In terms of math, all land owners currently control the 2/2 ways content can make it to their land. This proposal would introduce a 3rd method, bringing actual land nft ownership rights down to 2/3, which is 66%. Did any land owner or purchases of land nfts sign up for 66% ownership or 100% ownership of an nft?
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I think valid points all around. I vote YES as long as OPT-IN goes in via the next phase.
- Ownership Risk: Letting the DAO deploy on “inactive” LAND undermines the principle of sovereign ownership, even if it’s reversible.
- Arbitrary Threshold: A 1-year inactivity rule doesn’t account for long-term plans or strategic holding.
- Slippery Precedent: Sets a concerning precedent for future DAO interventions. What starts as temporary content could expand.
- Content Risks: Without strong curation, DAO-deployed scenes could be low-quality or misaligned with LAND owners’ values.
Suggested Alternatives:
- Opt-in model for LAND owners.
- Incentives for creators to partner with LAND holders.
- Community events that promote engagement without forced deployment.
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I voted “Invalid Options” because:
While utilizing land and fostering a meaningful ecosystem is critical to Decentraland’s success, simply auto-deploying high-quality or ethically sound builds onto owned/unused parcels is not likely to achieve the desired effect. Without active engagement, these areas still feel empty—populated by NPCs at best.
Instead, we should consider developing an overarching game mechanic for Decentraland—one that spans Genesis City and begins by utilizing already available and unused parcels. A proof-of-concept built on this unused land could help demonstrate the viability of such a system, modern gaming on this platform (in general), and build momentum before considering the expansion into privately owned land.
This approach could include incentives for landowners to participate. Challenges or achievements tied to the game mechanic could reward collaboration and foster community involvement. Seasonal content and dynamic objectives could further drive ongoing engagement.
Importantly, this system should support both opt-in and opt-out participation. It would preserve Decentraland’s history by empowering landowners to contribute meaningfully without forcing change. Active landowners would be encouraged to participate, while inactive ones might be drawn back into the ecosystem through renewed relevance and opportunity.
If we consider overwriting owned/abandoned land, then let’s form a system to determine if it is historical first. Land which has never had any deployment on, or have only drag and drop models, would be the preferred for overwriting before land which has custom built models by their owners. Maybe all land with custom models should be considered historical and we should place a history marker on the land showing years of activity.
One day, if Decentraland helps define the future of virtual spaces on Earth, these preserved “ruins” could become monuments—visited by strange explorers from interoperable universes.
But before we worry about how to dress up the past, we need to confront the present: there is a lack of engaging experiences. That’s the real issue. Without something meaningful to do, there is little reason to stay.
There must be incentive. Even if that incentive is simply the knowledge that one is contributing to something lasting. Engagement is the engine—and right now, it needs a serious kickstart.
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I often thought that when I died(I’m only 40 but thinking ahead), a piece of me would live on forever. In DCL, on the blockchain, and my creation, on my digital land, would be there for generations. I WAS HERE.
This is fundamental to NFT technology. Like a piece of art or an antique that has history, and might not seem valuable now, but in 100 years it’s priceless. One year!!??
We are all here because we believe in the blockchain. This proposal is not what we believe in, regardless if we like or dislike what has happened in DCL.
This proposal sets a precedent that undermines the very fabric of ALL NFTs, Every Single One. FOREVER.
Think about that. That is the only thing that matters here.
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I know for a fact that if you remove the Decentraland sign @Roustan will leave
however, the part about the two lane roads is valid, though then you are rugging the people who purchased parcels with the intention of being next to the road, and I really don’t see how that wouldn’t be worse then publishing property on abandoned and unpublished land.
Perhaps if the draft of the proposal makes it more well defined and only populates empty land or better defines the criteria it would use when identifying abandoned property it would deem worthy of populating with updated content to fit the area around it, people would be less reactionary to this idea.
I really think most of you are being incredibly dramatic about this. You guys are speaking about Decentraland as if anyone beyound the 200 or less of us care about it. The servers will be shut off before any of us die if some kind of change isn’t made, and the framing of this as if they are attacking your very existence as people seems overblown.
This is a poll, it is for gathering information and feedback so that more detailed and quality governance can be written taking in to account everyones concerns. When people snap to “NO THIS RUINS WHAT WE SIGNED UP FOR” you have forgotten the fundemental nature of how this dao’s governance process works and have instead chosen to just be obstructionist.
And to be clear, since this started as a reply to HP, I do not intend what I’m writing to be expressly meant for you HP, though I do think you are a bit dramatic in how you speak about this suggestion, I also understand where you are coming from and don’t think you are meritless in your call outs, I just think that I disagree on what would be best
I support this initiative under the specific condition that “auto deployment” is limited to empty parcels that have remained undeployed for over 365 days, and that parcel owners are given a clear option to remove the content with a simple click.
Decentraland has often been labeled an “empty town” by reviewers, visitors, and even landowners themselves. With some (or many) of these empty parcels held by speculators, it’s reasonable to assume there is little intent to build or contribute content in the near term - some have been empty for years and demand to rent land is low. I also personally know a parcel owner who lost his keys and no longer able to interact with his parcel leaving it permanently empty.
Auto-deploying scenes would improve the visual appeal of the platform, offering explorers a more engaging content rather than navigating through vacant plots. It also tackles the empty lands owned by owners no longer have access to them. There is also precedent for this approach — during past seasonal events like Christmas, unused parcels were automatically populated with themed decorations, and no significant objections were raised at the time.
Currently, Decentraland suffers from a lack of activity and limited destinations to visit or explore. While there may still be “less to do,” this proposal could result in “more to visit.” In my view, increasing places to explore through auto-deployment of interesting scenes is a step in the right direction — as more to visit may eventually lead to more to do.
If content is deployed on “abandoned” LAND … $MANA MUST be paid to the LAND owner before any content can be published because you are renting the parcel. I agree with HP as well, who is held accountable when something is published that goes against the owner’s values.
If i took a small break from Decentraland and came back to pride flags on my parcels, i would sell all my parcels for $1 the same day.
DCLWorlds is a realm designed for publishing content.. create better portals to enter DCLWorlds instead of looking for ways to infringe upon the Owners/Users of Decentraland.
Please & Thank you 
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Would you mind getting together and discussing the final draft proposal on what to do with DAO land that is unused. Previous proposal is here is at least one of them. The last one was voted on this year and passed. I need some input from people that may think if things I have not. In general, some grantees can request the use of the land, people can rent the land and in some cases given build rights and if they meet certain criteria even be given the opportunity to purchase at a reduced price or even maybe be given the land to continue to build. Let me know. Ill see if anyone else would like in on this to discuss. Thank you
I agree with @ MetaRyuk that this should only apply to parcels that have remained completely empty and unused for over a year or two.
As someone who has built hundreds if not thousands of lands over the years, I know many of those builds are now inaccessible either because I no longer have deploy access, or the landowners are unreachable. Still, I’d love to see some of those creations live on. Even if many of them were built with SDK6, they represent history and creativity that shouldn’t just disappear. but, if you decide that the original content can be removed because its old I think a fair solution could be allowing a ‘return to original’ toggle—so if a landowner ever returns, they can instantly restore the last original scene on their parcel with one click, even if the land had temporary content by someone who create.
In addition, I support the opt-in idea as well—some landowners might actively want to give permission to host content on their inactive land. So this way, both paths are covered: purely empty or unreachable lands can be gently revived, and active owners can choose whether to participate.
I think the problem at heart is not having enough platform users and this initiative isn’t a well thought (planned) solution to fix that problem.
My thoughts:
- Modyfying the ownership rights via backdoor goes against the ethos of Decentraland & Decentralization
- If some of the dual parcel highways were to be reduced to single roads, this will violate the rights of users who own land in these areas. Suddenly road facing, easy access with great visibility promise will be overshadowed by land born from thin air.
- Decentraland sign should never be removed, because it’s part of Decentraland history. We will be doing injustice to those who purchased land adjoining and or surrounding the sign by undervaluing their land.
- To bring in new users the focus has to be on VR & Mobile.
- Why not think of some incentive or rewards systems for the land owners?
- Start with DAO owned land first
- Creating more scenes and populating the world with more content is not going to bring in more users.
- If you still prefer to add more content why not introduce islands surrounding the genesis city?
- We have 44 active daily users, your focus should be on increasing this number however this is not the right way to go about it.
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I vote yes and recommend advancing this poll for further discussion. We can always kill the measure at later stages if consensus cannot be reached.
The concerns brought up in the comment thread are valid, but can be addressed through continued dialogue. Land owners, as VP holders, retain collective authority to modify DAO legislation at any time.
Decentraland is now five years old, with land contracts predating the platform’s launch. Market conditions, scaling challenges, and user expectations have fundamentally evolved since inception. I think this represents a natural adaptation process rather than a deviation from core principles. Active landowners should participate in shaping the platform’s future, which will inevitably differ from its origins—but evolution does not equal deterioration.
I believe we can preserve landowner rights while maximizing utilization of empty parcels.
My initial contention:
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Previously deployed land: Should remain untouched in perpetuity. Replacing existing content creates a dangerous precedent that undermines established rights.
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Never-deployed land: Represents our primary opportunity and should be the only focus of initial implementation.
I hope we can continue the discussion focused on virgin land deployment, with explicit protections for any previously developed properties.
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That would be an exception I would be in favor of, but that would mean have the system in place to easily overwrite other lands in the future, and I don’t believe it’s a great tool to have at dispositions.
(We know all the “terrorism” laws that are now being used against all citizens, it would be the same with this tool, first used for empty lands, then for all lands.)
They already can void active builds, and have
Only on clients and catalysts using the Foundation ban list.
They cannot do it on the Godot client for example.
No one uses Godot so no one cares what happens there.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
Do you remember why we are on web3?
Apparently, a misguided understanding of what “decentralized” means
I believe community members have raised valid points. Thanks! This is what I think :
- Starting to experiment with DAO-owned LAND makes a lot of sense.
- I think it’s a good call to circumscribe the concept of “abandoned” LAND to never-deployed plots. We can get the data on that and incorporate it into the Draft stage.
- I still believe an opt-in mechanism would limit the potential of this initiative. Many LAND owners never engaged and likely never will.
- It would send a strong signal if the Decentraland Foundation contributes at least as many LAND parcels as the DAO commits to this initiative.
- We should always prioritize populating DAO- and Foundation-owned LAND first, and only then consider LAND owned by private holders.
- Some interesting ideas raised before (Portals or a traversable game experience across parcels) are worth revisiting in the future.
- @JasonX: In terms of usage, the Android mobile client is not far behind the Explorer alpha. Even if no one uses it today, I believe it’s critical for a decentralized project to offer multiple clients to access the protocol. If one of those clients experiments with different policies, even better.
- Web3 values matter, that’s why many of us are here, but we also need to ask: would we rather build a product with perfect values that no one uses, or one that’s being used and progressively empowers people to take control of their digital lives? I think we should be choosing the path for the long run, and that requires more users, more creators, and more developers.
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- this is a great example because the owners of the land (DAO) are giving the right to deploy on it
- i wrote a script this weekend that pinged the catalyst servers for each parcel. here are the findings.
Total sdk6 parcels: 44,652
Total sdk7 parcels: 7,946
Total parcels with no content: 37,402
Last Deployments:
More than 3 months: 87,812,
More than 6 months: 86,893,
More than 1 year: 84,513
Based on these findings, that means 41.55% of lands have never been deployed to (no content), and 93.9% of lands haven’t been deployed to in over a year.
So, this poll would essentially be able to deploy to over 93.9% of lands in Genesis City.
This dataset does not include any filtering because the poll in its current form does not provide any filtering. No filtering for roads (they have content deployed at least once, so they are not in the no content category), plazas, this parcel over that parcel, top over bottom, left over right, more popular over less popular, historical scene or stupid content, etc. The poll discusses none of that, which sets up a slippery slope of who gets to choose what and why and how…of other people’s land.
- and if that’s the case, maybe this wasn’t the right solution to the actual problem?
- agreed, refer concepts in bullet point 1
- yes i have been pushing for portable experiences for 3 years (they are not supported by the new client). this is a great idea, a massive idea - preserves original LAND nft ownership while creating new ways for immersive content
- i hope the sdk7 can be standardized across all clients
- 5.5 years into a project that failed to progress to substantial DAU count is justification for changing the ownership percentage of the peoples’ LAND nfts?
Added Bullet points below
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Currently, there are only 2 methods content can show up on a parcel of land, and the LAND nft owner owns the rights to both of those methods 100%:
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- LAND nft owner deploys content
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- LAND nft owner gives permission to another person
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This poll is introducing a 3rd method for content on a parcel of land, which means LAND nft owners will now own 2/3 methods for content on their land, which is now 66% ownership. In what world, real or digital, do you buy something under the impression of 100% ownership and only receive 66% actual ownership and are ok with that?
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I disagree with past actions for removing offensive content from parcels and i highly disagree with recently banning someone from the platform. 2 wrongs don’t make a right, so i do not take those as “precedent” when thinking about this current poll
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We can ask hypotheticals all day long where this proposed scenario would not fly. If you buy land in real life and don’t do anything with it for a year, are you ok with the local government or community building on your land while you’re “gone”?
We are in the web3 / digital ownership frontier and we should be even more mindful of respecting true data ownership.
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