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Astolat Dufaux

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  1. @ Becca Glendevon I'm assuming Premium sandboxes will cut down on the need for "citizen watch groups" who currently monitor public sandboxes and collect information -- both RL and SL -- on residents they judge to be "griefers."
  2. Can you please provide a link with more detailed information about Premium membership? If you click on the link you provide at the bottom of the post, you just end up at the "change membership plan" page. You might have more upgrades if people actually knew how spending $10 a month would really benefit them. Thank you!
  3. I made this comment originally in another forum, but reading this post I thought it might be worth repeating here. A link was posted there to a YouTube video called "How a Noob Sees Second Life" -- it's 8 excruciating minutes of why people do not stay in SL once they arrive. It shows a Welcome HUB where there is a chaotic clamor of voice chat, gesture spams, script/particle lag, among other various assaults on the senses. If you were new, how would you react to this? Would you assume that ALL of SL is like this? Would you persevere and press on and try to figure out how to get out of there, or would you give up after your computer comes to a virtual standstill from all the lag? The thought occurred to me a couple of weeks ago when the new default avatars were introduced -- why not create accompanying thematic welcome areas, staffed by LL employees and or resident volunteers? Starting people out where they want to be might help new user retention rates. If a new user wants to be a pirate, get a pirate avatar and go to the pirate Welcome HUB. If people want social media/chat/IRC, offer them the option to go to Welcome HUBs with a nightclub/themepark/beach theme. Vampires, furries, Medieval, Steampunk etc etc. And perhaps from those thematic Welcome Areas, offer portals to related Destination Guide places, too. This is predicated on having actual LL employees and volunteers "policing" (for lack of a better term) the HUBs and guiding new users in whatever direction they are curious about. I know there used to be mentors and volunteers in SL, but some previous administration dumped that idea. I think that's about the time the new user retention started to decline. It's time for LL to look to its veteran users for guidance -- the people who actually spend time here know what the problems are. Quit guessing and hear us out. There are a lot of good ideas out there, if you stopped to listen. Be proactive LL, instead of constantly on the defensive.
  4. Not sure if Sixty Linden Weekends is accepting new merchants right now, but I get a good draw from that group... the key is to also advertise your participation in other groups (that's actually one requirement as a merchant member of SLW, you must send out the official SLW notice, containing ALL the participating shops, to your own group members). It costs 120L each week you participate. For me, that has been a really good investment. Your mileage may vary. :smileyhappy:
  5. Fridays through Mondays are always good for me, and especially this month, having my shop in three hunts, things are going very well. :smileyhappy: My business philosophy is never to rest on my laurels -- the market is always going to change, and to survive I must adapt -- finding new marketing opportunities (or creating them yourself, etc). It's just too bad that often the changes that LL implements do more damage than good for merchants -- or so it seems sometimes.
  6. Proposal was probably the wrong word, I apologize .I should have stuck with rumormongering. I bit my tongue and refrained from suggesting that people might be starting threads like this just to stir things up. I probably just should have stuck to what I do best -- which is stay out of the forums. :smileysad:
  7. Try Deadwood 1876 for Old West historical role play. It has been built as closely as possible to the original Deadwood by using historical photographs. Deadwood also tries to follow the timeline of the real Deadwood as well -- currently the sim is getting ready to add government and law enforcement, so there's lots of new opportunities to get involved. There are some really excelent role players there who are happy to help people get started. Rents are really reasonable too, if you're looking to set up a role play business or an authentically Old West residence! (FWIW, I am not the owner of the sim, just a long time fan)
  8. I agree with you. Even though my items are listed as general, I have seen a slight decrease to my SLM sales (but a slight increase in inworld sales -- not sure if they are related), so it has leveled out. I decided to tweak a couple of items that got bumped into M and A ratings for verboten words, because they were fair sellers, and stopped selling once they had been bumped into the restricted ratings. Now back to the general products rating, they don't sell at all with the "adult" search term removed (i.e. "brothel"). I have a business associate who decided to take the word "Gorean" out of her listings, to get them back to a general rating, because her sales went to zero when the ratings were changed by LL. Some of her sales have recovered, but she suspects that removing that search word has lost her about half her (steady) revenue on SLM. I would be curious to know if LL has seen a decline in SLM sales since implementing the rating system. Money talks -- if they are experiencing a major decline in commission revenue, I expect right now they are scrambling behind the scenes for another "solution" to regain that revenue. Having experience in RL retail business, I expect to see fluctuations in sales, especially after Christmas. But this is much different from the typical decreases I see in late winter.
  9. If nothing else, I could see LL wanting to limit posts so that people would spend more time inworld, which is sort of the whole point here? That would be the most logical reason for such a policy (another "policy proposal", I expect, which only exists in the minds of people who are not LL policymakers, just rumormongers). I doubt it has much to do with stifling creativity. That's what The Grid is supposed to be for.
  10. Well, in a strange coincidence, my Marketplace sales have been crap this weekend (even though most of my items are "General" and I have had steady sales figures on XStreet/SLM for the last six months). Maybe this new rating system is also confusing to customers? I guess I'm lucky that I've added some satellite shops inworld recently and they are making up for some of it (though I don't usually expect them to be, they are generally more about bringing people to my main store).
  11. Hi Brooke, I'm finding this change very amusing. I discovered I'm now selling an Adult item! You know what the item is? An antique style sign that says "Your generous tips make our ladies more friendly." I'm assuming the offending word in the description is "brothel." Yet I know for a fact that most, if not all, Western sims are rated Mature, NOT Adult, and most if not all have brothels, cathouses, saloons, dance halls etc. with girls "working" one way or another in them. Just one more little annoyance. I'm sure there are plenty of people facing greater problems than I, but this is just the perfect example of why the merge is becoming more of a nightmare than a boon for merchants, or over 18 residents in general.
  12. I'm glad I saw this thread, as I've been waiting four business days, seven total with the holiday weekend, for my Lindex money to show up in Paypal. LL charges 3.5% for this kind of service? Even Ebay and Amazon are faster getting their merchants their money, which isn't saying a whole lot. Absurd. I wil be checking out this Virwox site. I appreciate the referrals and positive feedback.
  13. I'm sure that's what it was Wade, and the sims look wonderful! Wish I had more time to explore. Enjoy, everyone!
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