The Problem: The land-sale dialog provides enough security to protect a land-transfer transaction, but because some people are lazy, lax with security, or simply are unaware of the dangers, they are getting scammed out of their land (1L for 4096 sqm for example) by landbots that pick up their land in the middle of their transactions.

We have two approaches we can take: Education or Prevention.

Education hasn't been working because the information does not reach the right residents in a timely manner. This often is caused by a resident simply not reading tutorials and other info outside of the grid, or even just a simple lapse in judgment. At any rate, things are learned too late, when the land is lost.

The Proposal: A confirmation dialog sent to the seller upon purchase of the land. Through the dialog the seller can refuse the purchase attempt.

Details of Proposal:

1. The dialog appears to the seller upon an attempted land purchase and requests confirmation by the seller. Dialog presents in larger bold font to the seller that <buyer> is purchasing your land <specs> for <price>. Approve / Decline?

2. When the seller posts a sale a fixed timer starts running. Should a sale take place within the timeout period (can be maybe 10 minutes up to a few hours depending on design) the seller is presented with a confirm dialog (if he's online), and an email (whether he is online or not). He may confirm the sale (data are all presented), via the dialog or by #3.

3. The email can be used to accept immediately or refuse the sale via links that open to a webpage with confirmation links or buttons.

4. The ability to refuse the sale remains until the time runs out (default response is according to #7), or the sale is accepted, or sale is refused.

5. The timeout keeps buyers from having to wait days for a confirmation of sale. The problem of land swooping (stealing) happens generally when both seller and intended buyer are online. It is for them that the explicit purchase-confirm dialog is provided.

6. modification (see comments below) was already integrated into #2.

7. On the SELL LAND dialog (not this confirm dialog) we can have an option where the seller can select the default response (approve sale / decline sale) to a sale that takes place during the countdown period but is neither approved nor declined by period's end. "Approve sale" would be the option most real estate dealers would select. "Decline sale" would be for those who want extra security in a land transfer. Default would initially be "Decline sale" but the client will remember any changes in setting for use in future sales.

Idea by Tyche Shepherd and Sarah Nerd, with inputs from myself, Fade Languish, Khashai Steinbeck, Joshua Nightshade, Oeironaut Escher, and Tess Whitcroft