront for $1/m, that it had to go to auction, and we didn't want to bother to trigger that and then get outbid. So we ended up with something really worse.

There's really only one answer to this, I guess, and that's: Bellissaria. That is, Lindens utterly controlling all the easements and waterways and public land rigidly and having pre-built houses and rules (like no commerce). The alternative -- trying to enforce rules like "no builds over two stories on waterfront" or "step back 16 or 32 m from the property line to build" are seen as "impossible" to enforce.

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Prokofy Neva
adding a story

[Prokofy Neva]

On 10/12/2019 at 3:32 AM, Raspberry Crystal said:

Erroneous use of the word protected, or false claims for water access seem a problem also. Also descriptions talking about views which may of course disappear. I wonder if some of this could be automated?

Yes, "protected" is constantly misused. I see land for sale described as "protected on all sides" but there's only Linden water on one side and *my land* on the other. They're calling it "protected" because I'm stable and have been there for years. As Walter White might say, "I *am* the protection." Except...if a store with a giant parking lot buys it, I may not remain...

[animats]

On 10/11/2019 at 5:27 PM, Qie Niangao said:

• First, to rein-in the setting of irrationally optimistic minimum bids, I'd require sellers to pay the sales commission up front on the minimum bid amount.
• Second, I'd augment the table of listings to include columns for more data ...

Yes to both. If a parcel goes up for auction, it should be priced to sell, not to  just sit there. Otherwise it's the same thing as putting a sell price on a lot and waiting for months or years. The auctions need to keep moving, rather than clogging up with overpriced parcels being re-listed. If the high bidder is below the seller's minimum bid, the seller should be offered the opportunity to sell at that price or decline. If they decline, it should cost them something. At a minimum, they shouldn't be allowed to relist that parcel at that price for some months. Has to drop at least 10% to be re-listed.

Sale prices and unsold property non-sales should be public, so stats can be accumulated. Then we can have a price estimator like Zillow for Second Life.

LL might offer a listing of parcels for sale at set prices, for sellers who want to do that. A Land Marketplace.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

On 10/11/2019 at 8:27 PM, Qie Niangao said:

The Lab has a new blog post about the auctions page.

Apparently the resident-to-resident class of auction is suspended, pending review and rework.

I have no idea if anybody would look at suggestions here, but I don't see a better way to provide input, so...

... any input?

I'd suggest a couple things myself:

• First, to rein-in the setting of irrationally optimistic minimum bids, I'd require sellers to pay the sales commission up front on the minimum bid amount. They don't get that back whether the parcel sells or not; if it does sell for more than the minimum, commission is also taken from the sales amount exceeding the minimum. (It's a little more complicated to exempt a base L$0.5/sq.m. minimum, which might be better, but I'm not sure.)
• Second, I'd augment the table of listings to include columns for more data that can be automatically extracted from the associated Place Page, to overcome the tendency of sellers to provide no useful information in the name of the listing. At a bare minimum, there should be columns for region name and rating, information that's always included for Linden auctions but often omitted from resident-auctioned parcels.

The Lindens like to do things with reference to other systems on the Internet. That's why they imported Ebay's software into their auctions (Pierre Omidyar was on the board of LL for a time). But that change brought some negatives even if it was more efficient. It used to be that you could see the record of past auctions, and ALL the bids -- not just the winning bid but all the bids. Now you don't have any of that, it sinks into a memory hole. But that information helped create the sense of a market and most importantly, showed you who was deliberately jacking up bids to try to inflate the value of land so that their existing land would sell for higher prices. So at least there was the social pressure involved -- if you saw a land baron invaded auction after auction merely to jack up prices, you didn't buy from him.

I don't know of any system where you pay up front for some service or good on the Internet, and wait for it to come, other than Amazon purchases and subscriptions. And land in SL is neither. It recurs like a subscription but it isn't media. And it's a one-time purchase but then has the tier on it. So it's hybrid. Perhaps the upfront cost is a way of deterring bad behaviour. But I think publicizing the names of all bidders and keeping an archive of land sales would create a kind of deeds office that would deter bad behaviour.

Except...the Lindens don't want to do things that make their land seem more real, a thing of value, and not merely a bracket around content. They try to shy away from things that they think might invite more attention from tax authorities. Of course land is only server space and really is only that bracket for content as the Lindens see it. But it is also a sense of place, a literal grounding, a place to which memories and sentiments attach, and it's different. 

[Mollymews]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Yes, "protected" is constantly misused. I see land for sale described as "protected on all sides" but there's only Linden water on one side and *my land* on the other. They're calling it "protected" because I'm stable and have been there for years. As Walter White might say, "I *am* the protection." Except...if a store with a giant parking lot buys it, I may not remain...

i have seen parcels advertised by random people as: lovely quiet area next to a garden park

the garden park is owned by you Prokofy

and I am like how cheeky is that ? 😺

[Mollymews]

i have done ok recently with the Mainland Linden

i had a 1024m and I cut off a L-shape and abandoned it,  to reduce my parcel to a 560m so I could get a Linden Trailer.  About 2 weeks later I went meh! about the trailer and filed a ticket to get my L-shape back as was still abandoned.  Mainland Linden gave me the next day. Then a day after that I saw a 96m abandoned on the region, so I file another ticket, as it would bring me up to 1120m (for my group).  and Mainland Linden gave me that as well

so pretty good my recent experiences with Linden

[Qie Niangao]

10 hours ago, animats said:

LL might offer a listing of parcels for sale at set prices, for sellers who want to do that. A Land Marketplace.

Well, there's web search that gets part-way there. Can't actually purchase anything except in-world (and I'd hate the job of preventing "simultaneous" web and in-world purchases), but that in-world trip would be part of the process anyway because no sane person would buy SL land sight unseen.

13 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

I think we want to step back and think about the purpose of this system.

Is it:

1. Designed to fire sell land fast regardless of potential to get back your cost of purchase?
2. Designed to lets sellers and buyers find each other easily without working through land baron middle-people?
3. Designed to make profit for sellers?

I suspect it's number 2

Oh I don't think so. Land barons simply provide a liquidity service for SL land, holding inventory for folks who weren't in the market for a parcel when it was priced at whatever the land baron paid for it. So inevitably land barons will bid on auctions and win the ones that they think they can resell for more than they bid -- exactly the same as they operate on directly For Sale parcels in-world. I don't have any expectation of changing the SL land market as a market.

I'm just interested in the SL land auctions functioning as normal auctions, where the vast majority of items at auction are sold to the highest bidder, period, independent of any minimum bid. I guess the fixed timeline is kinda related to #1, but even no minimum bid auctions aren't necessarily "fire sales" -- indeed, the fixed bidding deadline of the impending gavel often generates (much) higher prices than could be raised by leaving it up to the buyer to decide when to pull the "buy" trigger. (That's how Sotheby's can afford to buy all that champagne. It's also why Sotheby's buys all that champagne, but that's gonna be hard to emulate on the auction page.)

If a seller really doesn't trust the market to bring the price s/he thinks a parcel deserves, they really shouldn't clutter up the auctions page with it but rather put it up for sale the old fashioned way.

[Pussycat Catnap]

If there's no minimum bid, every plot of land put up risks getting sold for $1L. In that environment, it would be stupidity to sell anything unless you were also willing to abandon it.

That rigs it to favor buyers over sellers in the extreme.

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by Pussycat Catnap

[Raspberry Crystal]

The minimum bid could be calculated per square metre? 

[Qie Niangao]

3 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

If there's no minimum bid, every plot of land put up risks getting sold for $1L. In that environment, it would be stupidity to sell anything unless you were also willing to abandon it.

That rigs it to favor buyers over sellers in the extreme.

 

It's not that there's no minimum bid. Rather, if the seller is confident the land is worth more, they can set a minimum bid and pay the price to list it. If they don't want to pay that price, then they either don't set a minimum and take their chances, or don't use the auction system.

To clarify the proposal, it's the same as the seller putting in their own bid as a minimum: if nobody bids over them, they'd get the land back and pay the Lab the commission on the "sale" back to themselves. Indeed, if the system had no provision at all for a minimum bid, the seller could do this manual version of preventing a sale below the amount they want.

I'm not sure if that's a subtle problem with the proposal, or a virtue: there's little incentive for the seller to set a minimum bid up front, rather than to swoop in later and "buy" it if the price isn't reaching the desired level.

Of course they can do that now, too, but with the current system, setting an up-front minimum doesn't cost the sales commission -- and that's why the resident auction page is so cluttered with hopelessly overpriced garbage that anything of value is buried. Hence the resident-to-resident auctions simply aren't worth viewing except by flippers willing to wade through the dreck for the few genuine offers -- fewer all the time, as the system gets more and more swamped by garbage listings.

Another option would be to instead charge all sellers a listing fee corresponding to some share of the sales commission on the minimum bid, discounted from the final sales commission on sale. I'm just not sure there's any real reason to make this share less than 100%.