Arbor Project

The Arbor Project – Beautifying Second Life 16m2 at a time. It was founded in 2006 by James Gill after ‘people’ began chopping up virtual land into the smallest size possible, (16m2)in order to sell it at extreme rates, even willing to force their sales by blocking neighbours view using illegal, wildly spinning ad cubes leading to nowhere or sky reaching particles. Many virtual land barons, land owners and other grid caring residents who had experienced this activity near their lands joined the Arbor Project and started recycling the small plots. Some donated tier, others the small plots they picked up cheaply, so the group could hold them collectively until they could be rejoined (for free!) with land of a bordering neighbour. This concept is still active to this day.

One of the most interesting tools used by Arbor Project members was a probe with a central database containing the worst land cutters names. When placed on your land, it teleported the unwanted persons back to their home positions, which made it more difficult and annoying for them to purchase land. This kind of action had to be taken because Linden Labs simply ignored both the residents and the problem. Cutters took advantage of LL’s lack of action and the grid more and more became like a sea of ad boxes, the picture on the left is no exception of the daily view people had in the past.

Yes in the past, because in the beginning of 2008, when the Arbor started co-operating with other landscaping groups like Direct Action Land Repair, Unknowable & The Ad Zoo, the “Heal the Land” campaign was launched. Weekly meetings were held, residents were informed, warned (gridwide) about land cutters and encouraged to block them creatively, and the office hours of Jack Linden, CEO Mainland, were invaded to bring this issue to his attention. It took another 6 months (Sept 2008) until Linden Labs decided to remove ad cubes. Read this “Ad Farm Policy” ,and until February 2009 when microplot cutting became an illegal activity, announced in this posting : “New Policy Land Cutting”.

With the end of ad farming and land cutting the Arbor Project, its members and co-operative groups moved on to other activities, the “landscape team” is one of these. This team, lead by Rem Nightfire, contains over a dozen landscapers, who are constantly improving the donated plots. They even have their own roman themed HQ where their work is exposed and their own meetings are held. In 2009 the Arbor Project will launch several new projects such a freebie village, a website with forums, landscaping classes, contests and of course a big anniversary party. Feel free to join this group, it’s open for anyone to join. Participate in the weekly meetings to find out what you can do to make it a better grid.