Group-owned Land: Is there any way to prevent land contributions?

[Clem Marques]

Just came across an unexpected situation and I was wondering if there's something I'm missing here. Any help would be appreciated.

I use one single group to manage all of my parcels. A handful of very close friends have been invited into the group, since I let them live on my parcels and I want them to have the ability to rez there. They all only have the following abilities:

However, today I noticed I had more square meters than usual in the "Land available" part of the group's "Land & L$" tab. I was confused by this, since I had used up pretty much every single square meter I had donated to my group.

By donating 8704 m2, I should have 8704 m2 + 10% = 9,574 m2 listed as the "Total contribution", yet I suddenly have 10138 m2. The math just wasn't adding up, so I looked into it and found out that someone in the group had contributed 512 m2 without asking me for permission first. I understand that the intention behind this was very good, however, I'm someone who struggles with math, and having additional square meters that I don't want to use makes it all even more confusing to me as I buy and sell my parcels. I feel like it would upset the person if I refused to accept their kind gesture in a direct manner. So I was wondering:

        1. Is there any way to prevent land contributions? Or remove contributions that others have given? I'd like to turn that ability off completely if possible.

        2. Are there any settings that I'm missing here that have allowed this to happen?

Thanks in advance  

Edited February 11 by Clem Marques

[Gabriele Graves]

I don't think there is a way to stop people from contributing tier once they are in the group.  I've just tested that I can contribute some tier to a random shopping group and that was allowed.  I would think if there was a way that it would be disallowed by default and would have to be deliberately enabled to be allowed.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

I'd just use it.

[Clem Marques]

4 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

I'd just use it.

You could.

But the problem is: What if the person removes the tier without telling you? If you don't notice that in time, it could potentially jeopardize your parcels due to the group not having a contribution that is high enough to keep all of them. I don't need that kind of stress.

[Prokofy Neva]

I would not use their tier at all, that isn't ethical.

I would just leave it in and see if eventually you can't explain to them that they didn't need to do this. I'm not getting that part of it at all, but that's your business.

A key way I deal with this is have one, separate group for sales of land -- because the revenue distributes equally to every member unless you set that up properly -- and thus gain the group discount for land sitting on sale for weeks or months -- and then have a separate group for rentals.

One of the reasons I don't like having land for sale also for rent is that I then have to switch the groups so they can have powers in a rentals group, and that sometimes throws off the tier bonus. In any event, you need to keep a buffer if you can afford to do so or else keep an eagle eye on your group/groups every single day.

Having the extra tier could be a back up in case either someone else pulls theirs out -- or if you are the only person,  but usually multiple alts, whether you accidentally forget to pay one of your accounts -- except likely they are all 1024 m2 size premiums, and then you're still out 512. Perhaps you've never had Whitney Linden appear at your elbow in the middle of the night your time (and hers!). The Lindens do not like you to leave your group under-tiered for even a day, sometimes less and this can happen not deliberately but because 1) the groups do not update adequately? Can we say this again for the cheap seats in the back: the groups do not repeat do NOT update in real time when they  have hundreds of people and parcels in them and 2) your tier can be thrown off by a small amount like -16 or -32 because of the way the total group land bonus is generated in a given group, with the amount at hand.

There isn't a general type of role or function gradation in the group that says "join but can't contribute tier". For example I don't give initial paying tenants who join on demand all the powers of ban, media etc but in theory, even just joining cold, they could put in 512 tier.

There isn't a way to have the "officer class" of roles that has functions like join, separate, sell etc. parcels to also have "add tier" *only*.

I think it's too much of a corner case to ask the Lindens to think how to code this because every change to the groups involve calls back and forth to the server for all members AFAIK which is why they never reform the groups, it's too much work and too "costly" in multiple ways AFAIK.

 

[Paul Hexem]

16 hours ago, Clem Marques said:

You could.

But the problem is: What if the person removes the tier without telling you? If you don't notice that in time, it could potentially jeopardize your parcels due to the group not having a contribution that is high enough to keep all of them. I don't need that kind of stress.

LL will message you before yanking your parcels should you ever run low on tier, and give you time to get it sorted.

I know, I've done it. I was even able to answer with "Yeah, if this parcel doesn't sell soon I'll drop it and let the bots scoop it up tomorrow" and they were happy with that response.

[Persephone Emerald]

I've had a neighbor on Mainland who seemed to have insufficient tier for their land for months, if not years. I wouldn't count on LL not taking the land though. I think it would be easier to cut off a piece to sell or abandon it.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

I'm assuming you know who contributed. If not - it's listed in the members tab:

So... just ask them what's going on. Something like "Hey are you missing tier you thought you put in your land group? Because it looks like it's showing in mine."

 

[Clem Marques]

2 hours ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

So... just ask them what's going on.

On 2/12/2024 at 9:21 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

I would not use their tier at all, that isn't ethical.

On 2/11/2024 at 11:13 AM, Gabriele Graves said:

I would think if there was a way that it would be disallowed by default and would have to be deliberately enabled to be allowed.

On 2/12/2024 at 9:30 PM, Paul Hexem said:

LL will message you before yanking your parcels should you ever run low on tier, and give you time to get it sorted.

The problem has been solved. I talked to the person, and they explained that they recently got a plus subscription but had no use for the land fees that came along with it, so they donated it to my group. I helped them get a nice Adult parcel and we furnished it together, so now they have a use for those extra land fees. Thanks everyone for the helpful replies, I appreciate it. Leaned a lot from your responses.

 

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

2 hours ago, Clem Marques said:

The problem has been solved. I talked to the person, and they explained that they recently got a plus subscription but had no use for the land fees that came along with it.

 

That sounds familiar.

I've got 1024 of land left from premium plus after selling off my plot.

Everytime I get mainland though - I eventually get a neighbor who just rezzes out some giant poorly built mess or puts up banlines.

So I'm torn between trying yet again, or just downgrading.

 

[Clem Marques]

6 hours ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

Everytime I get mainland though - I eventually get a neighbor who just rezzes out some giant poorly built mess or puts up banlines.

Yeah, very unfortunate but that happens a lot on Mainland. There is not much that can be done about it. I once had a nice cabin at Glastonbelli Park ruined by people with low skyboxes and huge full bright privacy screens. I moved out eventually. Just one example among many others.

When it comes to Mainland, the best thing is to just live in a skybox, that way nothing that crazy neighbors do can bother you, since you won't even see it. Either that or accept the chaotic nature of that place, getting used to it over time. I've seen some nice cheap roadside Moderate parcels in the auctions lately, maybe that could be a way to give it another shot without losing money if you come across a bad neighbor.

Premium Plus has a lot of perks, but if it doesn't pay off and the land isn't really used, it makes sense to consider downgrading.

Edited February 16 by Clem Marques

[Prokofy Neva]

On 2/12/2024 at 3:30 PM, Paul Hexem said:

LL will message you before yanking your parcels should you ever run low on tier, and give you time to get it sorted.

I know, I've done it. I was even able to answer with "Yeah, if this parcel doesn't sell soon I'll drop it and let the bots scoop it up tomorrow" and they were happy with that response.

That may be true *for you*. It is NOT TRUE in general. Land Lindens have made it very clear to land dealers that if they go under their tier, after three warnings, even if the amount is only 16m2 and occurs because the groups don't update well, they will seize your land at random to fix it. And they do indeed do that. And there is no message, and no "time to get it sorted". No, they are not happy with such an airy response from land dealers, even small ones. Although some land dealers are more equal than others and I recently saw one go -233,000+ for more than two days without any action whereas I've had to halt what I'm doing, rush home to my computer (can't be done on the phone) and tier up another expensive 1024 to solve a 32m problem that occurs when a large tier donor suddenly disappears without warning. 

You need to keep a buffer if you are in the land busines; you need to constantly update, refresh, clear group cache, relog, and study each group, a time-consuming and annoying process, and EVEN THEN you may wake up the next day and see "oops".

Of course, the Lindens, who can send out emails and notices on everything under the sun, could figure out a way to send a written message warning your tier is under *which they do inworld if you LOOK at the group, but not in a message*. But it's one more thing on the to-do list, or "can't do" or whatever, and here we are. As I said, some are more equal than others.

[Paul Hexem]

23 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

land dealers

I suspect it's more likely because land barons should know better and they're getting the "special treatment" of no warning, vs the chance that the Lindens like me in particular and gave me extra slack.

[Prokofy Neva]

13 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

I suspect it's more likely because land barons should know better and they're getting the "special treatment" of no warning, vs the chance that the Lindens like me in particular and gave me extra slack.

This land baron knows better, dear, and it's not about whether the Lindens like you; it's whether you as an end user gets some slack for something that happened once, perhaps.

The problem remains that the group do not update despite people's best efforts and the Lindens need another system rather than their own daily manual watching in real-time of actual people, which inevitably then becomes punitive and selective.