200 New SSPEs?

[Prokofy Neva]

I was riding the train through new parts of Bellisseria today and saw sim after sim with yellow brackets and realized there must be 100s of new homes -- not taken yet. And it may be that they don't release them until previous sims fill up randomly so that they don't have a situation with one person per sim and sims needing attention .

I then realized I could count them using the map and found 189 SSPE sims (my counting might have slipped but it's close enough).

So what's that, 3,700+ premium accounts? Is it 20 per sim? 

Also, the numbering on the SSPE sims is like "1775" or "2174" and I wonder if those numbers are an accurate tally of how many Bellisseria sims there are. Maybe it's a coincidence but it seems so. 

A few months ago, Whitney Linden said in the Concierge meeting that there were 1600 regions in Bellisseria. Then Fantasseria was added. So if there are 2000 now, I'm not surprised. And it seems now that the Lindens want to make premium account = Bellisseria, and with the new "ambassador's program" of the BBB, recruit people to leave the legacy Mainland and move into Bellisseria. In theory this is about premium accounts. But anyone with land on the Mainland *has* a premium account already. It is described as looking for affinity groups like "train lovers" or "airplane lovers" but while the former seem to live in Calleta or in sandboxes, the latter tend to have giant tracts of land; hence premiums.

I was surprised to hear Abner Mole invoke the old slogan "Your World, Your Imagination" in his speech at the opening of the Corsica Embassy today. Bellisseria is more about the Moles' imagination than ours. 

From the latest Grid Survey:

• 57% of Mainland owned directly by Linden Accounts (Contiguous Mainland is 6806 regions including Linden Home regions)
• 20.7% to 21.4% of Mainland by area is abandoned parcels 

[yestothis]

I do so miss the “your world, your imagination” slogan.

they’ve scrubbed it from the home page, which is sad.

Edited November 20, 2021 by yestothis

[Nika Talaj]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

And it seems now that the Lindens want to make premium account = Bellisseria, and with the new "ambassador's program" of the BBB, recruit people to leave the legacy Mainland and move into Bellisseria. In theory this is about premium accounts. But anyone with land on the Mainland *has* a premium account already. It is described as looking for affinity groups like "train lovers" or "airplane lovers" but while the former seem to live in Calleta or in sandboxes, the latter tend to have giant tracts of land; hence premiums.

I was surprised to hear Abner Mole invoke the old slogan "Your World, Your Imagination" in his speech at the opening of the Corsica Embassy today. Bellisseria is more about the Moles' imagination than ours.

Hmmm.  I have not been able to spend much time on SL concerns lately, but still it surprises me that you believe the Bellisseria Citizens' "ambassador's program" is intended to recruit people to leave mainland and move into Belli.  I rather assumed (in the absence of actually READING about it!) that the intent was exactly the opposite: to export some of Belli's community cohesiveness and services TO the mainland, thereby civilizing it a bit.  People in Belli often say they wish they could live near one another, well, on mainland they could.  But with more freedom to express themselves artistically than they can exercise in Belli.  If they purchased a small estate-sized hunk of land, they could even create a covenant of sorts, at least for a while. 

I think that if I were a Linden I would have spent some time thinking about a way to facilitate groups of premiums creating 'villages' on mainland.   In fact, I have privately wondered if the lower tip of Sansara, owned by Patch, might be reserved for just such an experiment.

Then again, I have also privately wondered if someone at LL is keeping a list of the ideas I express in the forums to use as a guide to what NOT to do in SL.

I must say that Abnor's slogan mention makes more sense if my interpretation of the Embassies is somewhere near correct.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Nika Talaj

[Evangeline Arcadia]

7 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I was riding the train through new parts of Bellisseria today and saw sim after sim with yellow brackets and realized there must be 100s of new homes -- not taken yet. And it may be that they don't release them until previous sims fill up randomly so that they don't have a situation with one person per sim and sims needing attention .

 

Yes, that seems to be what we have seen happening - the regions are in some kind of queue and when all the homes in one has been taken the next is released. And of course there are the 'manual' releases too. But there are certainly quite a few regions that appear to be finished but have not yet finished the QA phases (Stilt and chalet mainly).

Quote

And it seems now that the Lindens want to make premium account = Bellisseria, and with the new "ambassador's program" of the BBB, recruit people to leave the legacy Mainland and move into Bellisseria.

I don't know where you are getting that from, I doubt that's what LL are trying to do. The Ambassador program is run privately by users, it's nothing to do with LL. The BBB was an individual initiative which has grown, so from what I've seen it seems like it's more about fostering community between the mainland and Bellisseria. Quote:

"The purpose of the role is to be an advocate for Bellisseria in the respective continent. To achieve this you'll be expected to get close to the residents and users of your respective continent, and to become an advocate for that continent within Bellisseria also. For example if your continent has an established railroad system you might want to join all the local and  SL wide Rail Groups to raise your profile."

Whilst the first sentence may seem to support your argument, I disagree that the fundamental purpose is to 'lets get all the premium mainland folk into Bellisseria', due to the the bolded rest of the quote. I don't think anyone would realistically be trying to do that. There are people that don't want the covenant of Bellisseria, and prefer more freedom the mainland provides, or just more land. That will never change. And it would be stupid of LL to even try to do that (I doubt that it would increase their revenue). The purpose of an Embassy is to foster cultural and social relationships. It's a private volunteer role, not an LL role, so it seems to me that's what the users involved are trying to do.

That's what I think based on the information provided by the BBB. I wasn't at the opening, so I don't know if something else was said that might contradict that.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Evangeline Arcadia

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

3 hours ago, yestothis said:

I do so miss the “your world, your imagination” slogan.

they’ve scrubbed it from the home page, which is sad.

Was it replaced with "Our world, your wallet" instead?!

😜

Edited November 20, 2021 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[yestothis]

It’s now “a new world is waiting…”  

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

"...for your wallet"?!

😜

Edited November 20, 2021 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Prokofy Neva]

7 hours ago, Evangeline Arcadia said:

Yes, that seems to be what we have seen happening - the regions are in some kind of queue and when all the homes in one has been taken the next is released. And of course there are the 'manual' releases too. But there are certainly quite a few regions that appear to be finished but have not yet finished the QA phases (Stilt and chalet mainly).

I don't know where you are getting that from, I doubt that's what LL are trying to do. The Ambassador program is run privately by users, it's nothing to do with LL. The BBB was an individual initiative which has grown, so from what I've seen it seems like it's more about fostering community between the mainland and Bellisseria. Quote:

"The purpose of the role is to be an advocate for Bellisseria in the respective continent. To achieve this you'll be expected to get close to the residents and users of your respective continent, and to become an advocate for that continent within Bellisseria also. For example if your continent has an established railroad system you might want to join all the local and  SL wide Rail Groups to raise your profile."

Whilst the first sentence may seem to support your argument, I disagree that the fundamental purpose is to 'lets get all the premium mainland folk into Bellisseria', due to the the bolded rest of the quote. I don't think anyone would realistically be trying to do that. There are people that don't want the covenant of Bellisseria, and prefer more freedom the mainland provides, or just more land. That will never change. And it would be stupid of LL to even try to do that (I doubt that it would increase their revenue). The purpose of an Embassy is to foster cultural and social relationships. It's a private volunteer role, not an LL role, so it seems to me that's what the users involved are trying to do.

That's what I think based on the information provided by the BBB. I wasn't at the opening, so I don't know if something else was said that might contradict that.

It's patently misleading to claim the BBB has "nothing to do" with LL. The Moles are part of LL and are deeply integrated with the BBB. Abnor Mole was present to open up the Embassy. The BBB meet constantly with Lindens and Moles - publicly and privately. The Moles approved the BBB to have Mole and Linden locations in their stamp system -- other resident groups with stamps are not welcome unless they merge into the BBB. The BBB and other related Belli groups are able in real time to reach Moles and get them to deal with griefers on Linden land and other venues -- the envy of Mainlanders whose ARs are ignored. 

Of course this entire program is about a) getting premium memberships in general b) getting people to move to Bellisseria where they are under more rules and more easily controlled -- and where they will have less complaints precisely because of that control. Where am I getting this from? Paying attention to the world and the forums. 

The ambassadorial program -- read the same card you cited and other BBB literature -- is to fan out and recruit Mainlander affinity groups and draw them into the BBB circle, which is a kind of thresher for quality and Linden approval. The system doesn't work in reverse, mainly because there are no sales allowed in Belli and commerce happens only by friendship circles and groups, i.e. some people have house add-on businesses that gain customers by exploration and word of mouth; DJs are simply tipped directly at events; and stores are only a landmark away and can be put into Belli venues in some form. I was particularly struck by this comment in the BBB newsletter:

We now have 1,024 square metre plots of land on each of SL's mainland continents on which to build permanent Bellisserian Embassies. As a Bellisserian institution, we want to reach out to the rest of SL. Bellisseria is gradually expanding to connect the mainland continents in new ways and we believe that all parts of SL have an important role to play. The strictly non-commercial /residential-only covenant in Belli should give rise to commercial opportunities on the lengthening border with mainland for example.

So check the owners in sims like Snafu and other Legacy Mainland all across the coasts of Bellisseria. The commercial opportunities are already pretty much locked up. Some overlap with BBB; others don't. But it's a windfall in the making such as the Blake Sea was back in its day, when the Lindens first created a resident-Linden hybrid group that was ostensibly just about being able to sail in clear seas. Today, the highest priced land with the most lucrative rentals and sales businesses and related content are around Blake Sea. So now we will see the same phenomenon related to Bellisseria.

Naturally entrepreneurial types of people -- for whom I am all in favour -- chafe at the non-commerce restrictions around Bellisseria, the jewel in SL's crown (the resident created mainland and islands always disappointed the Lindens and except for the very carefully curated Destinations list, doesn't help them sell their product.) While there are arguments for leaving Bellisseria "non-commercial" (landlords do this in microcosm by barring commercial activity in residential rentals as it brings increased CS, blight, griefing, etc.), it means that instead of being a straight-forward proposition -- a willing seller and a willing buy meet at a right-click on a prim -- the group/friendship circle system is reinforced which can be pernicious. The people in and around BBB run businesses, even if small, and their civic activities enhance those businesses. That's how real life works and it's perfectly fine. In real life, however, you don't have to jump through a series of filters, social and political, to get to the governor's office -- you can elect him and also impeach him.

The example of trying to hustle SLRR railroad groups into Bellisseria strikes me as curious, given that the railroad enthusiasts I know are not big property owners, and tend to live in sandboxes or on group land like Virtual Railroad properties or train stations. Someone who owns property on both Mainland and Belli and rides the rails all day is sure to pop up, but I am telling you what I see with my own eyes as I have many properties by the RR, as I myself have long been a rail enthusiast -- just critical of resident rail groups who abandon their RR projects and expect the Lindens to then tier them AND run them through my land, which I am accused of wrongfully as gotten unlawfully. I won't be surprised if some of these individuals, who long have had the Lindens' ear because they are coders, will be incorporated into Belli, if they have $99/year. 

I haven't seen them take an interest in the Bellisseria RR which I myself travel on. If they had, great, but then the ambassadors chosen don't seem to be related to any SLRR groups. Airplane groups are another matter -- the leader of the BBB and the Campbell Coast under new management is an airport enthusiast as are some others around CCC. Horse riders are another possible "affinity group" but I actually see some people who left the Mainland to go to Belli complain that there are no coastal bridle paths or interesting bridle paths in general in Belli, as the main attention in Belli is on the houses, even if the environs are pretty and have some recreational opportunities. One bridle group which appealed to LL to build more bridle paths in Belli back at a time when this was still possible to do were ignored. 

Among the most active groups in Belli are various decorator, "House Beautiful," furniture etc type groups which I associate generally with Belli, as I don't recall them forming so much on the old Mainland, as much as we are vitally interested in decor and landscaping, although there are events like the annual Home & Gardens Expo whose design contest I have often taken part in. I think people have multiple Belli homes on alts, and even keep and island or Mainland property, because most of all, what people like in SL is nesting and decorating and shopping -- finding partners and sex actually takes second place and if anything is an activity enhanced by all the decor, scenes, etc.

While you say it is "stupid of LL to even try to do that" -- watch them, as it is happening now on a number of fronts:

o massive campaign to promote Bellisseria and yes, get people to move there.

o more privileged attention to Bellisseria members, groups, and events -- the Moles have become a kind of Concierge and Gentils Organisateurs to Bellisseria.

o no reaction to numerous ARs of ugly obelisks on Legacy Mainland  -- including Abner Mole's original Good Neighbour obelisk deployed as a weapon - which devalue land, force people to abandon, and then enable land barons to take over land for cheap and chop it up into tiny pieces where ad farmers and other blight enters.

o no attention to infrastructure on old Mainland -- it is very rare to find a new tree or road.

o massive campaign to bundle up and sell abandoned land which has its plusses and minuses (it goes to land barons on the auction and thus jacks up prices; the bundling of the auctions doesn't pay attention to existing customers on sims, forcing them off in favour of new customers who spend more, etc.

It is the hallmark of Silicon Valley to have "planned obsolescence."  You are always being hustled to buy a new i-phone even though the old one still works; but the new one is shinier, etc. 

Lindens always complain that things "don't scale." Attention to the old Mainland "couldn't sale"; yet they found a solution to scale the customer service state in Belli -- use the lesser-paid Mole contractors. I'm not sure these hard-working dedicated people scale, either, but possibly more automated systems will work, i.e. instead of manually removing security systems that don't comply with the Belli covenant, they will be deleted automatically by the system if deployed. 

Everything is consistent with the way RL works, good or bad, but I actually think the future of a viable Metaverse depends on having strong civil society that is free and prosperous and not onerously restricted and which doesn't rely heavily on the government. I'm no Ayn Rand enthusiastic or libertarian or humanist; I'm a Democrat. The government needs to intervene to regulate capitalism, deter crime, build roads, etc. I don't think it needs to get into the affinity groups outreach business or treat stamp games as if they are a federal matter. The BBB is saying  the ambassadors are not "employees" of the BBB and "have more freedom," but you can be sure these people will be vetted to make sure they are loyal and "constructive."

Edited November 20, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

8 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

Hmmm.  I have not been able to spend much time on SL concerns lately, but still it surprises me that you believe the Bellisseria Citizens' "ambassador's program" is intended to recruit people to leave mainland and move into Belli.  I rather assumed (in the absence of actually READING about it!) that the intent was exactly the opposite: to export some of Belli's community cohesiveness and services TO the mainland, thereby civilizing it a bit.  People in Belli often say they wish they could live near one another, well, on mainland they could.  But with more freedom to express themselves artistically than they can exercise in Belli.  If they purchased a small estate-sized hunk of land, they could even create a covenant of sorts, at least for a while. 

I think that if I were a Linden I would have spent some time thinking about a way to facilitate groups of premiums creating 'villages' on mainland.   In fact, I have privately wondered if the lower tip of Sansara, owned by Patch, might be reserved for just such an experiment.

Then again, I have also privately wondered if someone at LL is keeping a list of the ideas I express in the forums to use as a guide to what NOT to do in SL.

I must say that Abnor's slogan mention makes more sense if my interpretation of the Embassies is somewhere near correct.

The Embassy has posters and picture changers of properties in Bellisseria to visit -- not Mainland. It's a program to increase premium accounts with the Bellisseria home as the main attraction, as "First Land" was back in the day.

Honestly, Nika? No one on the Mainland needs the exportation of "community cohesiveness and services" and the "civilizing" mission of Bellisseria. We have our own, thank you very much. A lot of the ugliness of the Mainland is due to Lindens not enforcing their own policies, some of which we fought for, for many years. Don't speak to me of "civilizing influences," please. I pay my way for my civilizing influence, and so do my tenants.

What is it, the East India Company?!

On Mainland, there are a lot of trees that look alike from the Linden library and various top sellers, but they aren't deployed with the regularity of Trumansville. 

The Bellisserian social groups are very inbred and self-referential and revolve around a relatively small group of socialites. The fact that the Trick or Treat game deployed by the Moles didn't get much traction isn't only about SL having many non-Americans who don't celebrate Halloween. It's about the problem with using only groups, and not search ads on land, and only Linden communications targeted only a premium customers to accomplish anything. Indeed, the "ambassadors" were devised to break out of that trap of the Lindens' own making. 

The Bellisserians prefer to buy multiple houses on alts, or to use direct relationships and groups to obtain coveted properties that are issued randomly by the system -- but can be grabbed with coordination. Nothing is stopping them from forming a beautiful Mainland community with a covent on 3 or 5 sims. Oh, that was done, wasn't it? By the founder of the BBB and his friends. And has now become a place where the new tier-holder land baron dumped the "hinterland" as not "paying for itself" at ridiculously low prices -- but held back the easements, which were sold in large bundles or abandoned.

The fact that the Corsica Embassy moved out of Campbell Coast and moved into Timescape -- a hard-scrabble sim with a lot of construction equipment, cheap malls and blight -- let's you know this. Timescape is an advertisement for why you should move OUT of the Mainland. CC even now, somewhat ravaged, is an advertisement for why you shouldn't move to Bellisseria if you want more freedom and more prims. Except it's also an advertisement for unscrupulous land baron practices which are the main blight of the Mainland precisely because the Lindens prefer not to police them even with their own policies, and prefer to let them chase customers to more lucrative islands and Bellisseria. 

If Abnor was serious about doing good and building good neighbours, he would retire that ridiculous obelisk which in real life, on the real Mainland, doesn't inspire emulation but is deployed as a weapon. I was appalled that it was included in the Embassy handout.

Here are just two of many examples -- in the first, someone who apparently was upset that land he once owned, or was in his view, went to sale, changed hands, and I eventually got it for a motel court cabin community -- held back a small parcel where he put a toilet, a garbage bag -- and Abnor's obelisks -- and works over time to return any trees that might encroach on this ugly scene.

In another, the obelisk was deployed, even encroaching on Linden road shoulder, with an ugly courtyard, forcing tenants out of that area. I then am forced to abandon that land that won't rent. Eventually, a land baron requests and gets it from the Lindens. He chops it into smaller and smaller pieces. Eventually it will get ad farms and more junk, proving that the obelisk is actually the opposition of what it seems -- study the businesses deploying them and what they do instead of just limiting yourself to Abner's good words of long ago.

I and other Mainland landlords invented and disseminated Abnor's Good Neighbour principles before he was born. Except for the notion that "privacy screens pleaseth the eye" -- they don't, when they come in the form of giant black boxes, photo-real boards, flat planar trees, etc. Unchecking "avatars can see me" is a good option.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

Why does everyone spell Abnor's name wrongly?

Do you not see that the name is clearly a two-part pun of Abnor and Mole = Abnormal.

Edited November 20, 2021 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Prokofy Neva]

16 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Why does everyone spell Abnor's name wrongly?

Do you not see that the name is clearly a two-part pun of Abnor and Mole = Abnormal.

Fixed. Now you are free to focus on the substantive issues if you so desire.

Yeah, I get it about Abnor's name. But I don't see or talk to him regularly like the BBB denizens so the habit of how the name is usually spelled sticks with me. I don't think I''ve exchanged more than one sentence with Abnor in my entire SL, which, as I noted, existed four years before he was born. Now, Michael Linden, founder of the LDPW and a Mole with a fez hat, I did talk to  -- because he held inworld office hours for Governance. But Governance office hours have now been cancelled, I guess under the theory that people in Bellisseria don't need them -- they have the Moles running to their beck and call. The Mainland doesn't deserve Moles, and only gets the obelisk and comments about Bellisseria's "civilizing mission". 

A lot of my tenants are poor people who can't afford the premium and people from outside the US for whom it can be hard to get a credit card recognized or even get a credit card, period. But they don't need civilizing by American suburbanites. They do pretty well with their civilizations that are far more ancient than America's -- to which in some cases they were brought by force as slaves.

Go ahead and find an AbNORMOLE obelisk in world that is performing its sainted mission and is not in fact used to create cut-ups and ad farms. Go ahead, I'll wait.

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

Here's another one -- this "Good Neighbour Obelisk" of AbNOR Mole's good intentions deployed to devalue land and advertise a dubious business.

o Forces my tenants away - I have to then give it away for a community hangout

o Encroaches on Linden road shoulder -- and is not needed for road access when there are rez areas across from it and elsewhere along this sim and those adjacent

o Ugly pavement blighting the view

o Use of SL logo which is not allowed.

I could go on finding these -- and any landlord on the Mainland has collections of these but they don't like to talk on the forums. ARing them DOES NO GOOD.

This situation occurs because of ad farming microparcels that existed before LL's policy against ad farming -- but new ad farms appear as land barons cut up land into them still, and it is not enforced.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Elena Blossom]

Well, I have to admit Prof has a point there when it comes to non-US residents (which I dont like to acknowledge after getting my beloved motherland called 'a poor country').

Bellisseria groups are 100% US oriented, and the worst part is that, we you try approaching them with ideas to make them more international, you get replies like (and I'm quoting): 'Oh, I didnt realise there were people from outside the US in this group'... and no action taken after this reply....

That is part of the reason I am not following any groups there, and I've stopped participating in events. It is a pity LL is not willing to do much about it, considering that we represent what, 90% of the population in this planet? 

I love Bellisseria, but these things don't help... However, the Moles have nothing to do with it; they have enough working like crazy to develop the whole continent. It is a LL issue, that I hope they get to address eventually. 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Elena Core

[Abnor Mole]

SSP numbers are just for identification. They aren't in any way an accurate "tally" of how many regions there are. Any attempt to use them to "guesstimate" how many parcels there are will be weighted so heavily on the guessing part you might as well just pull a number out of thin air. Another erroneous assumption is to lump Mainland and Linden Homes when discussing percentage of land own by a Linden Account. A Linden Homes region with 25 1024sqm parcels fully occupied by residents would still be 60% owned by Governor Linden by land area. That is very different from a mainland region with no protected land space. That's the danger of basing conclusions or speculation based on assumptions.

Bellisseria and Mainland are two different products, each with it's own appeal. Bellisseria appeals to those who like the idea of having a small portion of land in a more structured environment with a focus on being part of a large community. Mainland's appeal is a more free form contiguous land mass with fewer limitations and more options but where things can naturally be more chaotic because of that. Add into that mix private estates, which offer the greatest amount of freedom and control but are, more often than not, complete islands unto themselves. Some people like apples. Some people prefer oranges. Others like mangos. 

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Abnor Mole said:

SSP numbers are just for identification. They aren't in any way an accurate "tally" of how many regions there are. Any attempt to use them to "guesstimate" how many parcels there are will be weighted so heavily on the guessing part you might as well just pull a number out of thin air. Another erroneous assumption is to lump Mainland and Linden Homes when discussing percentage of land own by a Linden Account. A Linden Homes region with 25 1024sqm parcels fully occupied by residents would still be 60% owned by Governor Linden by land area. That is very different from a mainland region with no protected land space. That's the danger of basing conclusions or speculation based on assumptions.

Bellisseria and Mainland are two different products, each with it's own appeal. Bellisseria appeals to those who like the idea of having a small portion of land in a more structured environment with a focus on being part of a large community. Mainland's appeal is a more free form contiguous land mass with fewer limitations and more options but where things can naturally be more chaotic because of that. Add into that mix private estates, which offer the greatest amount of freedom and control but are, more often than not, complete islands unto themselves. Some people like apples. Some people prefer oranges. Others like mangos. 

Abnor,

I totally grasp that Lindens and Moles can win any argument simply by having more knowledge of the world to which we are not privy, though many of us pay for it and some quite a lot. So I totally realize that you and your fans will always prevail, and I respect that. Nevertheless, I will point out some facts here -- as well as experience which also counts for something for those of us who have lived through many, many iterations of the Linden product over the years.

I didn't start by pulling numbers out of thin air. I started with the number of 1,600 given by Whitney Linden recently about the number of regions in Bellisseria. Remember how you said you didn't know that number? It wasn't so material to your work to know it. There were "not enough" as so many people kept refreshing pages and trying to get homes and expressing angst on the forums.

But it was material to my work, to understand whether there was even a point to persist with Mainland rentals -- given that entire communities have been put out of business and have abandoned their land to land baron sharks because of Bellisseria, especially if they had a themed community.

So I persisted and finally in a Concierge meeting the number was given. This was helpful to know, in conjunction with Tyche Shepherd's Grid Survey, to see if the number of Bellisseria homes now surpasses the number of Mainland homes -- regardless of how much abandoned or Linden protected land you want to through into the argument, because at the end of the day, it's about ownership, and whether the owners are able to -- or are forced to -- keep their  properties nice enough so as not to "interfere with the enjoyment of Second Life" by their neighbours, as the old TOS par. 2C (now gone) used to say.

And I'm fairly confident -- as other land dealers are who watch this closely -- that at this time, the number of Bellisseria owned parcels in any way you want to measure it -- number of premium accounts -- is greater than the number of owned parcels on the Mainland. Sure, there might be less premium accounts on the Legacy Mainland and larger holdings; Belli obviously only has the 512 m2 and 1024 m2 lots although likely we'll see you get into the 4096 m2 space soon enough. But taken as an aggregate -- which is the point, after all, so as to assess the economy and the opportunities for Mainland business or non-profit work -- Bellisseria has eaten the world. It is faster than the addition of private islands; it is surpassing the aggregate of Mainland owners, individuals or groups. Lindens can tell this precisely and come back and say "oh noes it's 47% in Belli and 53% on Mainland" or whatever -- but the point is obvious to anyone who spends time looking at this issue: there is "arable land" where you can grow mangoes

That's why claims from people in this thread are hollow that the Bellisseria exercise is only about a "civilizing mission" to set an example for the Mainland -- an example that business owners like me don't need, as we set standards ages ago. I don't think even you would claim Bellisseria's role is to "clean up the Mainland." Its role is to sell more premiums. Mission accomplished! I've always thought more premiums, even with a Linden product competing with another Linden product and its prosumers, is a rising tide that lifts all boats. Now I'm not sure any more.

So then it is a reasonable guesstimate to ask -- note that I asked this question, didn't make a declaration -- that if you see a new SSPE region labeled "1742" that it *might* be a tally. If it's not, great -- but then it's still likely these regions are getting up around the 2,000 mark.

It's also misleading to compare Bellisseria "with 60% protection" and Mainland "with none" -- these are extremes in both cases. Sansara has plenty of protected Linden space on it. Ravenglass, for example, my flagship sim, doesn't have 65536 available to me, although I bought it off the auction as a full Mainland sim back in the day when they were rolled out fresh; it has like 58,000 because of a large cove of 6,832, which is part of its attraction. Heterocera has lots of protected space, although waterways cut by early Lindens are haphazard causing lots of strife to this day. It's only later continents like Corsica, for example, or Jaegeot, where you will get an entire sim with absolutely no Linden protection, not even a road. Which is how the Mainland came to be considered such trash. So sure, Bellisseria continents today have more "Linden protection" than some later continents, but SL is varied and earlier continents have as much or even more protection, depends on the region and continent. So it isn't "an assumption," it's based on practical experience of constantly looking across continents at my own properties and exploring many others.

If Bellisseria and Mainland "each have their own appeal," why is there such a strenuous effort to get people to leave Mainland and move into Bellisseria?! That's the question. And it's not about different fruits in the basket.  The mangos are mangled in some places due to Linden water parceling in 2004-2005 causing conflict to this day; due to Linden failure to enforce land cutting and ad farming policies; and due to the fact that the lion's share of Governance attention now is bestowed on Bellisseria and not the Legacy Mainland. If that's not the case, we have no way of knowing that, since the Police Blotter, which was always only representational, has been removed, and now even Governance office hours have been canceled under the theory that they are "not needed" as the limits of discussion have already been supplied to residents.

Mainland would be less chaotic if for one, your obelisks could not be deployed as a commercial weapon to devalue land and force others off it. And not everyone wants to be subsumed into a "larger community" which has more rules and conformity; some of us still like to make our own communities which have good rules, too -- like not putting up privacy fences that in fact destroy the view, and not allowing the use of orbs at all on the ground, only in the sky. Maybe some or all of us will be crushed and ground into history written by victors; at least you can be confident that we won't leave obelisks behind used to harm others, whatever their original noble intention. 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

6 hours ago, Elena Core said:

Well, I have to admit Prof has a point there when it comes to non-US residents (which I dont like to acknowledge after getting my beloved motherland called 'a poor country').

Bellisseria groups are 100% US oriented, and the worst part is that, we you try approaching them with ideas to make them more international, you get replies like (and I'm quoting): 'Oh, I didnt realise there were people from outside the US in this group'... and no action taken after this reply....

That is part of the reason I am not following any groups there, and I've stopped participating in events. It is a pity LL is not willing to do much about it, considering that we represent what, 90% of the population in this planet? 

I love Bellisseria, but these things don't help... However, the Moles have nothing to do with it; they have enough working like crazy to develop the whole continent. It is a LL issue, that I hope they get to address eventually. 

My Motherland is a poor country, too -- no shame in that. You look at the GDP and the percentage of people on social assistance -- it is what it is. 

Second Life as a whole always struck me as a place where people who came from places that weren't suburbia -- including America -- could live in suburbia -- which was their dream, and rightly so -- and why not?! They wanted nice little bungalows with picket fences -- and I can only respect that. My own RL family moved to a rather barren and lower middle class suburbia from both crowded urban homes and poor rural areas and we didn't think much of it, it's just where the jobs were -- until they weren't. I personally left as did my other family members and didn't come back. Nothing about it was appealing -- you had to drive five miles to the store to buy bread; the patios in the back looked out not on to a commons where people walked but rows of hedges; there really was no front porch life as there was in our small towns of 50 years ago. Youth roamed around taking drugs and robbing houses empty because both parents worked long hours to pay the mortgages. And so on.

And in the early years of SL, people who wanted those bungalows and picket fences were scorned and beaten up on the forums by the bien pensant San Francisco tech elite who thought they were bourgeois Babbits. It was awful. They had no appreciation of people's yearnings. People made these little communities in spite of the rampant conditions of riotous "creativity" and griefing -- it was touching to see. Anshe Chung was highly successful not just for buying, tiering and selling land; she also made planned communities and sold content for them where you could rent. There were more Mainland rentals businesses than there are today.

Finally after more than 15 years of this riot, with no zoning and with a mixture of high-priced islands and low-priced Mainland rentals unable to fill the need (in part by continued refusal to enforce the TOS which actually encourages blight), the Lindens began getting serious about giving people what they want -- and God bless them. Patch Linden really deserves the big statue in his honour in the community center in Fantasseria.  This was a big step forward for a Silicon Valley company in taking account of customer requirements which form the heart of mature business like Microsoft but are scorned by newer companies.

So at least the culture war from Linden Lab has ceased against suburbanites; maybe because there are more mature Lindens now who themselves live in suburbia and not boho urban enclaves. Good! I personally want "nature" rather than "suburbia" in RL and in SL, enjoy my Belli homes mainly because of their many little nature nooks.

I don't know if you were around when the Lindens had offices in other countries, the UK, Netherlands and I think even Korea was contemplated before all of them were retired because it was too costly -- like foreign news bureaus got retired in news media, which is related to Internet properties like Second Life in its dynamics. Foreign news is a very expensive proposition, as I know from having worked in it myself.

Since I speak one foreign language fluently and can get around a little in others, and at least use Google translate, I do try to help non-Americans in SL -- and there are a lot of them. I maintain an updated list of country sims that shows people, especially new, where they can go to get knowledge about how SL works in their own language, or more importantly, socializing, as the "localizing" that used to go on with various language and country sims has kind of fallen apart. It's mainly now the province of various skilled gaming sims and adult clubs, for better or worse.

I can't speak to their thinking, but I wonder if at this point the Lindens simply can't financially afford "foreign outreach". They have gone to a lot of trouble to try to enable people abroad to join, but they can't overcome problems like VAT or a country not letting its citizens have Visa or Mastercard. 

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Abnor Mole]

Why does everything have to be an argument? 🤷‍♂️

[Chloe Bunny]

16 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

The BBB is saying  the ambassadors are not "employees" of the BBB and "have more freedom," but you can be sure these people will be vetted to make sure they are loyal and "constructive."

I've just found this with a long standing community in SL and it really opened my eyes - upset me. The loyal ones are there to be friendly recruiters and swell numbers. They resorted to some pretty upsetting tactics to show me that yes I was welcome as a number but that they already had enough prominent members with no room for more. It was all very polite and subtle bullying. Shocked me completely. I agree with some of the points you raised in this post I quoted. 

With Bellisseria the emergence of this BBB thing I was ignoring for a bit as I thought as a resident thing it could not become particularly prominent -  I am aware that some Bellisserians are more integrated than others and I was attracted mainly because of the "level playing field" it was advertising. It is not a community I have ever made waves in or felt that I could crack into therefore that I could really be a member of fully. 

I have a lovely region named, a great home and LL have been gracious to me. The home is in Places of Interest - I think that the decorating side of things has been so much fun and I welcome that.

But I struggle with the community end of it I feel like one of the number but from there - bit lost!

[Chloe Bunny]

13 hours ago, Elena Core said:

That is part of the reason I am not following any groups there, and I've stopped participating in events

Also part of my reason that I have done both of those things also. Left the chat, left events and stopped exploring as much as I did. The enthusiasm is dampened by what you described Elena and some of the points Prokofy raised. 

[Prokofy Neva]

4 hours ago, Rabid Cheetah said:

Here's one -- and another 100 m away in case you missed the message -- yet another one -- and still more.

Do you think this looks good on a microparcel? I don't, which is why I don't put anything on microparcels as a rule; if I do, it's a small networked sign low to the ground.

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

11 hours ago, Abnor Mole said:

SSP numbers are just for identification. They aren't in any way an accurate "tally" of how many regions there are. Any attempt to use them to "guesstimate" how many parcels there are will be weighted so heavily on the guessing part you might as well just pull a number out of thin air. Another erroneous assumption is to lump Mainland and Linden Homes when discussing percentage of land own by a Linden Account. A Linden Homes region with 25 1024sqm parcels fully occupied by residents would still be 60% owned by Governor Linden by land area. That is very different from a mainland region with no protected land space. That's the danger of basing conclusions or speculation based on assumptions.

Bellisseria and Mainland are two different products, each with it's own appeal. Bellisseria appeals to those who like the idea of having a small portion of land in a more structured environment with a focus on being part of a large community. Mainland's appeal is a more free form contiguous land mass with fewer limitations and more options but where things can naturally be more chaotic because of that. Add into that mix private estates, which offer the greatest amount of freedom and control but are, more often than not, complete islands unto themselves. Some people like apples. Some people prefer oranges. Others like mangos. 

I actually think that when the Lindens and Moles come into the forums and try to put residents in their place, they appear weak, and that to preserve respect for their authority in their virtual world -- which we all understand is a setting of a private company and a TOS, not a RL democracy and a constitution  -- they should avoid this completely. If it seems very urgent to intervene with a factual statement -- and I don't think this thread meets the test -- it's possible to do so without admonishments about "the danger of basing conclusions or speculation based on assumptions." Especially when the last Linden announcement of the number of Bellisserian sims was "1600," and a resident innocently asks if he sees "1700" on new regions if this is a tally. The more terse and factual the better -- a posting of the actual number of Bellisseria sims to date, for example.

Meanwhile, while these Torley-coloured grief prims aren't on the Bellisseria Fairgrounds, but only next to my land in Tofalar, I, my tenants, and neighbours have been ARing them for weeks without action. Could someone get them? Or do we need more AR parties?

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Teresa Firelight]

Prokofy I am not sure why you hate Bellisseria and hate the BBB so much.

I personally love the Bellisseria Community-- it is full of a lot of nice people who's main motivation is to enjoy themselves in SL. Some (not all) of them want to make friends and interact socially with others. When did that become a bad thing?

As far as the physical build goes, I personally love the mole-built neighborhoods. I live in and explore them because they appeal to me. But no one is forcing anyone to visit or reside in them. They are just one of many options in SL.

The BBB is an unpaid group of volunteers who donate their time/energy to create fun things for people to do in Bellisseria.

 

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

6 hours ago, Teresa Firelight said:

The BBB is an unpaid group of volunteers who donate their time/energy to create fun things for people to do in Bellisseria.

... at the expense of those living on the mainland, who they seek to purposely influence (through their mainland embassies) into leaving mainland life with all its freedoms and creativity. I find their motives to be quite creepy, what they're doing might be likened to "mainland cleansing" by stealth, which with time will have a negative impact on the mainland.

I have absolutely no desire to become a mere statistic and a convienient wallet for LL, to be packaged within a cookie-cutter sprawl of residential container boxes, with all their rules, restrictions and uninventiveness, all dressed in an embarrasingly America-centric veneer that resembles a Stepford Wives style gated community of obedience and compliance. 

I would never willingly choose to live there, ever. But Bellisseria has had one benefit which I do enjoy;  Belliserria has become a convienient land bridge between formerly distant and separated mainland continents, for which I'm happy to use.

Edited November 21, 2021 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Frigga Freidman]

1 hour ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

... at the expense of those living on the mainland, who they seek to purposely influence (through their mainland embassies) into leaving mainland life with all its freedoms and creativity. 

I have absolutely no skin in the Mainland vs Bellisseria debate, but it does strike me as odd that you consider the freedom-loving denizens of the Mainland to be at such great risk of being led into… what exactly? indentured servitude? an apocalyptic death cult? … by the siren-song of silver-tongued Bellisserrians. What am I missing? Is this all about potential lost income? Because I don’t see what other reason there could be for such vehemence. 

[Freddie Venus]

These are just my thoughts but I think the whole point of the Embassies/BBB is to connect people and lands and events together which is much better than this "Them" and "Us" thing that seems to be going on here. In fact it will probably be beneficial to mainland as more people will visit, discover the passport system and go wandering or might even be tempted to fly, drive or boat when they hadn't considered it before. BBB list mainland as well as Belli places on their blog and the passport idea has been great for people on mainland to visit Bellisseria and vice versa when maybe they wouldn't have been so eager to explore. I seriously don't believe it's some masterplan to move people into Linden Homes. 

I must mention as well the Parade of Homes Blog which goes in tandem with all of the above.

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Madonna666
Forgot something