Second Life may be getting more real by the day. In a post on the Second Life blog on Monday, Jack Linden describes the Linden Lab plan to better regulate the Mainland, the section of virtual land that's managed directly by Linden Lab itself. With the implementation of a Department of Public Works, Second Life residents were alerted to a Linden Lab that wants to be more involved and regulate more of the user experience.
The new plan is still vague, but seems to center on the concept of zoning. One of the most frequent user complaints is the proliferation of ad farms in-world where a virtual world parcel is filled with nothing but ads for other in-world businesses, and the post suggests that Linden Lab will take steps to control what is viewed by many in Second Life to be akin to an adult bookstore moving in next door.
Comments on the move by members of the SLUniverse Forums run the gamut from skepticism to outrage to optimism. The general feeling, however, seems to be that of a community hearing that a homeowners' association (HOA) is going to run the neighborhood. Forum member lily joliat is concerned about the possibility of rezoning virtual land already owned:
"How is that any different then having someone buy land next to me and screwing with my existing view? Or should I trust that the Lindens will keep it nice?"
Member Vialli Rossini is even more skeptical, feeling the changes are more of a business move for Linden Lab than anything else:
"This sounds very much like 'churning business' to me. But in the main companies tend to churn another companies customer base...in this case it seems LL are going to churn their own customers!! Incredible........dump zoned mainland on the grid, devalue existing mainland.......people dump their land quick and grab a piece of the new.....churn succesful!!
"Resident numbers are not going up...so how do LL get more juice out of the lemon?"
Kurt Ludd, however, is more optimistic about the proposal:
"I would not want it to be zoned all Residential or all commercial...However I do agree that Adfarms should go...We have a few plots in the surrounding Sims but not really bad...But have seen some really ugly Sims because of them...I am hopeful that SL will step in and help make the Mainland better."
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Comments
Deep down I had a feeling that this was coming. Thank God I do not live on the mainland. I think the lindens are hoping that by placing more restrictions on mainland they will sell more Private Islands, and thus make $$$$. Not sure how it will work in the current economy. I've seen a lot of people selling, both mainland and private. In order to get more people on SL, what they need to do is bring the price down for both mainland and private. They also need to make the interface more user friendly and easier to use for first time residents. I've been on SL for almost 3 years now and I still don't understand all the tricks.
Yeah, this is -spatial- social networking and 'value of land' is affected the same way your real life value of land is. You can design a nice Youtube Page, put nice content on it, but you don't have your neighbor's sucky video/page design displayed right along side it, flashing and blinking *in plain view* of yours.
Just as living in an uncontrolled neighborhood, the collective sum affects your own property's value and everyone has a right to be there.
The issue of ad-farms needs to be decoupled from zoning, and treated as a clear-cut case of violation of community standards against harassment, spamming, and "disturbance of the peace. And the ad farms have to be removed first, before new zoned land is implemented, or the market, already buffeted by land glutting, risks being destroyed yet again
These so-called "ads" ostensibly sell ad space -- but never appear to fill it, except for the occasional porn site that leads you to malware or junky Internet sites unrelated to SL and its businesses. Some of the ad towers don't even bother to have ads, but just have taunting symbols or jokes. Instead, most of them have set their tiny parcels to sale for ridiculously high prices, and are extorting people to "buy back the view". The Lindens set a policy against such extortion back in May, but have had only a lackluster enforcement of it -- instead, curiously, they seem to be spending more time punishing those who try to preserve their views by blocking these ugly add towers with big prims or trees.
Ad farms should be removed as a compliance with the existing TOS without changing a thing -- it merely requires political spine. And to solve the ad problem in SL, Linden Lab needs itself to sell ad space where it matters -- in welcome areas, infohubs, on roadside on commercial sims, and that will drain off some of the need to spam and provide a source of revenue for LL so it can hire more staff to handle increased service demands in zoning. There are many other suggestions the Lindens can use , some of them mechanical, i.e. making it so 512 m2 parcels cannot sell for anything but $0 -- and resist the inevitable screaming from those hypothetically raising "edge cases" that never really happen.
Zoning on new sims has the usual suspects on forums like SLuniverse screeching that someone may come and zone *them*. The basic selfish propertarian ethos of SL, "I can do WTF I want on my property" has really destroyed the right of everybody to enjoy their property without interference. Everybody "gets it" that you have to "buy the view," but some basic norms of civilization have always been missing and a few hijack the views of the many by literalist and shrill insistence on their right to sandbox. Yet, nobody is coming to zone *them*. So far, the announcement only relates to *new* sims. This hollering has to be ignored, however, to focus on the needs of those who do want to zone because they are tired of having their land devalued.
Zoning of new sims risks further devaluation and undermining of the efforts of those who already zoned old sims on their own, with Linden indifference or even obstruction. So there really should be an effort to enable older sims owned by a single owner or single group that requests it to turn their land to a covenant; allowances should also be made for situations where all the sim owners except those hijacking 16 m2 parcel owners can also petition to zone their land. Something has to be done about clubs, too, who are notorious for sequestering a sim's entire FPS and avatar slots from their tiny 4096 as the owners of the rest of the sim lag or can't even return home -- there should be a forthright plan simply to move those clubs at no charge to new zoned club sims and end this constant divisiveness. Let clubs compete with each other for FPS instead of with residences.
Prokofy
"Zoning is good"... just a second, back up, draft #2... "Zoning CAN be good".
Obviously, the freely open "build what you want" wild west approach to the mainland has resulted in tens of thousends of square meters of "urban chaos" and For Sale signs. Something certainly has to be done to protect not only the client's investment, but Linden's as well.
I personally think Linden must implement and enforce zoning - BUT - "flexible" zoning laws that let the surrounding inhabitants know what they are buying into BEFORE they pluck down their money.
Want to buy in a mixed zoning area? Then expect your neighbor WILL put up some signs but probably be restircted in height and size (read "suburbs").
Buying in a commercial zone? Then your probably one of the advertisers.
Buying in a Residential neighborhood? Not a sign to be seen besides house numbers.
As it is, most of us who want some semblance of residential utopia opt for private islands/estates. The only time I even visit the mainland is when I need something there - and I certainly don't explore there - I already know what it looks like (ugly).
Let's support Linden's attempt to clean up the mainland - but let's also insist they do it right.
BigCity
This is a move in the right direction by Linden Labs, if done properly it should help make new Zoned Sims much more appealing to the average user.
However the problem of Adfarming in existing Sims will not be cured by the introduction of zoning alone, much of the problem has absolutely nothing to do with Advertising.
A handfull of less scrupulous users, use the threat of unsightly advertising to extort large sums of real money from their neighbours, these few users are known to have cut up literally thousands of larger parcels, selling off most of each one quickly at cost value, while holding onto just a couple of small plots for themselves to set at extraordinary prices.
Advertisers move in and put up some downright ugly messes on a few of the plots.
Rules on Advertising will make an impact on some of the mess, but the land will still be badly carved up, remaining patchy and more or less useless.
It is this unsavoury extortion practice that destroys the mainland of Secondlife, Advertising is just one of the ways these extortioners apply leverage.
The only real answer is removal of the few parasites, until Linden Labs accepts this and takes action against them the mainland will remain a ragged eyesore.
Unfortunately these handfull of extortionsts, own a huge amount of mainland compared to the average user and as such pay a great deal of tier, this seems to have made them valued customers of Linden Labs, so I am afraid they are likely to carry on unhindered by the Lindens :-(
However I still live in hope and any step forward is a step in the right direction.
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