Yellow Patches are Good! (Within Reason...)

[Patroklus Murakami]

There have been rather a lot more yellow patches on the CDS Estate lately. I'm going to propose a counter-intuitive idea for discussion here: I think this is a good thing, and a sign of a healthy community

(I know, you'll be sending for the men in white coats next and carting me off to the lunatic asylum. Can I have a cell next to Gwyns' please?)

Current occupancy is as follows:

• Alpine Meadows w/ 24 parcels is at 83%
  Colona Nova w/46 parcels is at 89%
  Locus Amoenus w/42 parcels is at 83%
  Monastery w/9 parcels is at 71%
  Neufreistadt w/86 parcels is at 96%

Overall occupancy is 89%

This is a good thing. 100% occupancy is a bad thing.

The reason I say this is that, when we have 100% occupancy there are no spaces for new people to come and join us. We need to have some plots free so that new citizens can move in. The 100% occupancy we had in the recent past was a bit of a false picture too. Many CDS residents had multiple plots (in order to control the type of person who could join CDS according to some) and some of the 'owners' were Cleo's alts or sock puppets where she was paying the tier in any case. If you look at our current number of citizens (89), that's pretty much the same as it was when all the lots were sold out.

But less than 80% occupancy is also a bad thing (which is why I said yellow patches are good.... within reason). Our 'break even' rate has been set at 80% occupancy. Any less than that and we are going to be eating into our reserves. Now, our reserves are pretty substantial but I would not be happy with dipping into them on a consistent basis to cover tier.

I don't want to sound complacent here. I'd prefer to see fewer yellow patches, particularly in Locus Amoenus, but ~90% occupancy is not failure by any means.

But feel free to tell me I'm mad! I'm open to a debate on this one.

[JerryDon Lane]

OMG........You have finally lost it, Pat.... Yes, that's it.....vacant property is GOOD......Even try to make it look as if you planned it this way if you wish.....Don't you think that your administration should work to have 100% all yellow in the 5 sims and then this place would be utopia.......?

[Han Held]

A new, empty sim would pull down the average to well below 80% though, wouldn't it? That would be my personal concern. Yes -apparently we can afford it (for a time), but there's gotta be better ways to spend that money (advertising, outreach)?

[Coop]

I think the part that is not covered in the open parcel discussion is of the ones that are currently unoccupied, what size are they and what is the tier? Some of the open ones may be larger and thus less attractive to a first time casual CDS resident.

If you want to attract a few more people, some smaller and lower priced parcels might help.

[Han Held]

I think the part that is not covered in the open parcel discussion is of the ones that are currently unoccupied, what size are they and what is the tier? Some of the open ones may be larger and thus less attractive to a first time casual CDS resident.

If you want to attract a few more people, some smaller and lower priced parcels might help.

When I bought my LA plot, I was confused by having a joining fee and also having to pay teir, and Rosie had to walk me through it. I think that could be made clearer, personally.
I believe I wound up paying like L$6k or $24USD which might be a bit steep for your average newbie (I'm a newbie, but not average ), I don't know.

[Josie Fotherington]

A purchase price in addition to weekly tier is not uncommon in private estates. It's that purchase that deeds the land to you.

As for the amount, it depends on the estate and the demand for land in the estate. I was looking at Bay City the other day and they are trying to sell 1024 sq. m. parcels at $120,000 L. It's insane. That's a month and a half of a tier payment on a full sim.

The only other place I ever saw purchase prices that high were in the New England sims many years ago, like 2007-2008, during the SL-hype phase. I always wanted to buy there, but the costs were simply too high.

Many estates just charge $1 L for purchase and then the resident pays weekly tier. Lowering the initial purchase cost a bit might make the parcels more attractive to new residents.

[JerryDon Lane]

All newbies I'm familiar with react that way of late....especially when they see so much vacant property......One just scratches their head........

One can charge for property when there is a high demand for it, but you are a fool to try and charge for something that apparently there is little demand for anymore. It just runs them off even quicker.

Get them in here so that their tiers can begin to flow into the coffer......That is the objective....who doesn't get that?

[Patroklus Murakami]

One option (which I've ranted and raged against in the past) would be to sell parcels for 0L$ so new citizens (or current citizens who buy another plot) only have to pay for tier.

I've raged against it in the past because I was worried that this would undermine private sales. If newbies can buy land from the guv'mint for free, why would anyone pay top dollar for the plot a longer-standing citizen wants to sell and which they probably paid 1.5 or 3L$/m2 for?

I must also declare an ulterior motive. I think it's *insane* that we use dual systems - the yellow map land sales and Hippo. It makes life much more difficult for everyone so I would like to abolish land sales and make citizenship dependent on renting a plot of land. I know. Everyone hates the idea but I'm going to keep on putting it out there until you all give in!

What do you think? Should I set all the plots for sale by the government to 0L$ to boost sales and reduce the number of yellow patches on the map?

[Josie Fotherington]

It was possible to recoup a parcel's purchase price upon resale in most private estates...until about 2010.

There are only a few places left on the grid today in 2015 where residents can be guaranteed that they will recoup their initial purchase price of their parcel. Bay City. Blake's Sea sims. A few others. Most private estates charge anywhere from $1 L (total) to at most $1 to $2 L per sq. m. multiplied by the total sq. m. of the parcel. This is a grid-wide average.

You can not technically set a parcel for sale to "anyone" at $0 L. You can set it for sale to a specific avatar for $0 L, but not to the "anyone" option. Linden Lab changed that at some point in 2007 to eliminate the problem of bots scooping of land at $0 L. Setting the parcel for sale at $1 L to anyone basically accomplishes the same thing, but it requires the avatar to at LEAST have $1 L in their account.

I would be curious to know how many people in CDS in the last 12 months sold their parcels for the price they paid for them. Versus how many people just abandoned their parcels without going through the process of setting them for sale. Or how many were traded between friends for a nominal amount or nothing. I can tell you from my experience as an estate manager that in the estates where I worked 99% of the people just abandoned their parcels. They didn't want to be bothered with resale.

It was different in the early SL, pre-hype and hype days. Back in 2006 - 2009, you *could* count on getting your money back and sometimes you could make a profit. That all ceased when the SL land market crashed, except in those few places I listed above.

Regarding Hippo, we have no choice. We HAVE to use it or a similar system like CasperVend. There is no other way to collect tier other than to have people pay you directly and what a nightmare that would be! The parcel selling/deeding purchase is the only time money can be "given" to the parcel itself. There is no native method of tier collection in the SL clients.

Private estate owners have to use a 3rd party system, or take manual payments via Lindens in world or PayPal out of world. You have to have yellow AND Hippo in order to collect the tier.

[Widget Whiteberry]

A question and a few thoughts
Do you believe that CDS citizenship rolls would stabilize at a higher level if the 'sale price' of parcels where substantially reduced — say, to 10% of what they are now? Given the various improvements in various stages of completion (e.g. marketing plan, covenants, public builds) I think it's premature to think so.

But let's say that, following the completion of many of those things, we came to that conclusion. If I understand correctly, the problem is to not put the guvmint in competition with private land sales. We could do that by subsidizing the sale of each private parcel one time or by reimbursing each parcel holder for (for instance) 90% of the amount they paid for it. After that, the sale price of all parcels becomes 10% of what they are now.

I've not run the numbers, but it would be interesting to know the cost of doing this at various levels.

[AbbyRose]

Yellow patches are NOT good. There are sims/communities that have a waiting list. CDS should be full with a waiting list for the new sim coming online. It should have been all ready hinted about in advertisements, luring new citizens to join us. Is there any advertisement for CDS? If so, where?
We have yellow patches/vacant land.....no dots, meaning no people on the sims.....
There is a problem that needs to be corrected immediately.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Yellow patches are NOT good. There are sims/communities that have a waiting list. CDS should be full with a waiting list for the new sim coming online. It should have been all ready hinted about in advertisements, luring new citizens to join us. Is there any advertisement for CDS? If so, where?
We have yellow patches/vacant land.....no dots, meaning no people on the sims.....
There is a problem that needs to be corrected immediately.

Should we?

The CDS is not a profit-making venture, despite our reserve. We are an experiment in virtual democracy within Second Life, what I often refer to as a 'sim co-op', although we've a bit more structure than that.

Do we need to have bunches of dots? People don't live in SL like they do in RL. I have never spent a great deal of time at my home plot aside for when I'm working on something; I go to where things are happening. My home plot is for the occasions I wish to have people in 'my' space, private sandboxing, and for public display of... whatever I feel like displaying to the public.

We are under no compulsion to fill up our sims with people who have absolutely no interest in the experiment; we're rather fortunate in that we do not have to live hand to mouth. We are not your typical land baron scheme, and we do not have the need to take cues from them.

[AbbyRose]

Yellow patches are NOT good. There are sims/communities that have a waiting list. CDS should be full with a waiting list for the new sim coming online. It should have been all ready hinted about in advertisements, luring new citizens to join us. Is there any advertisement for CDS? If so, where?
We have yellow patches/vacant land.....no dots, meaning no people on the sims.....
There is a problem that needs to be corrected immediately.

Should we?

The CDS is not a profit-making venture, despite our reserve. We are an experiment in virtual democracy within Second Life, what I often refer to as a 'sim co-op', although we've a bit more structure than that.

Do we need to have bunches of dots? People don't live in SL like they do in RL. I have never spent a great deal of time at my home plot aside for when I'm working on something; I go to where things are happening. My home plot is for the occasions I wish to have people in 'my' space, private sandboxing, and for public display of... whatever I feel like displaying to the public.

My point is there were people here that were involved in the community and learning about the government. On any given time you logged in, people were actually together, chatting, dance, sitting......They were communicating and involved in CDS. Yes, we all go about our SL exploring other sims, creating, etc.. My point is that there were people/citizens that came home to CDS to be with the others here. That is what makes a community. Home is a place to come back to.

We are under no compulsion to fill up our sims with people who have absolutely no interest in the experiment; we're rather fortunate in that we do not have to live hand to mouth. We are not your typical land baron scheme, and we do not have the need to take cues from them.

[AbbyRose]

http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6445

My point is there were people here that were involved in the community and learning about the government. On any given time you logged in, people were actually together, chatting, dance, sitting......They were communicating and involved in CDS. Yes, we all go about our SL exploring other sims, creating, etc.. My point is that there were people/citizens that came home to CDS to be with the others here. That is what makes a community. Home is a place to come back to.

[Josie Fotherington]

We are under no compulsion to fill up our sims with people who have absolutely no interest in the experiment; we're rather fortunate in that we do not have to live hand to mouth. We are not your typical land baron scheme, and we do not have the need to take cues from them.

Everyone needs to read that paragraph and then read it again.

Not because I agree with it, but because that is how long term residents feel about the CDS. I can not call Aliasi's opinions "founding values" because I don't know enough about what the founding values were. Perhaps they are founding values, I can't say. Someone who has been around for a long time could comment on that.

Are we only an experiment? Not an experiment and a community? Do the majority of current CDS residents feel this way? "Stay out you riff raff that have no interest In our democratic experiment."

You all need to think about that. Is that the prevailing opinion of the majority of residents? If so, we can talk about occupancy and improvements and marketing until the cows come home and it won't matter. It's futile.

Now I am going to speak up for the world from which I come...the world of private estates.

Private estate does not equal "land baron scheme". Yes, there ARE land barons. You can see them listed here: http://www.gridsurvey.com/ . Even though the top 10 list is old (Dec 2013) a rough tally puts those top 10 estates at owning 25% of the private regions on the grid.

Have you ever thought about all of the private estates that comprise the remaining 75%?

There are thousands of private estates, most of which are made up of 2,3,4 sims, and unless those estates existed PRIOR to 2007, then they are not making any money. Grandfathered ($195 USD per month) sims can make a decent profit. Non-grandfathered sims (those that launched AFTER 2006) make a little profit, but not much. Maybe $50 USD per sim. Charging more would price them out of competition with tier prices in grandfathered sims.

Note: I am not talking about super-premium estates like the Blake's Sea sims. Estates like that can make more of a profit. They can charge higher tier. They are the exception, not the rule.

I know private estate owners that have spent thousands of USD of their own money to keep their estates alive. So why do these thousands of little guys do it? Why do they own estates that make them little or no money? Why do they put thousands of dollars of their own money into it?

There are several answers to that, but the biggest one is: community.

Community is what has kept Second Life alive. It sure the hell isn't the possibility of making money! The amount of people making substantial money in SL Is a tiny, tiny % of the population.

That 75% ranges from estates that are basically free-for-alls with no rules to strict dictatorships, and everything in between. RP sims tend to be the strictest, with lots of rules. Some estates ARE democracies with rule by group consensus. Then there are estates that have rules that aren't enforced. A perfect example of that is The Independent State of Caledon. They are a free-for-all in spite of having a covenant, because it is an estate where the almighty dollar is the most important thing to the estate owner.

The majority of CDS residents were not here in 2004 when the experiment began. We all joined at some point in the years following. How many of us landed in CDS immediately? Not many. We started in other communities, so we come from a tradition of "community". That's why so many of us are thinking in terms of tenancy levels and marketing. We are used to being in communities that are always in flux. They grow, they shrink. New people come in. Some oldbies stay, some move on.

CDS isn't like that. It's mostly static. There is a core group of residents that have been in CDS forever and they aren't going anywhere. Their numbers are large enough to not only support the cost of the sims, but to bring in a profit.

A few new people have arrived in CDS over the years. I am one of them. Do they stay? I don't know. Coop and I are still here, for now.

As we are a democracy, we need to be clear on what our majority wants. Are we a static, exclusive experiment for people interested in the esoteric theory and application of democracy in a virtual environment?

Are we a friendly, inclusive community that wants to expand and educate new residents about democracy?

Can we be both? I don't know. These ideals are on the opposite ends of a spectrum.