However, really the ad-farming problem is because of LL's unwillingness to do anything about it. The issue is that excessive ad-farming is not disallowed! If an advertiser were to have a well-placed and unobtrusive advert, on a plot that either isn't for sale, or is for sale a reasonable price, then there is no reason to get rid of them. But farmers that place advertisers that are huge and spin or flash should be disallowed.
It really is as simple as LL disallowing "Excessively obtrusive advertising" or something better worded, at which point advertisers either have to do it properly, or bugger off when they get all their stuff returned.

actually, there needs to be residential/aesthetic mainlands separate from anything goes mainlands. do i really need to elaborate on this?
the existing mainland is a garbage dump reminiscent of the movie Idiocracy.

make a new mainland where all commercial business is forbidden and allow existing non business parcel owners to emigrate off the dump. then let the ad farmers have a blast in the dump. nobody will ever go there anyway so eventually they will quit sl or quit paying tier and the issue will work itself out.

Also, it's one of the 'Big Six' on Community Standards:

6. Disturbing the Peace
Every Resident has a right to live their Second Life. Disrupting scheduled events, repeated transmission of undesired advertising content, the use of repetitive sounds, following or self-spawning items, or other objects that intentionally slow server performance or inhibit another Resident's ability to enjoy Second Life are examples of Disturbing the Peace.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/02/13/mainland-and-the-ad-farm-problem/

Game not over.

There is dozens of perfectly valid reasons to ask 20k L$ for an 32sqm, other tha nextortion or griefing. (Location, Location, Location! Supply VS. Demand)

Only Ad Farming itself is the problem, where it causes eyesore, lost views etc.

Maybe somekind of rule that ads shall not float, nor be eyesore. The new blogposting is excellent however!

At that point, the 3-sides rule could apply: If someone owns all but one ownable sides adjoinging an abandoned parcel, they get first dibs on buying it. Multiple pieces of land (like a group of 16m2's) would be considered one piece, and their outer borders would be considered the ownable sides.
Then, with some resident cooperation, those ex-adfarms could be returned to normal use.

Otherwise, they would come up for auction at some point.
Currently, land auctions are a manual process, but I believe I have heard mention of making that process more automated. Certainly, land considered for auction should be joined before being offered.

There might be some help in a technical tweak that should not be too hard to implement at simulator level: If a parcel is abandoned for any reason, and it adjoins a parcel that has also been abandoned, these two parcels should be auto-joined (possibly only if at least one of them is less than 512m2)

By reclaiming land held by eyesore adfarmers, they would be forced to start again at zero - now, how many would do that?

This is not aimed at legitimate advertisers, who place adverts of a type consistent with the development of the sim (e.g. real-life-like billboards at the edge of a linden road), or even 3 cubes at a reasonable height. There are examples of such ethical advertisers in SL, and I am all for keeping them in business.
One thing those people have in common is that they will not buy ad parcels in ad farms, but only isolated 16m2's.

SL needs effective advertising, it does't need eyesore adfarmers.

One more thing that might make some ads go away is if it were against TOS to advertise gambling websites inworld. A fair percentage of eyesore ads are for gambling websites, which are replacements for the inworld casinos. Banning that type of content would make a lot of the worst adcubes vanish.

Island folks won't comment pro to any of this because they seem bittered by paying higher tier than us mainland owners, and think we deserve it for some reason. Zoning mainland would take away everyone's freedom to build. Islands are zoned by their owners, not LL, and while many people are learning to build on their new mainland plots, it may not be pretty but it's their right to do. We all did it once. This new idea floating around to zone mainland wouldn't stop anything but the ability to open up a shop. People can still use the land to build shops, or houses, or trees, or anything they want to 'build' , all it would do is keep them from 'selling it ' on their home plot. I doubt that would make any residential area any different than it is now. If residential areas are needed, shop around for someone with a sim dedicated to just that. They aren't likely to have ad farms on it. Why try to govern what people do with their land? One of my lands is a full mainland sim. I don't have trouble with ad farmers there. It's other places that I own where I don't own the full sim that these parasites pop up. They just want to make money leeching off other people's traffic. And stop allowing the ad farmers to AR those of us who have bigger plots of land from boxing them in. If they can land on their own land and see their ads, pay for classifieds so that people can land there to see their ads, more power to them. But if the plot is too small to stand on, they shouldn't have the ability to AR someone with 16k meters next door who uses their own land and their own prims to wall them off from view.

Maybe we can get LL to take all AR'd ad plots , back them up and move them all to an "ad farm" sim, where all the parcels are 16 or 32 and they all live side by side to one another until the ad farmers buy EACH OTHER out. They wouldn't lose their land, just the location of it.

There are so many viable uses for a 16m2 parcel for larger landowners, (slx boxes, rental boxes, etc) that they can't really take away the ability to parcel off, or transfer, small parcels into or out of groups, etc.

I think the only idea I can come up with that's not 'sided' or exploitive to anyone would be the limit of ability to raise prims above 3 meters on a 16m2 parcel. In other words, put a ceiling on small plots of land. You can't go up higher than 3 meters. That limitation would easily house slx boxes, or rental boxes, most of which are 1x1x1 anyway.

To answer one comment I read about terminals, all the terminals I've ever had placed on my land were placed and set to group and didn't need a plot of their own. Limitations should be strict on a parcel as small as this. Legitimate users of it will work within the limitations or parcel a bigger plot for it, and won't complain because it will make these parasites move on.

I also have the right to sell my land for whatever price i wish, based on my judgement of the market. if it doesnt sell at my price i shouldnt be forced to sell for lower.

I have the right to have easy access to my land, and not have surrounding land blocking the use of my land on all 4 sides for hundreds of meters up and down.

If my land were a 512 any blocking, complaints about the view, pressure to sell at a certain price or reclamation would be unheard of and considered abuse.

why should this be different for a 16m2?

as an owner of 16m2 I pay tier through my premium membership. I am a true land owner and should not be descriminated against.

16m2 billboards do not cause as much lag as campers or zyngo.

16m2 billboards are no more obstructive of views, or spamming of ads as any typical mainland mall.

stop picking on the little parcels!!!!

I bought the land already split, i didnt split it up and im not here to force you to move. I have the right to own it and use it.

To put up an adsign you obviously need prims. Suppose that owners holding less than an aggregated parcel minimum (128m or 64m or whatever) on a sim get allocated zero prims. Fallow land it might be called.

When fallow land is aggregated and/or added to an existing aggregation that brings it up to the minimum acreage on a sim then the owner gets to use the prims as they do now.

If fallow land was introduced then it could be grandfathered in. Existing owners of fallow land plots get to continue to use their prim allocation as is their right under the existing covenant. If and when they choose to sell their plots then the buyer is bound by the fallow land covenant.

Some skaddies (owners of tiny little adplots) might shriek at this a little, but I'm sure that they would agree:

1) I did buy the land to build on and enjoy. Something not being taken away from me here.
2) A 3-prim build is worth umm! 3 prims. Unless I'm an exceptionally talented builder, whereupon people are always happy to reward me handsomely.
3) Desirable locations will always fetch a premium.
4) Property is worth whatever someone else is prepared to pay for it.

The only other real concern left is that I bought my land with the intent to sell it later for a profit. But so did most other people so this is a non-issue really. Emotive as it may be at times.

And, balancing this it will bring small parcel pricing more into line with LLs stated intent to manage mainland into the 4-6L range per sqm. Most skaddies will continue to back themselves anyway to make money churning realty, no matter what the covenant is.

Personally I'm not a fan of retrospective covenanting. In an ideal world, fallow land covenants would be introduced in new mainland sims. However, given the problems with spam ad-farming on many of the mainland sims, a grandfathered fallow land covenant based on prim usage maybe a basis on which to move forward.