Because of some major pain I am going through as a merchant of an inworld store and art gallery that after 3 years in the same place, I am being forced to move my store and gallery to a new sim, I came up with a global SL new feature concept for LL to consider that would be massively beneficial for so many of SL's residents like me.
The idea of VIRTUAL LANDMARKS and a VLM Name Service.
I have created a JIRA for this idea with all the details that LL could assess.
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-8082
I initially posted this idea in the Merchant forum as this community would be one of the largest benefactors of VLMs if LL were to ever consider deploying such a service. But since the deployment this concept is a system wide solution, I thought I would post the idea in this forum where LL developers actually watch and read and participate.
Qwalyphi Korpov wrote:Something that updates would be super. I'm sure I've abandoned 'locations' that appear to be gone but have really simply moved elsewhere.
Thats one of the countless benefits of LL deploying a VLM Mapping Service. If you are a Store, Club, Art Gallery, Consert / Major Events facilities owner and you had the ability to create VLMs instead of an LM and mass distribute these critical VLMs related to your inworld public location or venue over the several months or even years you handed it out..... now you can simply go into your VLM Management screen and change the mapping to a VLM to your new sim or parcel of land or even a new spot on your exisitng land and ALL handed out VLMs to the 1000's of users in SL would get the updated location.
The idea of dead or abandoned LM's completely goes away now with VLMs. Even if all these users changed the name of their copy of the VLM you gave them, the VLM systems will still automatically update all these VLMs because they are all simply pointers to the VLM-Mapping Service that will always be referenced whenever a user uses the VLM (i.e. clicks on it).
And since changing a VLM map is as easy as going to your management page and changing the map to the VLM, you can now even do quick temporary re-maps for special events or during a re-construction of your mall / store to a new location while you are building.
With the idea of VLM Mapping Services, LL could even deploy LM Round Robining or LM TP Failover functions to the VLM.
What boggles my mind is why the founders of SecondLife did not think of this when they initially created the concept of LMs in the first place.
Toysoldier Thor wrote:The idea of dead or abandoned LM's completely goes away now with VLMs. Even if all these users changed the name of their copy of the VLM you gave them, the VLM systems will still automatically update all these VLMs because they are all simply pointers to the VLM-Mapping Service that will always be referenced whenever a user uses the VLM (i.e. clicks on it).
I think this is a great idea, I hate having to up date LM in all products, and I'm getting ready to have to do that again soon.
VLMs wouldn't completely get rid of dead land marks, it would only update land marks you create it wouldn't be able to up date LM made by some one else, for example a customer that creates their own LM for a store. It all so wouldn't prevent dead LMs or VLMs created by people that leave SL, so may be an option to disable a VLM would be good to.
What about having the ability to add an alternate destination to a VLM, for example some one try's to go to your shop and the sim is full or down then the VLM would redirect them to a satellite shop. Or if your shop is on adult land the VLM would redirect some one that is not age verified to a satellite shop not on adult land.
The other question I have about VLMs is how would they effect scripting that uses normal LMs, for example tour huds where the maker of the hud wouldn't be the creator of all the VLMs in the hud.
phaedra Exonar wrote:
Toysoldier Thor wrote:The idea of dead or abandoned LM's completely goes away now with VLMs. Even if all these users changed the name of their copy of the VLM you gave them, the VLM systems will still automatically update all these VLMs because they are all simply pointers to the VLM-Mapping Service that will always be referenced whenever a user uses the VLM (i.e. clicks on it).
I think this is a great idea, I hate having to up date LM in all products, and I'm getting ready to have to do that again soon.
VLMs wouldn't completely get rid of dead land marks, it would only update land marks you create it wouldn't be able to up date LM made by some one else, for example a customer that creates their own LM for a store. It all so wouldn't prevent dead LMs or VLMs created by people that leave SL, so may be an option to disable a VLM would be good to.
What about having the ability to add an alternate destination to a VLM, for example some one try's to go to your shop and the sim is full or down then the VLM would redirect them to a satellite shop. Or if your shop is on adult land the VLM would redirect some one that is not age verified to a satellite shop not on adult land.
The other question I have about VLMs is how would they effect scripting that uses normal LMs, for example tour huds where the maker of the hud wouldn't be the creator of all the VLMs in the hud.
Yo uare correct that VLMs would not fix any of the current problems we all encounter with LMs. LMs are the raw physical asset that defines a specific location inworld. These would still be allowed in the same manner as an IP ADDRESS on the Internet is still allow even if it may or may not have an actual host assigned to it.
And whomever is the creator/owner of the created VLM could still map a VLM to an invalid LM or the user could leave SL and the VLM becomes outdated and dead simply because the owner abandoned the VLM management and didnt keep the VLM up to date.
BUT... VLMs that are active and healthy and properly cared for by their owners - like a Merchant or Art Gallery Owner like me - will not have 1000's of LMs out on the inworld grid that are dead in everyone's inventory simply because he/ME had to move my store / art gallery to a new sim.
I cannot express how invaluable this concept of a VLM would be RIGHT NOW as I am moving my Landscape Store and Art Gallery to a new sim that has been in place for 3 years. I grit my teeth that all my LMs that are huge marketing assets in all my customer's inventory will now be DEAD in a couple weeks.
As for your idea of VLMs having the ability to provide alternate LM responses - I did mention that in my posting and you are providing further examples of how these advanced VLM-Map Services would be able to provide added cool functions. I mentioned the idea of the VLM-MS providing LM Round Robining (similar to how DNS does this) so that a very large club owner can provide LM points of 2 or 3 locations around the club so that arriving guests do not land on each other as they flood into the club for an event. OR LM Failover responses so that if a TP fails on the primary TP or for examples you provided, the VLM would provide alternative LM locations to be TPed to.
As for your questions on how would a VLM and the VLM-MS work with scripts etc.... these are more of the interfaces that LL would have to figure out as they deploy the VLM service.
They could release VLM in stages where script handling of the VLM an dVLM-MS services would be a later phase of the deployment.
Remember that VLMs would NOT replace LMs. LMs would continue to be a 100% function asset within SL. This is what adds to the elegance of this proposed solution in that LL could slowly phase this in.
In my opinion.... compared to the ugly complexities of Direct Delivery - VLM services would be much easier and les risky to deploy.
Thanks Indigo!
tonight I will try to socialize the JIRA on my facebook and hope others will grab it and re-socialize. I find for me that for an SL Account Facebook, everyone seems to do a lot of talking but little listening 
at least for my account. So me posting the Jira on my facebook wont likely go far.
I have Twittered my blog of the same idea and the jira to @rodvik @ozlinden and @secondlife. I dont expect any response from that but at lease I posted there.
What would be really nice is if LL would just look at the Jira and regardless of the voting popularity - just look at the common-sense logic to the idea and how realtively simple it would be to deploy VS the huge positive impact it would have on improving the SL EXPERIENCE. This idea should fly in LL's mind regardless of the votes.
Indigo Mertel wrote:I had some reshares within minutes, so the feebback is good.
Not sure if you saw my suggestion to submit your JIRA to the Content Creation Improvement Informal User Group, as I edited my previous post to add that bit while you were replying to me. That group is monitored by Linden Lab and has the purpose of discussing new features or improving existing ones.
I didnt see your suggestion. I am not aware of this User Group. Maybe if you are part of this group you could mention the idea and point LL to the Jira.
LL doesnt really read whats in these forums - well at least not the Merchant forum - not sure of this forum.
Yea I thought about this as being a possiblity several years ago. But not as a DNS thing.. But really. If a resident loves your product or store/business, and wants to return, they will find you if you advertise properly about having to move. I built my first and second club on main land and had to move the clubs to a private region after we got massively popular. Everyone found us with no problem . I have done this 2 times without any one having trouble finding us. Club and mall for both places... You location may have changed but your profile and business name is still the same and searchable... and they can seek you out like that...
If something was to be done Maybe would be easier just to set up a simple change of address system . Where merchant/business owner submits to the landmark change of address system. So when any user tried to access the landmark to your old location . the system sees this and drops the user a new popup and landmark letting them know you have moved and to update their landmarks. Would probably be less complicated than a dns naming system. And the change of adress should have an expiration date. 6 months or a year like you would have on US postal service..
