Prokofy Neva

I don't believe in banning flippers and there is nothing illegal or immoral about buying and selling land to a willing buyer for any price the market will bear. I do believe, however, in publicity of land titles, as in real life, so that the consumer can decide whether he wants to buy overpriced land that got that way because of flooding the auctions or cornering the market. Capitalism is legal and moral and so are consumer boycotts. We don't really have a free economy because the Lindens control the land supply, the free tier, the LindEx and of course the media.

The point is not THAT there is a summer slump. That's a given when people go outdoors in real life or take vacations in general. The point is to find out if this is worse than others. There have been some really bad gulches in the past, and I don't think this is the worst one. There's been a lot more selling of land, but I don't think the additional tier and lower prices account for waterfront and Zindra selling for so much lower, even now. So perhaps it's the story of one big business, or maybe it is a move in anticipation of the auctions changing. With this move, it is my fervent hope that the Lindens will go back to publicizing the names of the auction winners and all those who bid. LL did that at one time, and it was a deterrent of sorts to major flooding of the auctions to drive up prices. To be sure, it is only a social constraint in that people can ostracize companies that do that, but it's something. I've just finished reading Frank Norris' novel The Pit published in 1902, which is about the Chicago wheat trading board more than a century ago, when one big buyer could corner the market and change prices and fates all around the world -- and then crash big-time. The protagonist essentially makes an anonymous account to take over the bull market and corner wheat, then spectacularly crashes. The Pit doesn't exist anymore due to the Internet, and there is more regulation. But The Pit is a lot like the SL land auction and land market in general. I was thinking there might be a rush of avatars into the new land auction format, but maybe not -- it might be that end users who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the increased tier system may have bought up what they want/need now and won't be selling soon. If anything, the same people who flood the auctions now to drive up prices will flood it with single parcels and will have the time and money to do this. It will be hard to get attention to the smaller fry. It will be interesting to see how many flooder/flippers are really in the game. Will at least these resident parcels for sale now have publicity as to who the owner is? At least you should be able to go in world and see, and we'll know soon enough if it is all land barons. I'm always amazed when I have new customers during slump times but I usually adjust by advertising more -- and that always lets me know how difficult advertising is with no Linden wide billboard system and no ability to purchase ads at infohubs and welcome areas as we used to be able to do in the old LL-run telehubs (2-week ads for a set price, first come first served). The Lindens should really bring that back. Often a new customer will log-off immediately after renting, exhausted, and tell me they were searching long and hard and late until they found my rental, then they collapsed. And that shouldn't happen. BTW there are resident-run options like Rental Central that has a wide variety of rental agencies available to browse but search and classifieds aren't enough.

Dear Ebbe, Could Linden Lab consider restoring the public economic information that LL once published years ago? That would mean the number of unique 30-day log-ins and repeat log-ins; the number of avatars who own land; the number of avatars who have spent varying amounts inworld, from 1L to 100,000L and so on. Could you also consider publicizing the names of the winners of the auctions and also all those who bid on the auctions, and make an archive that is searchable after the auctions are over. Again, LL used to do this years ago. Prokofy

I'm still trying to figure this out, and perhaps it won't matter in a few weeks, but here are some data points, that may add up, or may not: o A ubiquitous rental company puts an entire sim for sale for $1.6 a meter -- an amazing price for a whole flat green sim. It sells pretty fast, within a week, but to end users, big families. o A long-time rental agency puts prices down to .55/prim -- and I thought .66 was low. o A huge land seller is putting Zindra (adult land) that is usually priced very high to only $7/m or $8/m -- and nobody is buying. o Moth continent waterfront that was getting back up to $10/m or higher is going down to $9 or even less again, even $7 (by that large land seller) o You can get into merchants' events that usually are so crowded it takes 3 days to get into them o There seem to be a lot more 50% off sales I could add more...

I have to wonder why the Lindens don't take this opportunity to make new terrain -- or maybe they have?

No it's not. Because you can't explain why certain posters a) don't show up inworld b) don't show up with any regular my.secondlife.com profile but only forums profiles. There are various explanations floated here, but that's not the issue. The issue is the RESULT is exactly what I've said: a) avatars don't show up inworld and are disconnected from the world b) avatars don't even have regular secondlife.com profiles. The end. These are the facts. Endless recitations of the hypothetical reasons for this or the technical reasons for why "this isn't so" can't fix the problem that: a) certain posters don't show up inworld b) certain posters don't have any regular my.secondlife.com profile. The Lindens need to fix that loophole.

Um, I didn't bypass anything. You did. Look at the "ru" in your profiles address. As for "inworld stalking," don't be ridiculous.

Also rented: Or live in a boathouse: Teleport to Carlisle $150/150 prims

I think probably you didn't comprehend the next post to grasp that you were not being accused of stalking, and there is no ascribing of excessive importance to your activities on the forums as you imagine.

Using "ru" as a getaway for things is an old griefer trick, and it is not about "knowing how to use viewers" because most people don't feel that need. LL's system did indeed arbitrarily lose and destroy my content, as it did many others. This content is NOT the same content that ended up inside a platform at my office. I definitely did not drag hundreds of disparate items from disparate folders into a block at my office. That's not possible, and what happened is some kind of glitch, and frankly, one I've seen on other sims and other situations that isn't about me sitting and dragging things accidentally into prims, but about actual errors in the system. It's sometimes very hard for people to believe there could be errors in this system even though they endlessly criticize it all day.

A smiley is a generic term for the little icons that can grimace, frown, etc. It's not about "offense" -- since I have bloody, chopped-up effigies of my RL self put on my lawn routinely in SL as a form of griefing, and have suffered harassment of me and my family members in real life for my work, I do get the difference, dear, truly I do. I just think that if you block someone they should not be able to comment on you or put smilies on you in any form, that's all. I'll point out that while fuming about this alleged crime of mine, and writing up a post about it, and looking to see if there are answers, you were not outside enjoying the beauties of Nature. PS My comment is generic and has examples that in fact don't involve you, because if you put some reaction on my posts, I didn't notice. And frankly, I don't think I'd remember your name and your comments long enough to bother to put you in a ban list in world anyway.

What's important is not to support efforts involving "all of the Mainland" like "mapping" that segue to "community control" and really "my control". This is especially important not to do in a world that is not democratic, and has no free press or independent judiciary. Like sim seams and roads believed to have hazards, this "identification of a problem" really has no base. Who would want to fly over boring, homogenous Linden Home lands anyway? Indeed. Fourteen years ago, we debated Philip Linden about the wisdom of allowing orbs in the first place -- period. They led to so many miserable experiences and were so unfair when overdeployed near waterways and roadways. Perhaps at the very list, they could be prevented from TPing users homes, which led to crashes often. So unfair. Couldn't the bounce script be deprecated completely? It really didn't secure privacy given camming ability and was really only about this deep, atavistic fear that some virtual avatars have about other virtual avatars coming into their homes and using their adult furniture. That, more than anything, triggers the most fear and anger in these situations and leads to orbs. Philip's reaction at first was to concede that yes, this function should be removed. And he even set about doing it. But then his fellow Lindens who never met a script they didn't like had a total freak-out -- and since some of them were alts from the community base, essentially, they got their way. They invoked the supposed need to have elevators. That there were perhaps 11 1/2 elevators, even including suspension bridges, in SL at that time seemed hardly relevant. But certain prominent and ubiquitous orb manufacturers, then and now making a fortune off the deep-seated atavistic feelings of people, lobbied to keep the function. Some orbs have the option of not TP home, but it's not imposed and many don't use it as they love the idea of TPing intruders home, even if it's their own landlord or a random passer-by. If the Lindens sold land that had no orb function capacity, it wouldn't sell. You would think that this function of "avatars can see me" being checked off -- making you invisible! -- would be the best form of privacy there is, safe against camming. Many now opt for it despite the inconvenience of not seeing people they want to see sometimes. But it's still possible then to cam in from the person's lot by invading it -- not that this is the frequent occurrence imagined. The people in Charsville are not "trouble" or a "cult" -- they are simply enjoying their rights currently supplied to everyone in Second Life, and they shouldn't be brow-beating as miscreants because people with world aspirations think it's important to fly over their lawn (?!). There isn't enough encouraging of people to be better neighbours, and not enough rewards. But the answer is not to criminalize people doing what hundreds of thousands of others do in SL without this exposure of their privacy. Sometimes there isn't a mystery to this -- I've found a number of Linden homes that are used as bot holders or Tiny Empires players or some kind of strange thing where 30 of them will be piled up sitting in rows or dancing with the same tag. Linden Homes can't be used for stores and can't be put in search but there isn't any rule against pile-ups, and I've noticed sometimes ban lines are put on such pile-ups, which is allowable of course. Once again, it is possible to get the Lindens to bar "TP home" as a function, but they won't do it because they will invoke games or something that they feel will need this.

This is a pretty cool sky box if I don't say so myself! An entire summer fairyland in a globe in the sky with walkways, waterfalls, trees, seating, birds singing -- wonderful! There's a treehouse meant for tinies but it can be bigged up for you! And it changes to fall and other seasons if you like. It's called "Dark Forest" by Lilith's Lair. Just $250/250 prims. Teleport to Carlisle When you alight on the ground, you'll be in the SL Public Land Preserve location with the Fairy Grove, Wizard's Gazebo and other delights. There's also some nice waterfront ($400/525 prims) and another skybox here in this area ($100/150 prims)

Who cares? That's not the point. Techies knowing these things can hide better and live merely as a nick on the forums with no consequences. And the "weird slowness" would not be so slow as to allow years to go by. And again, the technical details of how this is done or not done is NOT what is important. The Lindens should close off this loophole. It should all be one integrated system.

@Phil Deakins -- This is a pointless intervention -- my OP talked about no equivalent inworld but I also mentioned several times that IT COULD NOT BE FOUND IN GOOGLE, thereby begging the question there *was* an inworld avatar. Indeed I talked about search. I think this is just literalism in a lame effort to try to find something to pick up -- I wasn't mistaken at all. The fact remains: there are accounts active on the forums that not only have no inworld equivalent visible in any search, in or out; they aren't found in Google, either *except* as a forums alt. The end. These are the facts, easily established. And it's not only about one obvious name. Once again, I never said that nicks are used in the forum -- because there is no obvious and doable form of doing this on the forum sign-up -- derp. That is why I asked. Why are they allowed? You can't come in and make a forums account only. So THAT IS WHY I ASKED. Again, why is this decoupling allowed? The Lindens should close that loophole. Why is the forums a separate account you log into separately? It should all be one seemless thing for one's avatar. And the point is not only to delve for some arcane technical reason for it, but to pose the larger moral question of why this is allowed because it LEADS TO BAD BEHAVIOUR. @Coby Foden If there are no nicknames in the forums, once again, see above -- why no inworld equivalent? It doesn't seem possible, yet it is. Because there are no inworld profiles visible, nor are they visible on Google. @Blush Bravin It's not about "exacting revenge," which is silly, as there isn't a practical way to do that. But it's about making people themselves responsible -- turn it around. Then if others wish to ban them or boycott them, that's normal and within the TOS. It's not about "disagreeing" -- it's about the persistent toxicity of certain posters endlessly sniping, harassing, and spreading viciousness without feeling any need to be answerable to a community. That matters. @Klytyna Setting privacy settings doesn't lead to not showing up on Google. And you don't -- there is no my.secondlife.com Klytyna search result except for forums. Of course everyone's Google search can result differently, but anyone can try it: https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&hs=fvk&ei=H7hvW5LTC8bH5gLuwJWYAQ&q=secondlife+klytyna&oq=secondlife+klytyna&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39k1.8372.8372.0.9266.1.1.0.0.0.0.113.113.0j1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.1.112....0.rLTeT9-O5II Oh, but there is if you know Russian and think to look there LOL: https://my.secondlife.com/ru/klytyna However, others are not findable.

Come to our flagship sim, where house and skybox prims don't count on your count! Enjoy a gorgeous sim in the Old World on the Hidden Lakes with a mix of vintage prim craftsmanship and beautiful modern mesh buildings and decor. Visit the nearby land preserve and boat around this historic area to see all the sights. Waterfront with Barnesworth Anubis' new Terrace Villa - RENTED Teleport to Ravenglass $500/600 prims Or live in Barnesworth vintage Case Study house originally created for this sim in 2004. Teleport to Ravenglass - RENTED $500/600 prims It's fun to compare and contrast prim and mesh, old and new! Or rent Barnesworth's villa as a skybox. Teleport to Ravenglass $250/300 prims Also see the new USB Gamma skybox where you can select your wall colour and outdoor scenes. Teleport to Ravenglass $250/300 Also some other waterfront lots available: Teleport to Ravenglass $800/900 prims waterfront Teleport to Ravenglass $600/700 prims waterfront Also some great options in the Land Preserve next door to Ravenglass -- some new skyboxes in a little Spanish village: Teleport to Carlisle $150/150 prims skybox Or live in a boathouse: Teleport to Carlisle $150/150 prims In the sky above Ravenglass, you'll find the Celtic Mystical Forest where you can hang out, go on hunts for treasures, and look for surprises. If you like, stay in a little elf home for $25/30 prims. Teleport to Ravenglass There's so much to see and do, and such a nice bargain for your virtual living. Set home to here!

@Coby Foden Once again, then you can't account for how people right in this thread have nicks on the forums but no avatar inworld visible, in any kind of inworld or outworld search of any kind. Try them and you'll see. Once again, these distinctions but legacy blah blah are about INWORLD and I'm talking about simple GOOGLE.

@Callum Meriman If it is true that putting any response to a post ups a user's reputation, then perhaps that would serve as a deterrent to this constanst idiocy of putting "confused" on every post obsessively. But we don't know that "confused" isn't a negative in the Lindens' system of reputational algorithsm. No, the main offender isn't the pro-Trumpkin or anti-leftist poster, who at least provides some modicum of diversity to the extreme libertarian/leftist crew o the forums on issues like Net Neutrality. By and large, it's not true that you make an avatar for joining Second Life that then merely isn't logged in. If that were true, that name would show up in Google on secondlife.com as an avatar account, even so -- it's not about inworld search, legacy or not. It doesn't. It only shows up as a "Community" account. Of course, people can remove their avatars from search inworld but I believe they would still show up in Google. In any event, I'm not finding this argument persuasive.It could easily be made a rule that you have to log into the world to use the forums. That might have a beneficial impact on those who never log in. Of course, they could log-in, wait five minutes, and do nothing, but my point is that the disconnect from reputation inworld to reputation on the forums is a conflict breeder and there can and should be ways for LL to deal with this rather than to edge-case on why it is technically not true or "impossible". @Phil Deakins I imagine you thought long and hard on how you could say something contrary to an obvious point that many people, even you might agree to, and obviously this nit-picking on what "nick" means isn't your best attempt. Desmond Shang can speak for himself, but he has made this comment about the forums' risk many times. I think it's unlikely with his RL business and SL business keeping him busy he would have time for forums anyway. What does your testing reveal? That making an alt that doesn't log-in does in fact generate at least some kind of profile. So if it doesn't, then...these accounts are Lindens who circumvent the system, or hackers that circumvent the system -- just as likely as they are some tiny category of people who happened to make an account when a certain set of conditions were at play. Again, this is not about guesses, tests, and arcane technical matters or people who virtual-signal and say they play nice and others should. It's about the hard fact that people harass and harry on the forums with no consequences inworld, although the Lindens claim to like such consequences when they confiscate property over speech issues (admittedly this is rare, but it does happen and the threat is something that has been kept alive over the years). It's wrong. @Wulfie Reanimator Yes, I don't think the Lindens have trouble tracking miscreants but another effect occurs -- that people's mouthing off on the forums is not tied to any inworld reputation and that's a negative. That's what matters. And we don't know how much LL really follows up on the capacity they seemingly have. @Ceka Cianci Yes, you cannot circumvent bans by making an alt, and it is trivial to find those alts, although some people are persistent using proxies, which is why we have unpunished griefers in general, obviously. @Coby Foden Once again, the point isn't about technical capacity or details but the larger social issue of people relentlessly posting harassing and negative posts without any consequence to inworld reputation because they can. Is it possible? See above. Look in Google and you will see my point. It is not that I am "wrong," it's that you can't explain to me why there isn't an avatar name that matches with anything but forums activity, i.e. no avatar profile that has groups or descriptions or anything. THAT is the question. If Theresa Tennyson is correct -- and we don't know that -- that if you never log in, no profile with groups or lack of groups, biography or lack of biography, is never generated then that is a loophole that should be closed. The claim that no profile shows up if someone hasn't logged in for 30 days can't be true as I see profiles of people I know haven't logged in since last year. @Lindal Kidd No, my thought processes are definitely more normally compared to the vast population of America and even Europe than the very sectarian techie groups one finds on the forums with the usual radical libertarian/socialist views. It's not about "living in fear" of getting banned -- that was not Desmond's problem for sure; it's about the principle at stake. Lindens link forums speech with removal of inworld property when they wish; but they allow decoupling of forums speech from any consequence whatsoever in the inworld community. That's wrong.

The idea that a forums nick different than an inworld avatar would save a user from a blanket ban isn't really plausible, as the Lindens can obviously track URLs and log-ins and even people using proxies slip up -- even the GRU does this, thankfully, and are caught. Deleting cookies may work but again, people slip up and geographical locations may still cluster and out a serial abuser. The myth of the dynamically-updating address is just that -- a myth. Many telecoms have you in a predictable range. People should take responsibility for their speech in a community; such visibility and responsibility in a community are at least some bar on bad conduct. Anonymity breeds contempt and bad behavior.

This is one of the things that have long baffled me is why people can have names on the forums that do not correspond to an actual avatar inworld. It's not that people have let their old account lapse inworld and still chat on the forums; it's that names are used that have no equivalent inworld. The Lindens themselves definitely link the world of the forums with the "inworld" of Second Life, and even hold over your head the threat that you will be banished from the world itself if your forum violations reach a certain level -- something quite a few merchants and landowners find appalling, and which makes some prudent ones who would have useful things to say like Desmond Shang announce that they simply won't post on the forums with that kind of risk. Indeed, it is outrageous to make punishment for a speech crime the actual seizure of real property, even if it is virtual property, or a license to access the rendition of same, or however they phrase it -- it is still a valued good with monetary value. Yet nicks are used so that people who routinely harass others never have to face the consequences in the community, which might be property bans, shunning or boycotts, I suppose. If you want anonymity, you have it by making an SL avatar not tied to your RL identity in the first place, or another alt that is not tied. What's the deal? What it means is that people have no responsibility in the community for their hateful and vicious statements, especially lifers on the forums who are expert at flying below the Lindens' radar, such as it is. I think the Lindens should require that each forums user pick a real avatar name they have and have that be their sole voice on the forums.

I think if you have blocked someone, they should not be allowed to keep harassing you by putting hateful little reactions on your every post. You know who you are, and you should ask yourself why you are on a game forum, harassing somebody with a smiley on a forums instead of out enjoying Nature, or if you must stay inside, enjoying the beauties of SL itself.

I do my poor best in SL with my own little Monument to the Victims of Communism, which you can find in Marieta. People are encouraged to leave their stories and I have had a few. My in-laws were lost in the GULAG. There should be far, far more education on the ravages of Communism than there is, given that this is a system that has killed the most people on the planet and stayed in power the longest and is still in power in too many places. I was fortunate to have the early experience of typing Soviet demographer Iosif Dyadkin's book on the Bolshevik and Stalin terrors and mass crimes against humanity. No one should study this region or indeed world history without grasping that there are 58 million deaths in the Soviet Union alone, when you count terror-famines such as the Holodomor in Ukraine and mass famine in Kazakhstan; forced labor brigades; arrests and executions even of the Party and KGB itself; arrest and forced labor or torture which led to death such as for the biologist Nikolai Vavilov; assassinations and covert killings like the arranged car accident of Mikhoels; even Stalin's weatherman was thrown in the GULAG, and this continued through the Brezhnev and Andropov eras with such deaths in prison as Anatoly Marchenko, the labor activist. If you argue and say, why, there's only 27 million, count them differently, or let's not count Lenin's era, that's still a staggering, staggering number. It puts in perspective the Cold War; cold is what you need to be to such levels of mass murder. I wouldn't expect the lefty and trendy Lindens to get into something this -- that's why I suggest climate change, more to their liking, but still -- what I mean is programming for educated adults. The answer is often, well, let the residents do that, let some university do that. But as I often say, sometimes these things need organizing, and if they can make games with glitchies or whatever, they can make other things that are more compelling and interesting. BTW I also have a Monument to the Victims of Terrorism in Iris, another very underserved group, which interestingly gets a lot of visitors every day, way more than for Communism but that's because it is very much a factor of our times.

Regarding all this discussion of land impact, I imagine that the Lab has a road map on this in fact, but we just aren't privvy to this. They may have suddenly become so generous with offering 50% more prims and cheaper land because they realize they had to make hard changes on land impact that are going to suddenly cost everyone more in prims. And by easing people into a higher prim amount and cheaper land, perhaps they think the bite will not be so hard, if that's the form it's going to take. Penny is right that gamerz are not all people who need blazing fast turbo gaming laptops and high graphics etc. There was a sizeable contingent in The Sims Online that liked playing that far more primitive 2-D game, and the skill-building group games like "pizza" in it, in part because it had "things to do" and "ways to make money" and engineered ways to show relationships, good and bad. The lack of retention in SL is not about technical matters. It really isn't. It isn't about the steep ramp because most people don't want to learn how to build or even drive and graphics don't matter that much if other things are right. This is one of the persistent delusions about SL. It's more about the "things to do" and having to prime the pump to give people ready-made experiences and easier ways to find and keep friends and lovers. It's the social gap that causes the fall-out. LL doesn't do enough to stop griefers, enable people to hide from stalkers, etc. because they are preoccupied with solving technical matters they think matter more. They don't. But they will be trying to make sim seams crossable until the heat-death of the sun, and they will never look up to see people don't need to drive around, or can drive around well enough but it's more that they have no place interesting to drive to and no one to drive with. It doesn't matter. The connection to social media is of little value because most people come to a virtual world to be a different person, and that often means a secret person. And that's fine, if there are more checks and balances against griefing, but again, ideological impediments stop progress here because the Lindens want to let people log on from proxy servers, thinking they are helping dissidents in Iran. They aren't. That's not how it works. Even so, having a way to involve people in RL, whether from public or private life, is a good thing, but that means bypassing all the orientation nonsense, the demand for people to make special pages or key up special gateways and just let people TP new sign-ups directly on to their lawn without any fuss or "learning". Learning comes when people have a thing to do, and a motivation for learning a thing, not visa versa. Orientation that includes building and driving is worthless -- it should include dancing and talking. One of the things that I don't think works are these pre-fabbed games that LL puts up, and even something very light like their 15 weeks crystal thing. All the items, the graphics, the experience feel to me like they are for very young children. I could see a 5- or even 8-year-old enjoying this but we're adults. The graphics are too cartoony and the story line are too silly. I think all of this could be upgraded considerably and at the one end be more like the Discovery Channel or National Geographic for people who want PG, and at the other end something like a MadPea game only not so difficult for people who want Adult. And then things in between that help socializing. I do not want to grow a wiggly egg in my garden and pick up a crystal teddy bear. I would care about things completely different whether it was visiting sims about current disasters like floods and fires and climate change information, or about US elections, or some really high-quality scavenger hunt perhaps involving pairs or teams but not having so much killing you dead by rock monsters and TPing you back home while emptying your backpack. It would require getting completely out of the entire gaming mentality that plagues Silicon Valley.

Complete viciousness that is uncalled for entirely. Some people have trouble with conceptual thinking. The original poster means that given that the user base is declining, would solving the problem of fraud (one could add griefing) enable more people to stay and enable the Lab to retain membership? Well, it's wishful thinking because the TOS which we are all compelled to sign as a contract of adhesion spells out in two places that player disputes are not the problem of LL and it will not get involved. So it's buyer beware, the end. And this stems from the Communications Decency Act, which Silicon Valley lobbied to hobble, ensuring themselves "safe harbor," so that they have no responsibility for the crimes of their users, i.e. copyright theft, which is of course "the California business model." Few understand the deep connections between this criminality and where we all are now with social media companies eroding privacy and helping the Russians to interfere in elections. There is one actual way to get around this, and that is to have LL, or any of these gaming companies, to give up their policy of never letting players publicize criticism of third parties. If they allowed this, at least publicity would go a long way to curbing criminality and warning people, and also establishing the truth when false accusations are made by griefers. But again, their omerta policy on criminals stems from the "safe harbor," again -- they don't want libel suits that relate to what players say about other players. Not a happy prospect for a future when we all have to live in virtual worlds but it will change.

I thought you were opposed to socialism.