Suspicious Land Activity

[Enchtris Byrd]

Here is a question I’d like to ask a linden!
 

Can a resident have and own protected land, list it under a public/ private in world group name and have a linden manage it, as tho it belongs to a linden? Why wouldn’t the existing land Have Governor Linden as owner name? Why hide it?

Can they reserve that land for sale, or abandon land, without offering to an existing resident of the sim first, or with no signal the land is available for exchange! I know land can be sold and exchanged between residence at any time, but this land was sold by auction prices, before auction @ 1L per Meter and a linden was manipulating another persons parcel and at no time was a lindens name attached, like you would see Governor Linden as an owner! 

The land was never shown as abandon either, or for sale! what’s going on?

[Mollymews]

2 hours ago, Enchtris Byrd said:

Here is a question I’d like to ask a linden!
 

Can a resident have and own protected land, list it under a public/ private in world group name and have a linden manage it, as tho it belongs to a linden? Why wouldn’t the existing land Have Governor Linden as owner name? Why hide it?

Can they reserve that land for sale, or abandon land, without offering to an existing resident of the sim first, or with no signal the land is available for exchange! I know land can be sold and exchanged between residence at any time, but this land was sold by auction prices, before auction @ 1L per Meter and a linden was manipulating another persons parcel and at no time was a lindens name attached, like you would see Governor Linden as an owner! 

The land was never shown as abandon either, or for sale! what’s going on?

i am not a Linden, but I can tell you that estate managers with appropriately assigned estate powers can do anything on and with a parcel in their estate.  On the mainland the Linden land staff are estate managers.  The Moles  also are estate managers for LDPW and Linden Homes

so if you see a Linden account doing stuff on somebody's parcel then they can. Is usually returning objects that are non-compliant

Linden land team can also sometimes move donut hole micro- parcels. Like there is a 16m micro-parcel in the middle of another person's parcel. Linden will cut a new same size parcel from an edge of the surrounding parcel, set ownership of that new parcel to the micro-parcel owner.  And then reclaim the donut hole parcel  set it to the surrounding parcel owner, so that there is now a contiguous parcel

to have this done for us, as the surrounding parcel owner, we can put in a ticket.  Linden won't do it in every case tho. I think, I dunno exactly,  that there is some rules they go by. Is the micro parcel empty, how long since the micro parcel owner last logged in, etc.

 

ps. another thing Linden land team will sometimes do also is terraforming on a parcel owner's property.  They did this one to a parcel next to me.  My parcel was on a region next to a roleplay weapons sandbox.  Next to me the neigbour had tried to make a house, but at some time they had dropped the terrain down and their half made plywood house was floating way up in the air.  The owner hadn't logged in for over a year. So I stuck a grass prim structure anchored on my parcel to cover up the hole in the ground

sometimes the sky and land next to the sand box region would get littered with bullets and screamers, cagers and other stuffs. Parcels underneath not set to auto-return. My neighbour's parcel was set to No-Return. So when it got to bad with some of the screamers I would AR the screamers when they were particularly bad. Screamers play multiple instances of sound files, usually compressed so really loud. Linden person would come by some time later and clear them away

then one day Some Linden, terraformed the neighbour's parcel. Put the land back up under the half made house and set the auto-return to 15 minutes. And returned my cover structure.  I never asked them to do any of this. They just did it

Edited October 29, 2021 by Mollymews
tpsa

[Enchtris Byrd]

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i am not a Linden, but I can tell you that estate managers with appropriately assigned estate powers can do anything on and with a parcel in their estate.  On the mainland the Linden land staff are estate managers.  The Moles  also are estate managers for LDPW and Linden Homes

so if you see a Linden account doing stuff on somebody's parcel then they can. Is usually returning objects that are non-compliant

Linden land team can also sometimes move donut hole micro- parcels. Like there is a 16m micro-parcel in the middle of another person's parcel. Linden will cut a new same size parcel from an edge of the surrounding parcel, set ownership of that new parcel to the micro-parcel owner.  And then reclaim the donut hole parcel  set it to the surrounding parcel owner, so that there is now a contiguous parcel

to have this done for us, as the surrounding parcel owner, we can put in a ticket.  Linden won't do it in every case tho. I think, I dunno exactly,  that there is some rules they go by. Is the micro parcel empty, how long since the micro parcel owner last logged in, etc.

 

ps. another thing Linden land team will sometimes do also is terraforming on a parcel owner's property.  They did this one to a parcel next to me.  My parcel was on a region next to a roleplay weapons sandbox.  Next to me the neigbour had tried to make a house, but at some time they had dropped the terrain down and their half made plywood house was floating way up in the air.  The owner hadn't logged in for over a year. So I stuck a grass prim structure anchored on my parcel to cover up the hole in the ground

sometimes the sky and land next to the sand box region would get littered with bullets and screamers, cagers and other stuffs. Parcels underneath not set to auto-return. My neighbour's parcel was set to No-Return. So when it got to bad with some of the screamers I would AR the screamers when they were particularly bad. Screamers play multiple instances of sound files, usually compressed so really loud. Linden person would come by some time later and clear them away

then one day Some Linden, terraformed the neighbour's parcel. Put the land back up under the half made house and set the auto-return to 15 minutes. And returned my cover structure.  I never asked them to do any of this. They just did it

Thank you molly, this was land we know belonged to a SL resident and had our eye on it, to see if it would come up for sale. It never did. It never came up for auction either, but a linden was setting the land for sale for a specific buyer at 1L per meter. Set it so a realitor of SL to buy! We never got a chance to purchase and thought this was strange activity coming from a linden to manipulator a residence land to sell to a certain person! Thank you so much for your reply. I would really like to know the rights and logistics of all this. As a land owner, I have never seen this type of activity in 15 years of SL. Only when the land became abandoned, you might see a linden. 
When land is abandon there is a procedure also, not just turn land over to a specific person in SL especially a Realitor! 

[Mollymews]

48 minutes ago, Enchtris Byrd said:

Thank you molly, this was land we know belonged to a SL resident and had our eye on it, to see if it would come up for sale. It never did. It never came up for auction either, but a linden was setting the land for sale for a specific buyer at 1L per meter. Set it so a realitor of SL to buy! We never got a chance to purchase and thought this was strange activity coming from a linden to manipulator a residence land to sell to a certain person! Thank you so much for your reply. I would really like to know the rights and logistics of all this. As a land owner, I have never seen this type of activity in 15 years of SL. Only when the land became abandoned, you might see a linden. 
When land is abandon there is a procedure also, not just turn land over to a specific person in SL especially a Realitor! 

 

is certainly possible for a Linden to belong to a resident land-owning group, and have group powers to sell that land to anyone

if you actually saw a Linden avatar inworld doing this then I think they would have been doing it in their capacity as a resident, not as a Land Linden. Land Lindens in their official work capacity  do their work in admin mode. We can't see them

that Linden could have been an office worker or a tech worker, not a Land team member

i think is discouraged these days for Linden accounts to belong to resident groups on their Linden accounts. But it used to be pretty prevalent back in the day. Linden fan clubs were a big thing back in day also

It could be as you first mention that the founder of the group was also a alt of theirs.  And getting rid of their personal parcel was part of them tidying up their ongoing relationship with their employer. The should not be a member of a group on your Linden account thing

Edited October 30, 2021 by Mollymews
tidying up

[Enchtris Byrd]

Yes, we took snap shots, gyazo form. We also messaged them and then they went into away mode. 5 hours later a message came back “what land” hmmm. Just very suspicious, so thought I would ask. Yes I agree lots of lindens back in the day fraternize with residence. That stopped moons ago and we never seen Lindens in world again, u less they helped with an issue and even that was seldom, as they were able to correct problems, like you say from their admin place. Personally, I would like to see more info sent out or placed on an SL website to the procedures and rules to residents rights and just what lindens can and can’t do.  Then at least we would know. I have never seen a linden not answer a question a resident has and at least not 5 hours later and be dumb about it. When that person was asked questions, many question in an Im. Very strange behaviour I must say. The land, the away mode and a 5 hour delay to get back a response! Thanks again Molly, appreciative of your time and your info. Take care!

[Qie Niangao]

7 hours ago, Mollymews said:

if you actually saw a Linden avatar inworld doing this then I think they would have been doing it in their capacity as a resident, not as a Land Linden. Land Lindens in their official work capacity  do their work in admin mode. We can't see them

Certainly not always. I've worked together with Guy on tidying up a mess I'd made (long story) and he was very much visible the whole time. In this current case, though, there might have been an "invisible" Linden doing the work, accompanied by another, "visible" Linden who wasn't aware what land work was underway.

That said, I think there's something happening here that none of us can see, but I don't know what it is. My hunch is that it involves RL death of a land owner, response to which often involves Land Lindens, often after a long interval of uncertainty. Similar work is involved for group-deeded land when tier donations lapse. Either way, it's very possible that a "realtor" might be the one to alert Lab personnel to the situation, and may well be offered the land at L$1/sq.m. (a standard price twice the opening bid for auction of non-Adult, single-prim Mainland).

The original post, however, refers to "protected land" which I don't understand. Was this land originally owned by Governor Linden? or, otherwise, in what way was it "protected"???

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

I've worked together with Guy on tidying up a mess I'd made (long story) and he was very much visible the whole time.

That said, I think there's something happening here that none of us can see, but I don't know what it is. My hunch is that it involves RL death of a land owner, response to which often involves Land Lindens, often after a long interval of uncertainty. Similar work is involved for group-deeded land when tier donations lapse. Either way, it's very possible that a "realtor" might be the one to alert Lab personnel to the situation, and may well be offered the land at L$1/sq.m. (a standard price twice the opening bid for auction of non-Adult, single-prim Mainland).

The original post, however, refers to "protected land" which I don't understand. Was this land originally owned by Governor Linden? or, otherwise, in what way was it "protected"???

it makes sense that Guy Linden would go visible to work with you to tidy up a mess

you could be right as well about the death of the main group owner. Tier donation lapses.  It could even have been the realtor like you said, saw that the tier had lapsed and apprised Linden and put in a Ticket to acquire it.  So all the processes were followed in this case, but could appear to be a bit edgy

i have acquired land by putting in a ticket and have got it set to me pretty quickly.  One time I logged in, checked the land I had put in a ticket for. Was on the same region as my parcel. I never left, just started doing stuff. Checked the parcel after a couple hours and it had been set to me to buy. I never saw any Linden. Another time i was wandering along the road exploring, with my boundaries lines on. Saw the boundary lines disappearing, checked the About Land to have a nosey. Some Linden beavering away tidying up. I couldn't see them tho, so I just carried on down the road

not like in the olden days.  I remember one time way back similar to what you mention about Guy Linden.  Jack Linden came to my land in response to a ticket, I was like wooo! the big banana himself. I can;t help myself in these situations. After he says hello! lets see what we can do to fix the issue. I go: Hi! thanks for coming to help me. Umm! is all your staff on their lunch break ?  He ignore/stoneface that one. So I just shut up and say what the issue was (soft terrain sinkholes) and he fixed  it by restart the region

i don't understand what was meant by "protected land" either really.  I first thought that this meant that OP saw a Linden set a Governor Linden  parcel for sale to a realtor. Which is normal standard practice in response to a Abandoned Land Ticket. Then OP start to mention about group owned land. So I said what I did about how Linden have powers and then OP came back and said some more about how the land was private group-owned land

if it was group-owned then either the Linden was in the group somehow. Or is as you mention, the realtor got it because they put in a ticket for it. Lapsed group tier the likely reason for the parcel to be reclaimed by Linden

i didn't get into it with Enchtris but I think Enchtris was more wanting to know how come they never got a chance to purchase the parcel. I don't know what the answer to that would be. It seems a bit close to the edge for a Land Linden to do this. Reclaim a parcel from a lapsed  tier group and immediately set it to a realtor

Edited October 30, 2021 by Mollymews
appear gov

[Qie Niangao]

4 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

It seems a bit close to the edge for a Land Linden to do this. Reclaim a parcel from a lapsed  tier group and immediately set it to a realtor

Agreed, unless that realtor was instrumental in alerting the Lab to some situation with that specific land. I know the policy has evolved to be more responsive about letting pretty much anybody have any abandoned land they want, in contrast to the old days when you had to have land immediately adjacent (even on three sides, IIRC) in order to get it immediately set for sale to you without an auction. I mean, those old rules would certainly prevent any occasion for someone to complain they didn't get a fair chance at acquiring a parcel, but it would mean a lot of fallow land, earning the Lab no tier. Those rules needed to change…

… so suppose a Land Linden was going to push some land to abandonment, and simultaneously has a request to sell that land to a resident (even a dreaded "realtor"). Do we think they must leave it officially abandoned for some respectable interval before they make that sale? I'd guess such delay would have zero return in the vast majority of cases.

[Mollymews]

21 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

… so suppose a Land Linden was going to push some land to abandonment, and simultaneously has a request to sell that land to a resident (even a dreaded "realtor"). Do we think they must leave it officially abandoned for some respectable interval before they make that sale? I'd guess such delay would have zero return in the vast majority of cases.

is true about the vast majority of cases. It is the edge cases tho that raise people's eyebrows. Specially the eyebrows of parcel owners already living/owning on the region.  Which is the case with Enchtris. They were wanting to obtain the parcel and include it in their property

if it was just about the tier revenues for Linden,  then now that they have cleaned up most of the micro-parcels they could go back to automatically setting parcels for sale on abandonment, with parcels less than 512m exempted from this. Have to still file a ticket for them

[SarahThe Wanderer]

There were 2 parcels in my region that were owned by a rental group, out of no where i see these 2 parcels for auction; and i'm pretty sure they were not abandoned, and the rental group still active and still own other parcels in the same region, i just find it very wired!

[Enchtris Byrd]

On 10/30/2021 at 4:11 AM, Qie Niangao said:

Certainly not always. I've worked together with Guy on tidying up a mess I'd made (long story) and he was very much visible the whole time. In this current case, though, there might have been an "invisible" Linden doing the work, accompanied by another, "visible" Linden who wasn't aware what land work was underway.

That said, I think there's something happening here that none of us can see, but I don't know what it is. My hunch is that it involves RL death of a land owner, response to which often involves Land Lindens, often after a long interval of uncertainty. Similar work is involved for group-deeded land when tier donations lapse. Either way, it's very possible that a "realtor" might be the one to alert Lab personnel to the situation, and may well be offered the land at L$1/sq.m. (a standard price twice the opening bid for auction of non-Adult, single-prim Mainland).

The original post, however, refers to "protected land" which I don't understand. Was this land originally owned by Governor Linden? or, otherwise, in what way was it "protected"???

Hello Qie

in reviewing the “about land” often, to check to see land for sale and the only thing other residence have to seek out info on a parcel, it always showed a SL resident name as owner, in there it described the land as protected! The group name was a private group  assuming the owner belonged to or made up. 

[Rowan Amore]

3 hours ago, Enchtris Byrd said:

Hello Qie

in reviewing the “about land” often, to check to see land for sale and the only thing other residence have to seek out info on a parcel, it always showed a SL resident name as owner, in there it described the land as protected! The group name was a private group  assuming the owner belonged to or made up. 

Some people will use protected in a description if one or more sides is adjacent to.protected land meaning no one can build on that side.

ETA.  Like this banner in the mainland sales forum

1x protected roadside on Route 8A for sale 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Rowan Amore

[Enchtris Byrd]

On 10/30/2021 at 5:40 AM, Mollymews said:

it makes sense that Guy Linden would go visible to work with you to tidy up a mess

you could be right as well about the death of the main group owner. Tier donation lapses.  It could even have been the realtor like you said, saw that the tier had lapsed and apprised Linden and put in a Ticket to acquire it.  So all the processes were followed in this case, but could appear to be a bit edgy

i have acquired land by putting in a ticket and have got it set to me pretty quickly.  One time I logged in, checked the land I had put in a ticket for. Was on the same region as my parcel. I never left, just started doing stuff. Checked the parcel after a couple hours and it had been set to me to buy. I never saw any Linden. Another time i was wandering along the road exploring, with my boundaries lines on. Saw the boundary lines disappearing, checked the About Land to have a nosey. Some Linden beavering away tidying up. I couldn't see them tho, so I just carried on down the road

not like in the olden days.  I remember one time way back similar to what you mention about Guy Linden.  Jack Linden came to my land in response to a ticket, I was like wooo! the big banana himself. I can;t help myself in these situations. After he says hello! lets see what we can do to fix the issue. I go: Hi! thanks for coming to help me. Umm! is all your staff on their lunch break ?  He ignore/stoneface that one. So I just shut up and say what the issue was (soft terrain sinkholes) and he fixed  it by restart the region

i don't understand what was meant by "protected land" either really.  I first thought that this meant that OP saw a Linden set a Governor Linden  parcel for sale to a realtor. Which is normal standard practice in response to a Abandoned Land Ticket. Then OP start to mention about group owned land. So I said what I did about how Linden have powers and then OP came back and said some more about how the land was private group-owned land

if it was group-owned then either the Linden was in the group somehow. Or is as you mention, the realtor got it because they put in a ticket for it. Lapsed group tier the likely reason for the parcel to be reclaimed by Linden

i didn't get into it with Enchtris but I think Enchtris was more wanting to know how come they never got a chance to purchase the parcel. I don't know what the answer to that would be. It seems a bit close to the edge for a Land Linden to do this. Reclaim a parcel from a lapsed  tier group and immediately set it to a realtor

Yes protected land, I always believed to be owned by lindens, but here is the catcher. Protected land always belongs to Governor linden. No SL resident owns protected land that I’m aware of and I have been in SL a long time, even if land is abandon, it never says protected land  and abandon land goes back to the hands of lindens. That was what made all this so suspicious. We could not figure out why a resident had protected land and it didn’t say Governor Linden, plus being deeded to a private group was strange also. Then to see a linden manipulating the parcel, setting it to a specific name, who was a SL realitor was another flag as this parcel was never for sale or abandon. Thank you so much for replying and sharing with me. Was trying to get some insight on this and find out if things changed or anyone else has had same experience. I appreciate your time!

[Enchtris Byrd]

3 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Some people will use protected in a description if one or more sides is adjacent to.protected land meaning no one can build on that side.

ETA.  Like this banner in the mainland sales forum

1x protected roadside on Route 8A for sale 

Thank you Rowan, I wasn’t aware a resident could state their land is protected land, because only lindens could own Offical protected land!. So that would be a no no, in doing so. I appreciate your comment, thank you once again!
 

[Rowan Amore]

47 minutes ago, Enchtris Byrd said:

Thank you Rowan, I wasn’t aware a resident could state their land is protected land, because only lindens could own Offical protected land!. So that would be a no no, in doing so. I appreciate your comment, thank you once again!
 

Yes and it's common and allowed to state it this way.  If I were to sell my land, I could say, 2x protected land for sale, since 2 sides are bordered by Linden land.  A corner lot with Linden roads on 2 sides.

 

[Qie Niangao]

D'oh! "Protected" as in protected sides. Thanks @Rowan Amore , that part all makes perfect sense now.

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Qie Niangao

[Enchtris Byrd]

9 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Yes and it's common and allowed to state it this way.  If I were to sell my land, I could say, 2x protected land for sale, since 2 sides are bordered by Linden land.  A corner lot with Linden roads on 2 sides.

 

Yes … grins! 

[Enchtris Byrd]

On 10/30/2021 at 5:55 AM, Qie Niangao said:

Agreed, unless that realtor was instrumental in alerting the Lab to some situation with that specific land. I know the policy has evolved to be more responsive about letting pretty much anybody have any abandoned land they want, in contrast to the old days when you had to have land immediately adjacent (even on three sides, IIRC) in order to get it immediately set for sale to you without an auction. I mean, those old rules would certainly prevent any occasion for someone to complain they didn't get a fair chance at acquiring a parcel, but it would mean a lot of fallow land, earning the Lab no tier. Those rules needed to change…

… so suppose a Land Linden was going to push some land to abandonment, and simultaneously has a request to sell that land to a resident (even a dreaded "realtor"). Do we think they must leave it officially abandoned for some respectable interval before they make that sale? I'd guess such delay would have zero return in the vast majority of cases.

We do own land that is adjacent. We are the only land adjacent with respect to a linden road and a rail road on the other side also lindens. The 4 th side is a sim border. This land never showed for sale or showed abandon. It never went to auction either and was sold to an SL realtor for 1L$ per square ft. The land was purchased and now for sale for 25,000 lindens. Hence a suspicious transaction, as we sent a message to original owner expressing interest if it was ever sold. We don’t know of new rules set out to acquire land, except for what we learned along the way, with auctions and abandon lands. We also relied on SL map to display land sales and or auction lands. Thank you again for your imput. I do appreciate the feed back and agree, there use to be a process when land was abandon. This land never showed abandon, as it was watched, unless it happened within hours of abandonment! And we missed it.  
 

Great community we have here, lots of info and learning that comes from everyone’s experiences. 
Thank you  to everyone who has had an input into this thread!

Be safe

[Prokofy Neva]

Here's what I can tell you from my experience, which frankly, is vast on this subject. Now as Laetitia would say, let Grampa find his teeth and then tell you some stories:

1. As Qie says, a person falls ill with COVID or cancer, or dies, but they have always paid their bills, the land is usually grouped, so one land Linden takes it over until they can investigate what is going on. It won't say "Governor Linden," and it won't say "auction". This situation might persist for weeks or months, even. You wish this care was exercised with everyone and everyone was equally valued -- they are not. Land is turning purple with lightning speed, and when abandoned, not even getting the previous owner's builds taken off it, before it will be sold to you on request (if not in the auction queue). From many signs, we can see that the Lindens are on a new campaign to get rid of abandoned land and get it under tier -- maybe the new owners, appalled at all this unsold stock, said get it out the door, pronto. This is good and bad as I've said elsewhere.

2. Sometimes the person is a special Linden friend, or a Linden alt, or a Linden contractor. We do live on Animal Farm, where some pigs are more equal than others. For whatever reason, their tier isn't paid, yet the Lindens hold their land for them for long stretches. Not the 30 days that most people get, but months on end. If this is an oldbie that has built a giant tower in the view of beautiful ocean front which he uses as a sandbox with plywood cubes on every level and half-emptied texture boxes strewn around, if it is in my tenants view, I tend to watch what's going on with it, to see if it might get abandoned finally whereupon I may or may not take it out of its misery asking for it from the Lindens -- but since I see the person's store on another sim is also "in limbo," with the person not in the People list (often a sign that they have not paid their bills and fallen out from a premium account; banned persons continue to appear in the People list), I might ask, hey, is that abandoned? Whereupon I will get a vaguely-worded reply that it is "covered".

3. People trying to sell land sometimes recklessly use the term "protected" when no Linden land is involved. When I was a wee lad starting out, this was a sacred word we only used to describe Linden land. Now, I am so old, and have been on some sims so long, that people selling their land next to me claim it is "protected," like *my land* is some kind of "protection" as it never changes. It might even change less than Linden land, it's been so long, especially in certain sims where Lindens who fell in love with their neon sculpty-looking Zindra bridges began to deploy them on old Sansara land, although the original fine prim workmanship by Ben Linden or Xenon Linden which they recklessly tore apart should have been left alone, merely convexed in parts if absolutely necessary. I never say my land itself is protected. 

o There is yet another phenomenon which I have come to believe exists by certain external signals but which I have no proof of. We all know the Lindens handed out 4096 tier free for life parcels to the "beta era" or Charter Members of SL, the early oldbies. Normally, you would tell this is a Charter member's land by something like a chair they have left on it for 15 years while they never logged in. If you look at their profile, you can see a little symbol that says "Charter". This once-4096 may have been combined on alts to make up a whole sim; it may have been partly sold and only 1024 is left of it; I'm not sure if the land itself is marked in some way so if a Charter member sells or gives it away and neither party ever logs in again, that it "seems abandoned" and they may not be in the People list any more, having long, long ago departed these shores -- yet it has some kind of flag on it to keep it untouched.

o But I actually think that use case, if it is possible, isn't the explanation for the dozens of 1024s I've seen for years and years, without any visible activity, and with the person sometimes in the People List, sometimes not. Everybody always says "they left their credit card on it and put it on automatic payment". But that simply cannot be true. That's possible, but not in every case. In fact, I know of one very old oldbie who had land paid for with a credit card left on the account for years, and I saw her online and send her a message one day but she was AFK, and *literally the next day her land went purple*, got auctioned, bid way up, flipped by a land baron a time or two, and then fell to rest in the hands of a wealthy developer. That person is still trying to get their land back from the Lindens -- likely a credit card fell out of date, or who knows what, but these things happen, they don't have good explanations, but there's nothing that can be done about it.

I cite that to debunk this idea that someone comes into SL in 2007, leaves a credit card, and 15 years later, their land is still there. I mean who does that? You don't do that with magazines or meal services or accident insurance -- for one, their fees change, your credit card expires, etc. But is there a category of people for whom a $11.99 charge recurring for ever means nothing? The Lindens' fellow techs  with their six-figure incomes -- but then, I think there's an even simpler and more likely explanation, given the propensity of Silicon Valley to give away free tech, payola to journalists, etc. So I think these 1024s were given to a lot of excited tech journos and PR company reps in 2006-2007, or other Silicon Valley company executives, so they could try SL. They came, the didn't stay.

o Recently I put a note on Twitter, where there is all sorts of jabbering about the Metaverse now (which, having been in these debates for 20 years literally, I tend to say, like they used to say on American Band Stand, "Next Verse, Same as the First".

And that was: "Attention assignment editors: please tell your tech bros logging in now to cover the SL story as they became 'experts' in 2007 to take the damn plywood off their lawns, I'm really sick of looking at it." And I got at least one answer. So I do think it's a thing -- the Lindens gave away accounts to their industry peers, their friends, Lindens who left the Lab but kept an alt, etc. And they didn't stay. But just in case they come back, those parcels, again, flagged in some way, are never available.

o In three or four cases, I was stunned to see land turn purple on, or next to my sims which I visit every day, with only hours left on the auction -- or the auction run out already. How can that be? I sleep with one eye open on a certain sim where I've been waiting for certain strange parcels to get abandoned for years. How did I miss this?? Since I can't literally stay awake 24 hours and I don't think there's a script that alerts you when land acquires an auction number and turns purple, there's nothing I can do. I IM the former owner, puzzled, why didn't you call me? I could have bought your land. You know that. But they never answered. Second Life is filled with mysteries, and they are not to be known as they involve other people's privacy, which the Lindens preserve more tightly than the CPS in NYC after a child dies. 

o The Lindens always say "never assume malice when negligence is the reason." I no longer believe that after the Dicycla auction, but ok, let's assume this. So just ASK. File a ticket and say, what's with this land owned by a single Linden for over a year, with an ugly build on it still?" The first time I did this recently, I got this answer about how it was group land under investigation, although it was vaguely worded so it was incomprehensible. Usually the phrase they use is that the land is "covered". They don't say "paid for". Just "covered". 

So more months went by, my land didn't rent with that ugly build, so I asked again. Instantly, within 48 hours it was cleared and put to sale to me like any other abandoned land requested. 

I could also mention that I began to more actively ask the Lindens about ugly builds and zero autoreturn and griefer prims piling up on unattended land with 2007 claim dates recently whose owner is either a closed group you can't see, or who is gone from the People List. And I find the Lindens, who in generally began to care more about land when Ebbe came in, would clear the junk away, at least the stuff not owned by the parcel owner -- and sometimes even the parcel's owners plywood.

So in conclusion, I will say: it's their land, on their servers, they can do what they want. They are not required to be ultra-transparent on every transaction; they are a private company not listed publicly on the stock market. You are renting from them, not buying. 

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

On 10/29/2021 at 3:59 PM, Enchtris Byrd said:

 without offering to an existing resident of the sim first

In the old days, when the world was smaller, there were less people, and the Lindens were different (better in some ways; worse in some ways), they might have done this.

Today, they might informally do this but it's extremely rare. Example: a few years ago, I abandoned some hind land on a sim when no one would rent it because it was next to a vore club on another sim. Everything in SL changes, I thought, well, that club will go away some day, I will pick up the land again. A long time seemed to go by, the club disappeared, then someone adjacent on the next sim who actually was banned by me on all parcels for bad behaviour, asked to get that abandoned land on a sim where I owned the rest of the land. A Linden IM'd me and asked me if I wanted my old abandoned land back. Now wasn't that nice. I doubt she had time to parse all these "local circumstances". 

But now I had no incentive to get my abandoned land back and try to rent it out again because...that neighbour had built an enormous build blocking the sun on 3 sims. So I let it go. I do that much more now. Her build blocked now air, light, and sun on four sims, but ok, go in the sky, refund, whatever. Finally, she got tired of playing in the sandbox and abandoned this land and the next sim whereupon I asked for it again. There are some sims where I have abandoned and taken back land 3-4 times in 17 years. You have to. 

The Lindens do not have a policy of notifying you first whatsoever. Not any more. Not even when you just happen to hit a nice Linden who had a nice long lunch because you gave them five stars last time. Nope. You are not told, and they do what they want.

I WISH they had a system -- even a scripted, automatic system which surely can't be that hard to code! -- that notified all existing owners on a sim when land is abandoned, so that they could file a request, and the Lindens would simply grant it on a first come first served basis. This would solve probably 75% of the cases -- there would be only one or no requests. In cases where there were more, I'm for them going "first come first served" *to those who are owners on that sim*.

What they do instead is open it up to the auction under colour of claiming it has multiple requests. But then land barons get it, outbidding everyone. So that's fake. I've seen land barons get an auction, then dump it because they aren't there to buy and sell land any more in this terrible market; they are there merely to stay on the top of the land-for-sale list and bid up high every auction, to keep the value of land high, and to keep anyone undercutting them out of business. The end. It is not any normal market in any sense.

The Lindens have never offered to do this. They have other priorities. They made a resident-to-resident auction for awhile, which in theory could have solved this problem of "sales on one sim only to those owners on that sim" but which got invaded by unscrupulous land barons like every other part of the land business. It likely had fraud involved as well. So they shut it down. I personally found it too confusing or non-working to use, and here we all are.

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Prokofy Neva