LL Lowers Land Prices For Some and Reduces Fees

Linden Lab has announced it will, effective immediately, lower land prices for those who do not already have lower rates, either because they have grandfathered rates or they "bought down" their rates last year.

Land Prices will be reduced by 15% and fees by 41%.

TERMS & CONDITIONS: Private Estate price reductions do not apply to Skilled Gaming Regions. While new Openspace Regions are no longer available for purchase, existing Openspace Region landowners will receive the newly-reduced monthly pricing. In addition, these changes will not impact any grandfathered or “bought down” land prices since those are still below the newly-reduced rates. Lastly, Education/Nonprofit (EDU/NP) discounted full islands have also been re-priced to maintain their 50% discount off the regularly priced full islands. The new price of $124.50 will go into effect at the start of that island's next invoiced billing term.

Second Pride - Call for Board Candidates (Updated)

The minutes of the Second Pride annual meeting on July 30, 2017, have been published on the Second Pride website. You will find the minutes in the right hand column.

Left to right, Tootsie Nootan, Viktor Sandman, Jak Calcutt & LLedge Eames
(Marge Beaumont wasn't able to attend) 

A quick summary of the reports from the board members would be that this years Second Pride festival was a huge success, with lots of visitors, wonderful venues and builds, few security issues and loads of donations.

The board thanked everyone and the board members were in turn all lauded by those in attendance for their good work for the community and the organization.

After setting aside funds for tier for the Second Pride sim for the coming year and some petty cash, there will be roughly US$1,000 for the board to donate to charity. The board is considering donations to either The Rainbow Railroad or The Human Rights Campaign Fund.

The biggest surprise was the news that the whole board is stepping down, every single one of them. All the positions will be open for the election of new candidates.

The election timetable is as follows (all dates are of course SLT).

1. August 1 - September 3, 2017 - The Second Pride Festival group is closed for new members until the end of the election.
2. August 7-20, 2017 Call for candidates.
3. August 20-26, 2017 Question & answers period 
4. August 27 - September 2, 2017 Elections

The election committee will be headed by LLedge Eames as the outgoing chair.

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Those considering submitting their candidacies will find a Board Candidate Submission Form (here).

Please take the time to consider how you - or perhaps a friend - could serve the LGBT+ community in SecondLife and send in your Candidacy.

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UPDATE 8/13/2017
Lee MacKay, the current webmaster for the Second Pride website, in a comment on Google+, informs me: "It's also very important to note that anyone wishing to participate in the Q&A portion of the election process MUST create an account on the website to do so. The Q&A will take the form of comments beneath each candidate's statement, and a working, verified login is required to post or reply. This applies to the candidates as well, of course. - SP Webmaster"

Grandfathered

Our friends at Linden Lab recently offered those of us who rent sims from them a price reduction of the maintenance fees (a.k.a. tier).

According to the offer we can now "buy down" from a monthly tier of $295 to $195 with a one time payment of $600 before October 4th, 2016.

Today I have decided to avail myself of that generous offer and have submitted a ticket accordingly. As I am a resident of the European Union I will thereby reduce my monthly cost for Southern Charm by $125, due to the added benefit of a lower VAT surcharge.

Read the full offer from Linden Lab here: Want Lower Tier? Now You Can Get Grandfathered Land Rates!

Tier

This is a comment to the present discussion in the Swedish SecondLife blogs concerning tier.

My tier for Southern Charm at the moment is L$ 5,55 per prim for four weeks (including the VAT-tax enforced by the European Union on all EU-citizens who rent directly from Linden Lab).

Without the European Union penalty tax for renting directly from the Lab my cost would be L$ 4,44 per prim and four weeks. To the best of my knowledge no one who rents from anyone other than Linden Lab ever gets hit by this deeply unfair tax.

(The interpretation of the reasons for the tax given above is mine, I am sure the bureaucrats in Brussels would describe the reasons differently.)

Little Boxes

A discussion about tier pricing on Sven´s (Swedish) Idyll - "Solacegate" made me think of this little gem. Sometimes SecondLife and Suburbia are strikingly similar.

Little Boxes

by Malvina Reynolds (1962)

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

Payment Issues

My former credit card expired in September and my bank sent me a new card for the coming three years well before the expiration date.

As the conscientious customer I am I immediately wanted to update my billing information with Linden Lab so that I wouldn't run into any problems with money in-world or tier payments for Southern Charm.

I am experienced in filling out forms of all sorts and foresaw no problems with doing this. It was easy enough to remove the old credit card, but when I got to the point where I wanted to plug in my new card there was no option to do that. The only option that was apparent seemed to be the PayPal. I did not want to use that option as I am at war with PayPal at the moment for their support of certain hate-groups.

Being a Premium Customer in SecondLife, I contacted the live support chat and was soon taken care of by a charming person with an exotic name that I cannot remember. I described my problem to him/her and together we tried to figure out a solution by looking at the form. Neither of us could find an easy or obvious way to add a new credit card to my account.

After a few minutes my support-person came up with the brilliant idea that I should log into SecondLife and try to buy L$ (the currency used in-world). When I followed the advice a form came up that allowed me to submit my new credit card information and get new L$. Mission accomplished both of us thought.

However, a few days later I received an e-mail from Linden Lab informing me with the following content. (Click to enlarge)

The e-mail is very friendly and understanding but obviously the information I had supplied once before was not enough it seems. 

Following the instructions I had soon added the new information and could authorize payment of the  tier I was due the next day. I also got an immediate confirmation that my debt had been payed in full and that my account status should now be active.

For some reason I cannot understand, it appears you must supply the same information for different uses with Linden Lab, one for buying currency in-world and another for paying tier. I don't know yet if Linden Lab needs the same information again for the yearly payment of my Premium Account.

It seems to me that Linden Lab should make it easier for the customers who are willing to pay for their services to do so without having to contact support or getting an e-mail about being late with payment.

P.S. And now I have started thinking I must have done something wrong when I removed the old credit card, but I cannot remember - and if the user makes mistakes wouldn't the payment system make allowances for that and let us easily correct the mistakes we make?