Should this forum be closed?

[Qie Niangao]

I suppose it provides the service of showing the entire world which land sellers are too stoopid to put their listings in the correct forum, but now that there's practically nothing left here except those errant posts, maybe it just needs to be closed to new posts.

For what this forum was originally intended, we could use the Land Forum / General Discussion forum.

This all assumes there's somebody still minding the store, with the ability to close a forum. If not, or if the decision is to retain this one for some other reason, then it seems to me that moderation practices would need to change such that wrong-category posts are deleted instead of moved -- and a sticky would need to be added to make it really, really obvious that this is the wrong place to post anything for sale.

[Muletta]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

I suppose it provides the service of showing the entire world which land sellers are too stoopid to put their listings in the correct forum, but now that there's practically nothing left here except those errant posts, maybe it just needs to be closed to new posts.

For what this forum was originally intended, we could use the Land Forum / General Discussion forum.

This all assumes there's somebody still minding the store, with the ability to close a forum. If not, or if the decision is to retain this one for some other reason, then it seems to me that moderation practices would need to change such that wrong-category posts are deleted instead of moved -- and a sticky would need to be added to make it really,

really

obvious that this is the wrong place to post anything for sale.

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Nah, I don't like the idea about closing a forum, just because some threads are being misplaced. I do not know, if the misplacing happens, because sellers do not know where to put their ads, or if it is done by purpose, to make the ads more visible...but to close down a forum because of it, would not be the way, in my opinion....

...at the same time I have always found it rather strange, that people can advertise for renting out skyboxes/apartments/land, and show their ads, totally legal here, while merchants who are selling ex landscaping stuff or houses, are not even allowed to be mentioned in threads in other forums.

[c3r]

Unless I  am reading the topics incorrectly it does have threads for differnt types of land for sale and rent of course it would be nice if everyone posted in the correct thread

[Qie Niangao]

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c3r wrote:

Unless I  am reading the topics incorrectly it does have threads for differnt types of land for sale and rent of course it would be nice if everyone posted in the correct thread

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Well, at the moment, there remains one thread that I haven't yet reported as inappropriate content, so it hasn't been moved. The other ones with sale / rent topics have been moved by the moderators to the other, appropriate forums:

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Parcels-for-Sale-Mainland/bd-p/ParcelsforSaleMainland

and

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Parcels-for-Rent-Mainland/bd-p/mainlandparcelsforrent

It's very possible that folks who inappropriately post mainland parcels for sale and rent in this forum are also mistaking those many moved threads for live postings, and without clicking on them it's not obvious they've been moved elsewhere. That's why I'd suggested deleting them instead of moving them (or moving them without leaving behind a trace of them ever having been posted here).

I used to think it was worth saving this forum for its originally intended purposes, but the forums overall are getting less traffic than before, so that's why I suggested combining the non-commercial subforums into the "Land Forum / General Discussion" one.

Muletta, I'm not sure about this, but I vaguely recall that the existence of those for-sale and for-rent forums for Mainland and Estates, without corresponding forums for "stuff", is related to how dreadful Marketplace is at handling land. (One could certainly make the case that Marketplace is perfectly dreadful at everything, but I think historically it was supposed to take the place of some pretty dreadful commerce sections of the earlier forums, with only "Merchants", "Inworld Employment", and "Wanted" remaining.)

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

I think nothing is lost by removing this forum.  On the other hand It took several years  to remove the 'Second LIfe Viewer Basic Mode' forum.   I don't think it's an exaggeration to say there were never any threads there regarding Basic  Mode.  That is if you exclude the ones saying there was no need for a forum about "Second Life Viewer Basic Mode."  So I wouldn't invest any effort in pursuing this.

[Qie Niangao]

Yeah, probably good advice.

And anyway, the desperate dopey landflippers and would-be slumlords are now spamming the Land / General Discussion forum, too.

It doesn't really help that the structure of the Estate land forums was clearly designed by somebody with no clue about the actual business of Estates.

So yeah, I give up.

[Muletta]

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c3r wrote:

Unless I  am reading the topics incorrectly it does have threads for differnt types of land for sale and rent of course it would be nice if everyone posted in the correct thread

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Yes, but maybe there are too many different places in the land forum...Perhaps that is why, people put their ads the wrong places, because it can be difficult to distinguish between them. I don't know. As long people do not spam with the same ads in multible threads at the same time, I do not mind if a single ad accidently lands the wrong place.

[Prokofy Neva]

No, it shouldn't be closed.

As Sansar gets started, and there is no more Mainland, this forum will become more important.

You shouldn't be beating the drums to have anything that recognizes the Mainland to be removed.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

Fairly certain Sansar will have it's own forums..

[Israel Schnute]

I logged in here to make a post.  All I see is "post moved"  some are made by the same person.  This looks like a spam forum. 

 

So the thread was moved, I can still see the advertisement and click on it.  All it does is highlight the spam.  I'm not going to make my post in here, it's just going to get lost in seconds.

 

Therefore, yes is my answer.

[Qie Niangao]

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Israel Schnute wrote:

I logged in here to make a post.  All I see is "post moved"  some are made by the same person.  This looks like a spam forum. 

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I continue to "Report Inappropriate Content" for the for-sale / for-rent posts, and when the posts are moved what's left behind is stamped as having been posted by the moderator who did the moving; that may be one reason why "some are made by the same person." Sometimes the posts are moved without those left-behind posts (or maybe some moderators take pity on us and not only move but completely delete the errant posts, not sure).

Back when this generation of forums software was first in use, there were several "sticky" threads here besides the "How to Contact Support" one that survives. I remember at least there was one for Bay City and another for Nova Albion; with the overall decline in SL-related forums use, those fell into disuse and I guess somebody decided to un-stick them.

It might help to have a sticky thread that warned would-be posters that they should not post commercial messages in this forum, but instead use the ones provided for that purpose.

[Israel Schnute]

I noticed my error long after I posted, but your post is a good explanation.

However, page one seems even more littered than it previously did.  I don't come to various forums as much as I should since SL is good enough for me in itself, though I do like seeing what's new out there, but I wonder if it's partly due to the spam.