FAQs on Ravenglass Rentals

Oh, Christ-on-a-crutch, the scurrilous Herald has an epic tower of hate published against me (no, you don't get a link) and my business, uh, I guess because I dared to slam the odious Tenshi Vile using her own tactics, and because I remain a steady critic of SL's former independent newspaper, which I used to write for (which is why I am still on the masthead).

Let me see -- is it ever worth polemicizing with hate posts? Well, yes and no. I don't have time for the full treatment now, especially because if I have time to fight communist posts, I'm much rather spend it on debunking Kevin Kelly's encomium to Web 2.0 communism, a more serious problem, or the news that we now have 5 Google execs in the Obama administration (the horror!).

The premise of the Herald alt screed (looks to be Pixeleen Mistral/Mark McCahill's obsessiveness, few others would bother) is that I attack communism as a way of -- wait for it! -- covering up my own communism lol. Of course, this is like one of those Leninist "social democracy is social fascim" screeches -- nothing makes a Red like Lenin, or the Herald hippies, more furious, than seeing a viable form of community and collaboration that is NOT their socialism or communism but more liberal and democratic. That drives them crazy, the way social democracy used to drive Lenin more crazy than fascism or monarchy.

Since so much of it is based on lies, damn lies, and misinformation about Ravenglass and rentals in general, let me debunk what it says, simply by printing the facts:

o mainland rentals are much cheaper than island rentals or purchases because mainland rentals are based on tier for mainland sims, which is $195, not $295 per month per sim.

o Mainland bulk sim owners with grouped land can offer you discounted prices that are lower than what you'd have to pay in tier to the Lindens, so mainland rentals offer the cheapest option for living in SL.

o if you "purchase" land on an island, you could lose it at any time, and your initial purchase fee, which may be high or low or non existent, depending on the set-up, is lost and/or your rent paid ahead is lost. Fraud among island owners is common enough to be of concern.

o buying mainland from Lindens or the auction, and paying tier to the Lindens, is much more expensive than paying for a mainland rental; paying island tier/rentals is more expensive than what you would pay to the Lindens yourself.

o by contrast, there is no down payment on a mainland rentals, and in my system, you can refund at any time for a small cancellation fee -- you are not stuck being denied a refund as you are on an island, or paying tier to LL, and you have flexibility that way.

o I think open rentals groups give people maximum freedom, which is what I like to see, because they can join any time, and also have friends who build with them, or who want to temporarily place prims, able to instantly join. In island rentals or mall rentals, the most annoying thing is paying a box -- yet having to wait sometimes as long as 24 hours or even 48 or more hours for an owner to show up and give you the group so you can lay your prims. I hate making people dependent on that, so I have a simple basic membership open for setting prims and home, the two powers people immediately want in a group.

o Open groups can be vulnerable to griefers, but actually, despite their claims, griefing is actually a minor problem. I solve it in a variety of ways. The open permissions in the first layer don't include ban, so that all residents can ban anywhere on group land, so they do. Griefing in SL is overly feared, and in fact many incidents that people think are "griefing" are miscommunications, like someone just flying around or not answering an IM or something. I believe obsessiveness about security and having all kinds of orbs and security teams and whatnot only invites more griefing wars. I think it's worth publicizing griefing now and then to illustrate that groups claiming to have "reformed" or "not to group" are lying (like Woodbury).

o I charge people group liability for a number of very compelling reasons, and I alert people to this feature in three different ways, so they have ample notice, in the lease, on the group, and in a separate, manually sent card of rules that they get upon renting. These compelling reasons hinge on the nature of the group -- open -- the nature of the pricing -- free search ads for stores -- and the nature of the cost -- changing.

1. In an open group, the only way to prevent it from filling up with huge numbers of people and becoming unmanageable and laggy is to count on the fact that people who see $4 debit out of their account who are there only temporarily, and disregarded all ample notice, will leave the group to avoid further charges
2. I maintain a list of some 40-50 open rental vacancies all over updated twice daily, which is a huge boon not only to new people wanting a simple way to get a self-paced house tour, but to people already in the system wanting flexibility. Large numbers of my tenants move from sim to sim, either going up in prims or just changing their styles. With these ads, they have very easy ability to do so, and I manually return their cancellation fee if they stay within the system.
3. Search ads for stores are included in the rent, and people don't have to pay the $30 a week addition of they rent commercial land; the commercial land enables many rentals to stay cheaper.
4. My rents are among the lowest in SL.
5. The amount of the total search ad fees changes every week and can be $3 or $4 or more -- I put in all leases that each person must consider group liability up to $4 as part of their rent, but over $4 it will be reimbursed  -- and it is, on Wednesdays, after the debit Tuesdays.
6. In the groups where I don't charge liability, I have to have tip jars, or I have to raise the rents -- it is much better to have a system especially for stores where people don't pay the liability in fact after they set prims and leave the group!
7. Raising the rent or charging for search ads would not reflect the fact that those most using this -- prospective and existing tenants -- are not paying the costs, plus it would be hard to have a rent raise that really covered costs some weeks, and it would overcompensate for costs other weeks.

o I have many, many long-term renters with me, some even more than two years, and some who keep repeatedly coming back, after making sojourns to the islands, their own mainland property, or RL. They find it easy to come back and use a self-service open system with lots of choices.

o On islands, restrictions as to what you can build, terraforming, styles, themes, etc. are often more onerous than my simple rules, and that's what people appreciate.

o Far from "controlling people" as Gwyn insinuates (shame on her, it's a repeat of old tactics she used on the forums where she called me a "tyrant" because I didn't have a collectivist group like Neualtenberg that vetted and approved every tenant and business), I enable people the freedoms to control their own land. They have ban/media/plant etc. and they operate on the principle of being considerate of neighbours, which works pretty well, but having freedom to build any theme. I have some themed areas for those that want themes, and they're low-cost -- so much of the RP and themed islands cost an arm and a leg.

o Ravenglass is a virtual company owned by one person, with no co-owners, and with only occasional hired builders, scripters, terraformers, etc. But instead of calling this a "tyranny" or a "communist collective farm" (!) you could merely call it a "sole proprietorship" like a bed-and-breakfast. That's all. It's a small business, even being spread across 65 sims, and it is nothing compared to the authoritarian regimes under which many live, paying premium prices, in all kinds of other places, subjective to themes, whims, even gouging and theft.

o By refusing to allow ban lines, closed groups, and security orbs, I make nice whole community areas where people can actually befriend their neighbours instead of fearing and suspecting them, and where they can fly, walk, boat, hang out, etc. without constantly running into red lines.

o There's the refund button, with a small concellation fee, should you be unhappy with your rental. Come back any time! : )

Comments

[Dahlia]

I can't say I agree with many of your opinions or the way you characterize some people on your blog, but I can say that you were one of the best landlords I've ever encountered :)

[Daniel Regenbogen]

God you are so full of yourself. I'm waiting for the day when you won't picture yourself as gods gift to mankind (or at least to all the poor SL residents who without your guidance wouldn't be able to see the light of whats good for them).

[Prokofy Neva]

thanks, Dahlia!

A community is not a commune.

Group rentals are not a collective.

Complete strangers are in this group, with no uniting philosophy whatsoever, most of whom never contact each other, or even me.

They live under a few simple rules to try to make nice neighbourhoods, that's all -- hardly communism.

Of course, that really enrages those on the hard left who find such liberalism, not based on the rigidity of the island covenant, as exasperating.

I have every conceivable type, lifestyle, avatar in my rentals -- from Goreans to even SLUnity regulars, imagine (they all moved out in a huff at one point because the $4 weekly debit broke them on their cheap rentals of $250/200 prims ROFL).

People are free to do what they want on their land within the TOS and within a basic concept of consideration of their neighbour -- something that neither Intlibber's libertarianism, with its philosophy of "let me bang on this boat with my red lines on my big-ass waterfront property" nor the criminalized propertarianism the Lindens fostered for year can ever contemplate.

In nearly five years, in fact I've had exactly two incidents of someone granted terraforming powers as a paying tenant using it to harass others or me. That's because most people are good and don't harass others, and they don't need to be in a straight-jacket.

The funny thing is that every other mainland rentals, and some island rentals, work exactly like this one, but they aren't harassed or accused of anything.

Elanthius has a system where you are invited into his group when you land by a bot, which is no different than having an open group.

He has all his mainland rentals for sale, but if you prefer to rent them, you don't buy the land, you pay a box and apparently he has sole ownership, and then sets the land to your group to use. Not sure how he gets TVs to work but perhaps he goes around deeding them. He can perhaps afford this method with all the tier people rent out to him, I dunno, it makes no sense to me, but people evolve what works for them.

Collectivization works on the principle of coercion. Collaboration works on the principle of voluntary consent. If Herald readers -- particularly Gwyn -- can't understand the difference, they deserve the newspaper they have.

BTW, shocker -- the author isn't in the People list. That's because he's a famous historical figure! This is a Uri special.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Cvetic

[Cherowolf Redgrave]

I have no idea how you are as a landlord but I can tell everyone that you are a wonderful neighbor. I've had the parcel in Iris for over a year with no complaints. The work that you and Jessica continually do to improve the area is amazing. BTW, did you see the parcel with the banlines finally changed hands? It's just a matter of waiting them out.

[Prokofy Neva]

Wow, amazing, I didn't see it go to sale, if it ever did, but I'm glad to see the ban lines gone!

Yes, I'm grateful for good neighbours like you in a place like Iris!

[John Lopez]

The fact that you are still in business tells me everything I need to know about your land business. Long term businesses only survive by providing a useful service at a reasonable price.

That is capitalism any way you slice it (there are *plenty* of options for land in SL).

I suspect the author of the screed simply doesn't like the competition. Just keep doing what you do.

[Prokofy Neva]

If the author is Intlibber, as some suspect, I can't see how my modest mainland business is at all a competition for his island empire. I don't see really how I'm a competition to anyone these days, certainly not Elanthius or anybody else.

I think I'm the largest or the second largest mainland business, but that's not saying an awful lot.

No, I think it's my ideas that they don't like, and my vigorous defense of them.

They hate our freedom.

[brinda allen]

@John Lopez. My business ethic exactly. I never do significant business with anyone thats not been in world for some time.
There are a few of us estate owners that do run a business model based on the same ideals that Prok uses. Personally I dont like to pay "pillow tax"...
{bad ethical choices keep me awake at nite}.

[Prokofaux Nympho]

Great! I hope you bring your happy customers on this blog, and make them realize how fucked up you are, with the rest of your garbage here.

Also please stop advertising in the LL Blog with Ravenglass Rentals signatures, Prok! It's not a venue for self promotion. It's a venue for rambling only which you are way too addicted to.

[Prokofy Neva]

This freak continues to evade bans put on his name somehow, but I'll just answer one other factual thing here:

SL merchants are encouraged and in fact ENABLED by Linden Lab to put the same ad tags that they had on their accounts on XStreet before it was moved. IT IS ALLOWED and EVERYONE DOES IT.

The rest of the forums are uneven as to whether the permit this feature of your account that we've added - or not. But it's not somehow something that is "self promotiona" -- it's normal and natural and every single person on the merchants forum does it -- and many who are on the old forums as well. And I welcome it as it gives me a chance to see the products that other people offer, and I go and buy them quite often that way. So -- fuck you, go back to your mom's basement and drop prims with Sponge Bob on them or something retarded like that, you lose.

[yamazon]

Wow, amazing!
thanks for sharing!!