Free ROBO?

Jack Lindens office hour was as usual a mess of topics and questions, one of the most disruptive - "Why was ROBO Marx banned?"
It seems he has been abuse reported for ad farming - according to some he had spinning cubes on his land advertising, according to others he had, in total, just two plots which had a poster for his own website with the land NOT set for sale.
So when is it ad farming - we here at SLN have 4 sites if we put on there a vendor or poster is it advertising? Is it ad farming?
Jack, as always, refused to discuss individual cases and did his best to ignore the subject throughout concentrating instead on questions over the other mess - Zindra.
It seems everyone wants waterfront plots - Hmmm i can almost see the land being terraformed in stripes so everyone gets their bit of water!
So much for adult continent it seems to be turning into a children's playground squabble over who will get the best plots!
An adult continent with no sex or violence, it becomes more laughable by the day but those forced to relocate are not laughing.

UPDATE: Seeing that the parcel next to ROBO's was for sale it was bought and a building put up which represented a bunker cover in graffiti, the graffiti textures were placed in vendors for sale inside the structure - EVERYTHING was returned by Frontline Linden at 12.30 with no explanation.

Sadness and realisation

You know tonight I was taking pictures for Mami Jewels' new releases coming out this week and it suddenly struck me; we could very soon lose our little piece of paradise.
I love Caprona and its just so unfair!
We rarely use all the prims we are allowed here, maybe the exception to that is when James and I got married and at that time I can understand we may have put a strain on the server for an hour or so but is that unusual? Aren't all servers going to be strained occasionally? Anyway only 4 avatars are usually on our island and then rarely for any length of time or all at the same time, so why should we be punished for the 'light' use of our retreat?

I truly feel saddened at the way Linden Lab are treating their residents, the people who have found happiness in their secondlives and are now having it ripped from them in such an unjust way.

For my part I am losing faith in LL and to show my disappointment I will no longer be doing business with the Lindex - why should I give them a penny after the way they have treated every one of us. Most of the decisions LL has made of late I may not have liked but I have always been able to keep my distance and sometimes even see both points of view but, in this, LL has pushed me too far.

I recommend if you are not going to use the Lindex, like myself, then you make sure you use a reputable exchange instead like the ones on either ACE-Exchange or Xstreet(formally sl-exchange). I know there are others but I personally do not know of them please feel free to add a link (in the comments) to any reputable exchanges you have used in the past.

As a reporter and editor of this newspaper I have always tried to remain impartial while still being true to myself, but, in this issue I have failed and am not afraid to say so. Many of my friends are talking of leaving SL and many others are selling their land and downgrading their accounts. While nothing is set in stone yet, according to Jack Linden, and there is a spark of hope left that LL may reconsider or find a compromise I will wait as many others will do - just don't wait to long Linden Lab to make some sort of decision or you may find yourself with a world empty of content creators and supporters.

Dana Vanmoer

(dress 'nicole' by Styles of Edo - to be released this week)

Linden labs slams its paying customers again!

Yes linden labs have messed up and their paying customers will be the ones who have to PAY for it:

Openspace Pricing and Policy Changes
Openspace prices and fees change on the 1st January with no grandfathering.
Class 4 Openspaces will be upgraded to class 5 in January.
Educator discount is no longer available for Openspaces.
No Owner switching for Openspaces unless it’s a full transfer of Payor.
More proactive education by support staff to prevent unfair resource use by Openspace regions.

Why?
What happened?
According to Jack Linden usage of the openspace sims has surprised them and the load needed to support them is too much. They gave us 3750 prims to use on these beautiful private islands and apparently didn't expect us to use them!

So Openspaces have been incredibly popular as a perk for estate owners, but sadly there is a twist. Unfortunately most of the Openspaces are being used for much more than light use. Based on analysis performed in August and September, Openspaces are being used about twice as much as we expected, in other words being loaded with double the content/avatar load than we’d expect for a region that is supposed to be light use.

That there are unscrupulous users of the openspaces is not in doubt and now it seems, rather than deal with the offenders, everyone on openspaces will have to pay.
At an emergency office hours Jack showed a willingness to listen to idea's that residents presented suggesting a possibility these changes are not set in stone yet - but from past experience Resident suggestions are generally ignored. Linden Lab have showed yet again absolutely no knowledge of the inworld economy.
Jack Linden: okay so here is a question; do you think us pinning prim counts down to say 1500, and limiting script count to 250, would be acceptable if the price stayed as it now? I'm not suggesting this is possible, but I'm interested in your opinions
Some great ideas were forthcoming on ways to combat the problem but the point is that Linden Lab did not foresee this issue showing gross mismanagement and incompetence.
Jack was listening though and this can only be a good thing:
[5:37] Jack Linden: okay, so lets summarise a little: I hear you on OS limits, and I hear you on the other options like free conversions. I won't obviously be making any promises in this discussion which is an ad-hoc one because I wanted to get as much feedback as I could.. but I will take all of this away and discuss it within the Lab. *if* there are outcomes or changes, then we should make those clear sooner rather than later
[5:39] Jack Linden: Lets keep talking. I will reply more in the forums, and I will try to do more sessions like this over the next few days.

Beginning 1st January 2009
We will increase the monthly maintenance fee from USD$75 to USD$125 per month. This price increase will apply to all owners of Openspaces on January 1st as well as new purchases after that date. There will be no grandfathering of Openspace maintenance pricing.
This shows a 50% increase in upfront fees and a 66% increase in tier fees!

I spoke with Intlibber Brautigan of BNT holdings and this is what he had to say;
IntLibber BnT: if anything is costing them money its the fact that they offer 195 tier on the mainland that we subsidize with our high sim tier
IntLibber BnT: I'm all for ending the grandfathered rates, puts everybody on a level playing field
IntLibber BnT: ending grandfathering and equalizing tier between mainland and estates will bring in enough revenue for LL that they can cover added expenses.

This is a situation that we will monitor closely. You can follow the discussions in the FORUM and we will try to keep you updated on anything pertinent.
Thank you to Gemma Cleanslate for the chat logs and Intlibber for taking the time to talk to me.
Dana Vanmoer
Source: Secondlife Blog