The Guardian for this meeting was stevenaia Michinaga. The comments are by stevenaia Michinaga.

Bleu and Stormed joined me with some shop talk about SL, land, costs and PaB's original aquisitions. 

Storm Nordwind: Greetings stevenaia!
stevenaia Michinaga: Greetings Storm
stevenaia Michinaga: Just returning from our little congressional debate
Bleu Oleander: 's current display-name is "Bleu".
Storm Nordwind: How did it go?
stevenaia Michinaga: hi Bleu
Storm Nordwind: Hi Bleu
Bleu Oleander: hi y'all
stevenaia Michinaga: just sat down
Bleu Oleander: how are you both?
stevenaia Michinaga: We had 7 candidates, it was all very civil, everyone was very impressed.
Storm Nordwind: Good! And fine thank you, Bleu. :)
stevenaia Michinaga: a well moderated Forum
Storm Nordwind: That can make all the difference, and show everyone in their best light
stevenaia Michinaga: I am good, Bleu,
stevenaia Michinaga: Second Life land issues are so complicated, who thinks up this stuff?
Bleu Oleander: yeah!
Storm Nordwind: People who want to trick, sorry "coax" you into spending more real money than you need
stevenaia Michinaga: I'm impressed you figured it all out
Bleu Oleander: :)
Bleu Oleander: well not that impressive actually
Storm Nordwind: I was stung, like all naive souls in the beginning. I made sure Pema was never similarly stung
stevenaia Michinaga: happy not to own anything, just be the vessel for others :)
Bleu Oleander: it is fun to build stuff ... and more fun to do that on your own land than in a sandbox so ... we try to work it out
Storm Nordwind: The thing that tricks most people once is not reining in monthly contribution when you've either downsized or you have donated tier coming in.
Bleu Oleander: that never got me ... I didn't really get into the 'group land' thing until recently
stevenaia Michinaga: it must be an interesting business model on the corporate end, but lowering the monthly fees must have been brought on by something other than them being a good sport

--BELL--

Bleu Oleander: I'm not sure what effect it will have
Storm Nordwind: Amazingly fees had been static with no inflation for over ten years.
Storm Nordwind: And then they went down.
Bleu Oleander: yes!
Bleu Oleander: more competition now maybe?
Storm Nordwind: I think the vast green stretches of unoccupied reverted land tell you all you need to know.
stevenaia Michinaga: no real estate bubble here
Bleu Oleander: are they still doing auctions?
Storm Nordwind: Crowds attract crowds. Emptiness puts off a lot of people. They want to try and fill the place up again
Storm Nordwind: Good question. Don't know
Storm Nordwind: Look for purple on the map
Bleu Oleander: I haven't seen any lately
stevenaia Michinaga: I don't see much marketing in RL
Storm Nordwind: There used to be auctions on the website. I remembered successfully spiking a plot once long ago!
stevenaia Michinaga: spiking?
Bleu Oleander: it was years ago when I looked at that
Storm Nordwind: I visited Standford University Library sim today. I was surprised to see it still there, though disappointed I was the only one visiting
Storm Nordwind: *Stanford
stevenaia Michinaga: what does purple represent, I see lots of tags with $ signs on them
Storm Nordwind: The key is at the top right in Firestorm
Storm Nordwind: Purple is land for auction
stevenaia Michinaga: awww ok
stevenaia Michinaga: it's a tab
Storm Nordwind: The $ tags are plots for sale
Storm Nordwind: Yellow is a more substantial plot for sale I think
stevenaia Michinaga: how did you find this place to set up PaB?
Storm Nordwind: Oh my word... trying to remember...
stevenaia Michinaga: I remember when it was shared with the tea house
Storm Nordwind: Pema became a land baron. He bought up lots and lots of land
stevenaia Michinaga: Dakini's
Storm Nordwind: *land
Storm Nordwind: We started next to the house
Storm Nordwind: We had 3/4 of Magoja at one time
Storm Nordwind: Bieup game later. And we had all of BaikUn too
Storm Nordwind: *came
Storm Nordwind: Then we got coastal land and he wanted a pathway that would join those areas to the coast
Storm Nordwind: I was tasked with doing it
Storm Nordwind: And it was very hard as it was very fragmented
Bleu Oleander: I remember walking that path with you :)
Storm Nordwind: Right! Eventually, we consolidated on two main areas
Storm Nordwind: We kept this one because it was next to the Welcome center and might interest people
Storm Nordwind: But we never ever owned the tiny plot in the SE corner!
Bleu Oleander: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: not sure how many visits we received from our proximity
stevenaia Michinaga: pushed the wrong button
Bleu Oleander: hehe
Storm Nordwind: Quite a few. And some were even friendly! But I don't recall anyone who stayed because they came from there.
stevenaia Michinaga: one day I was driving through town and saw a car license plate "Dakini" and thought OMG could this be the tea house owner from SL in my town, but it was another
Storm Nordwind: haha!
Bleu Oleander: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: didn't realize its significance
stevenaia Michinaga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakini
Storm Nordwind: I was going to ask you whethr yu knew. But you found out :)
Bleu Oleander: :)

--BELL--

Bleu Oleander: Steve, are you still listing your sessions in sl events?
stevenaia Michinaga: not so much, it has to be up 2 or three hours before the event and I usually remember too late, I'll do Saturday's session now that I have been reminded :)
Bleu Oleander: the art groups seem to respond when we announce our shows
Bleu Oleander: at least some check it out
stevenaia Michinaga: hmmm, I think I lead them to the East area, it's been so long
Storm Nordwind: I still pay L$30 a week to list Kuan Yin Terraces in search. Don't know whether it does any good, but someone might benefit one day :)
stevenaia Michinaga: pay, there is a free event listing
Storm Nordwind: There are no events on the Terraces. I think it just ensures it gets listed on standard search - which is where I would look for a place like the Terraces, and not in events
stevenaia Michinaga: ok it's up
Bleu Oleander: interesting, when I search for playasbeing, original face comes up ... they must be paying for that?
stevenaia Michinaga: awww L$30 is not so bad, thought it was USD$ / week
stevenaia Michinaga: do they still meet?
Storm Nordwind falls off his cushion
Bleu Oleander: when I search for Play as Being, Friends of Play as Being comes up
Storm Nordwind: So we are now a clandestine group? :) Word of mouth or happenstance only?
Bleu Oleander: ah you have to search for 'playasbeinghere'
stevenaia Michinaga: if you are looking for something to do Saturday nights, the events list can be helpful on the web
stevenaia Michinaga: you searching under groups?
Bleu Oleander: yes
stevenaia Michinaga: and the PaBsandbox, where is that?
Bleu Oleander: we have one?
stevenaia Michinaga: when I searched "playasbeinghere" under groups, it was the other listing
Bleu Oleander: I see that now
Bleu Oleander: Riddle is a member
Storm Nordwind: We had one IIRC. It was the south part of BaikUn. Maybe. I forget
Storm Nordwind sees "experiences" tab in several places and doesn't know what it means. Something new he guesses.

--BELL--

Bleu Oleander: auctions are listed under land sales tab
Storm Nordwind nods
Storm Nordwind: Thank you
Bleu Oleander: yw :)
stevenaia Michinaga: if the price is 0, does that mean they are giving it away with no bids?
Bleu Oleander: interesting ... don't know
Bleu Oleander: we should check it out
stevenaia Michinaga: some lands are quite large
Storm Nordwind: Bear in mind, many people just want to stop paying tier!
Bleu Oleander: ha! yes
stevenaia Michinaga: so it's abandoned?
Storm Nordwind: No
Storm Nordwind: It's the step prior to it being abandoned!
Storm Nordwind: If you know your neighbors, you often want to preserve the character of the land for their sake. Or someone could have partitioned a large plot and are selling the bit they can't afford tier on anymore.
Bleu Oleander: I'm going to go check it out ... brb
Storm Nordwind: If you fully abandon it, it may stay dead forever, or LL may make it into small parcels and change the character of the sim
Bleu Oleander: 's current display-name is "Bleu".
Bleu Oleander: the land has an auction ID on it
stevenaia Michinaga: nods, you can see it on the map too
stevenaia Michinaga: I must head off to bed, it;s been a long day here, thanks for joining me
Bleu Oleander: https://usd.auctions.secondlife.com/
Storm Nordwind: Good to see you Steve
Bleu Oleander: nite Steve
stevenaia Michinaga: night
Bleu Oleander: I should probably walk the pup ... nice that you'll be on the WG STorm
Storm Nordwind: I hope I can be useful :)
Bleu Oleander: I'm sure you can :)
Storm Nordwind: Bye for now!
Bleu Oleander: take care bfn