Advertising wars

There are supposedly two sides in the advertising wars, those who oppose them and those who love them and yet, I'm in the middle. Sometimes I feel it's a case of clowns to the left of me and jokers to the right as I watch the arguments go to and 'fro.

The problem for me with the anti ad lobby is that they make blanket statements about banning all outdoor advertising, which begs the question, what constitues an advert? Yesterday at Robin's office hour (nicely hijacked after Jack told them "no more", take the debate elsewhere) it was suggested to me that advertising something in the same sim is probably acceptable, but advertising something on another sim is not. Quite frankly I find this notion absurd.

Here's the rub of the green, full disclosure, on some parcels I adorn the sides of my buildings with adverts for other people and other locations. Now none of these adverts are on 16M parcels, none of them are spinning in the air and none of them are on towers, yet I'm being told this is a no no. I'm not having it that this is an all or nothing issue.

On the other side I see people claiming their ad farms are ethical, that the 16 or 32M parcels they cut for their towers are not eyesores and that they aren't intended to grief....although make them an offer and they'll sell. This is quite simply laughable. If you were advertising for the sake of advertising then that is your business model and you shouldn't be looking to sell unless you receive an offer you can't refuse....which reminds me, I was recently talking to someone who is the head of a seventy five strong mafia in Second Life, but she told me I'm safe because I'm a civilian! No horses heads in my bed then!

The advertising issue is contentious, organised teams on both sides are making their views heard loud, but not very clear. The answers lie in some common sense being applied. To allow the extortionists to continue is not acceptable, and to let the ban it advocates win is conceding some of the core principles of your world, your imagination. Allowing people to get their way on an issue like this is the rocky road to ruin, what next, sandboxes? Amateur builds?

In the midst of these talks comes the dreaded zoning issue, again mentioned at Robin's and Jack's meetings and again it concerns me. I fully support zoning new sims, I'm concerned about how they'll zone existing sims. I also fully support the idea of a futuristic sci fi type sim, but I'm a geek like that!

Without common sense being applied this whole advertising issue is going to end in an ugly mess. If I want to advertise the SL Shakespeare company or Relay for Life I shouldn't be restricted to only doing so if those events are taking place on the sim I own land in.

There are surely already terms of service rules on spam that could be tweaked to deal with some of the unsavoury practices that lead to blights on the mainland landscape.

How about restricting parcel owners from putting adverts on more than one plot per 512M in the same sim? For example an avatar owns 2 16M plots, they could only put adverts on one of those plots, they'd have to buy (and continue to own) 496M of land in that sim to put down adverts on a second plot.

How about banning ad lines and adverts on plots set for sale? Why would someone have ban lines on a plot they're selling, other than trying to extort their neighbours that is. The only advert they should need is that the plot is for sale.

There are ways and means around this without making extreme decisions, but how many people are prepared to have a sensible debate on these issues? Too often the debates descend into farce as both sides talk at the other, rather than listening. The answers to these problems are within the grasp of the commuinity itself, but it's going to mean conceding ground for a sensible solution to emerge.