Commerce

Pamela Galli wrote:

 

Madeliefste Oh wrote:

 

And that is why I ask, for the next big change 'delivery from inventories in stead of magic boxes', can we start talking about this soon? Tell us what you have in mind, on how this shall be done. Let us react and tell what possible problems we see from our point of view. There are all kind of tools you can use to get feedback from us, discussions on the forum, but also polls or surveys. But do it before your team has made up their mind on how it must be done codewise. Use our knowledge and experience to make it in the end work better for all parties.

 

My hope and prayer is that this will be thoroughly beta tested before forced implementation -- unlike nearly everything else about the SLM, in which we saw Xstreet closed down when SLM was barely out of alpha (if it was at all). We don't mind change, esp one like this that promises the elimination of delivery failures -- but let's be clear: Xstreet had plenty of delivery problems, but nothing like SLM has had. Forget scrum -- the elimination of Magic Boxes is only ready when it is working perfectly.

Well tested will do, no matter how well beta testing goes, the amount of extra variables when it goes live are likely to introduce issues, but I do agree that it should be pretty damn near to perfect before being unleashed.

Brooke Linden said:

• If  you have a listing that is getting incorrectly flagged, add the URL to  PJIRA WEB-3583. This PJIRA will be looked at on Monday, and a new one  will be created for the next set of listings that need to be reviewed.
  

•  

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-3583

Madeliefste Oh wrote:

 

Brooke,

What I am missing in this process of implementing this new change that effects so many merchants, is the communication with us about it, before the plan is rolled out. You have announced it in the office hours, but there was not much room to stand still at the subject or have a discussion about it. Not that it would have made much difference, because after all your plans were there already the only thing that was left for you to do was force them on us. And that happened two days later.

 

This is true, but even if Brooke had given us time to discuss the plans beforehand we would all have agreed that something needs to be done to protect teens. We probably would have accepted her plan. Nobody, including Brooke, would have foreseen that the plan was not going to work. It is only in retrospect that we see it.

It seems the main problem is being caused by a bug, and nobody can foresee bugs.

Rya Nitely wrote:

we would all have agreed that something needs to be done to protect teens

I would have disagreed - strongly.

If those teens we are referring to were under 16 I would certainly agree,  however these changes  are being foisted upon us supposedly to protect the innocence of a small motely bunch of 16 and 17 year olds who frankly, are much more street wise and savvy about sex & violence drugs and alchohol etc than  many of us matures.

One could make a strong case that it is indeed us who should be protected from them :-)

^L^

Lasher Oh wrote:

 

Rya Nitely wrote:

we would all have agreed that something needs to be done to protect teens

I would have disagreed - strongly.

If those teens we are referring to were under 16 I would certainly agree,  however these changes  are being foisted upon us supposedly to protect the innocence of a small motely bunch of 16 and 17 year olds who frankly, are much more street wise and savvy about sex & violence drugs and alchohol etc than  many of us matures.

One could make a strong case that it is indeed us who should be protected from them :-)

^L^

Well, maybe not protecting teens, but protecting SL from any bad publicity involving 'children' that could have a huge impact on its success -  and so it is protecting all us merchants.

Exactly so. And even regardless of publicity is legal liability. Can't be avoided, must be done.

There's protection for both legal minors AND merchants in this, the better it's implemented.

Which means of course keywords factor into it, and descriptions and anything else that points to something that might incur legal liability. I know some merchants probably aren't concerned about this aspect of it, but you surely would if it were to bite you. Or if it were to bite LL in a such a way that all adult content were to be removed in response to these kind of problems after the fact.

Rya Nitely wrote:

Well, maybe not protecting teens, but protecting SL from any bad publicity involving 'children' that could have a huge impact on its success -  and so it is protecting all us merchants.

Tbh, as long as they are seen to come down like the proverbial ton of bricks on the absolutely forbidden content (sexual ageplay, and other things which are not ever acceptable in adult regions), and have a token form of screening for the 16s and 17s, the rest is just a marketing opportunity and the publicity can rapidly be spun into free advertising.  If you step back from it and think about the freedom SL offers, the policy support for diversity and tolerance in Community Standards, it's easy to spin anything that doesn't cross that completely uncrossable line into a good thing.  There will be kids lieing with impunity about their age to bypass the screening (How do I know this for certain?  That's what I did decades ago while a teen, before SL had been conceived and before the general public knew what it meant to go online, never got caught, as I was sensible enough to RP being 18+ successfully).

The trouble here is that they have gone way beyond the token form of screening and are actively damaging the economy with the current measures.

Well I have gone in and manually selected "General" on my product which was getting automatically slated as "Moderate" by LL.  Now it shows up on my store list where as before it would not, even if I had selected "include moderate/adult" before opening the store list.

I suspect I will have to do this for every item of my inventory which has been surreptitiously rated into oblivion by LL's immaturity bot software. Perhaps manually reassigning maturity level on products several times a day in an ongoing struggle . . . .

 

Or will the product just get delisted after so many automated changes are forced to take over?

 

It would be one hell of a lot easier to just have the list of terms to avoid so I don't have to guess what will work in my product wording.

 

By the way, here is a link to the product in question:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/GOTHIC-RUINS/152239

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).

Yes I fully agree that's it's all about LL covering their own arses but why keep referring to 16 and 17 year olds as 'children' and minors?.

They are not children that is the wrong terminology.

They can get married at 16 and join the army and die for their countries at 17. They can start families and they can drink in bars with a meal.  Jeez, and from what I hear in the states they can even hit the roads on their own  in a car @ 16 (a deadly weapon if ever there was one)

I am so glad that a genuinely viable European alternative grid has finally emerged because since the lab started preparing themselves for the buyout the SL world as gone Ass over Tits - that would be the Donkey and Bird varieties.

^L^

Well, the people who are most likely to make a fuss are parents. Parents see their 16 year olds as children.

But I'm confused I search for "gor" without moderate/adult content included and I can see a lot of items with Gor or Gorean in the item name, some have an almost nude girl

May I make a suggestion? I may be missing a point here but things would be easier if:

When logging onto the Marketplace, how about an entry message of "18 and over/mature", and "under 18".

Even as a seasoned merchant/browser of the Market place/Xstreets, the number of times I forget to enable mature at the outset, far out numbers the times that I do...

My sales have slumped massively since the new changes... does the average shopper know or even care about these new rules? All they willfind is a far smaller offer, until they remember to enable the mature setting. And I cannot see the difference between Adult and Moderate... they're both over 18, so what's the point?

I have a better solution. So hard to think of.

Tie access on SLM to your currently selected preference in world.

Gosh so hard to think of that eh? gee whiz.

/me shakes head and walks away from a pointless debate.

Anyunie Daviau wrote:

 

But I'm confused I search for "gor" without moderate/adult content included and I can see a lot of items with Gor or Gorean in the item name, some have an almost nude girl

if you note the items returned (I only checked the first two pages) they have circumvented the autofilter by using the word-word-word or word*word*word* format which apparently confuses the crappy autofilter into thinking it's all one word so it's not flagged.

 

Were these items listed as gor, gorean instead of gor-gorean they would have been yanked as well.

 

So while THIS item is "general"  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/SeVered-GarDeN-Daisy/1510486 (note the exposed nipple) keywords: country-cowgirl--Gor-Gorean-Slave-Kajira-wenchy-Bond-Bondmaid-Silk-Camisk-Gown-Gowns-Skimpy-Panthers-Fairy-Faerie-Vikings-Pirates-Rags-Skirt-Skirts-Elven-cowboy  hat

THIS item is Moderate https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Loving-Gor-Kitchen-1-CreamWhite/1225556

Ann Otoole wrote:

 

I have a better solution. So hard to think of.

Tie access on SLM to your currently selected preference in world.

Gosh so hard to think of that eh? gee whiz.

/me shakes head and walks away from a pointless debate.

well, it makes no sense anyhow as moderate and adult on SLM are both 18+.  If there's no difference in age, why bother with the three levels when two was serving just fine?

LL CLAIMS this is to be congruent with the inworld guidelines but they're very different guidelines on SLM.  So I'm failing to see any point in these ratings at all.

and what's one of those, when it's at home?

... I've never done that...

AI

 

I see you are having problems with your listings and I think the problem is IV, as in |IV| InVision - yes strange as it may seems IV probably is a being filtered as a drug reference IV= intravenous.

I tried to follow the link you posted for your items and couldnt follow it so I typed IV in the search and hit the brickwall - You must select 'Include moderate/adult (18+) content' in order to access content of this maturity level.

Also found that if you just click go without checking the "Include moderate/adult (18+) content" you can get past it anyway.

 

Anyway hope you get things sorted soon

Rya Nitely wrote:

 

Well, the people who are most likely to make a fuss are parents. Parents see their 16 year olds as children.

LOL - Yes how right you are - my dear 78 year old dad who is as sharp and smart as tacks still manages to make this 50 something feel like his 16 year old child at times.

Seriously though, when people who should and do know better, continuously refer to the 16 and 17 year old group as 'children' or 'minors' they are imho putting an irresponsible spin on the topic worthy of Alister Cambell's darkest arts.

Thus misleading the majority of folk who don't follow the debates and details as closely as most us here do. So my reason for voicing so strongly the need for accuracy when discussing who these new regulations are intended to protect is not to undermine the initiative but to inform and clarify so that folk coming fresh to the topic can formulate an accurate view for themselves.

Whilst LL like manipulate and control the grid and discussions here in a manner worthy of the Chinese and Iranian regimes, so long as I have a voice I will continue to speak out and highlight glaring innacuracies as far I see them - that stance of course has got  me into more trouble over the years than I care to recall but hell why change a good habit of a lifetime :-) just because it makes a few aparatchniks and jobworths uncomfortable

 

^L^

Kyrah Abattoir wrote:

 

maid,uniform,domestic,servant,hotel

 

What exactly is not pg in this?

 

I'm not sure but i think it's because i mention the word "cuffs" in the description which is retarded.

Hmm I've tried temporarily adding your description and keywords to one of my listings and it doesn't get force changed to a different rating, which would leave just the title or maybe it's a bug, try and cut and paste the description and keywords and see if it lets you put it back to general.

Linden Lab is a US company. As such, they are more likely to obey the laws in the US ... and the morality laws too. The diverse population of this country ranges from exceedingly liberal to incredibly restrictive. You can witness an incredibly wide range of moral guidelines just by driving the short distance from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sad to say but the US is also incredibly litigious. People file lawsuits for the craziest things, but when they feel their moral character has been threatened, or worse when they feel the moral character of their children is under attack, lawsuit is usually about the first thing out of their mouths.

It doesn't even have to be someone that is technologically literate. Quite the opposite in fact, a lot of people that haven't a clue about technology and Virtual Worlds like Second Life fear it greatly. Toss the gasoline of a perceived moral threat to their "innocent and manipulatable children" onto the bonfire of fear and ignorance and before long you have a heyday for lawyers and a nightmare for Linden Lab.

In this country, until a person reaches the age of 18, they are (in most locations) considered a minor. Consider the so-called "Sex Offender" who, at the age of 18 had consensual sex with a person under that age and subsequently wound up convicted of a felony and marked for life with the stigma of the label. There are many cases of youthful couples who made the mistake of having sex on the day of one partner's 18th birthday, only to find out their innocent act of celebration has now turned one of them into a life-long felon ... unable to enjoy a normal life ever again.

Yes Lasher, most of us on SL, and for that matter most parents in this country recognize their children are much more grown up at age 14 and up than the laws seem to indicate. But all it takes is a few extremists that garner the spotlight to ruin the freedom we now enjoy in Second Life.

I don't like it, and every chance I get I take exception to having to live under the mandates of the least common denominator extremists in this society. But Linden Lab is a company with a lot more to lose and really not a thing to gain from making a stand. I for one would prefer that they take a conservative stance, enact rules that keep them out of the courts and off the news, and allow us adults to continue enjoying at least one safe haven of somewhat more liberal relaxation.

Now excuse me while I go enable Advanced Physics and engage in some mindless wobble-watching.

Hi Darrius. I'm not from USA, I believe what you say. But is there in USA laws against cybersex (cybersex as in SL) between minors or cyber sex of minors with adults?

I do not think this has been brought up yet.

Can teens that enable the mature SLM buy a mature rated product and receive it inworld? If thats a yes then the maturity rating does nothing, not even legally for LL. If thats not the case then the purchase/gifting of mature/adult products can only be purchased by age verified accounts which is a minority of the accounts in SL. If the last is true it can have a big impact in the overall SLM sales of mature rated products (that are only rated that way cos of words and not the product).

Irene Muni wrote:

Hi Darrius. I'm not from USA, I believe what you say. But is there in USA laws against cybersex (cybersex as in SL) between minors or cyber sex of minors with adults?

I am not aware of any laws ... yet. But there have been a couple of well publicized cases where minors were caught having cybersex with adults, and invariably the parents of the minor made it sound like the adult cyber-partner was Satan him/herself. The media blitz that accompanied those cases was admittedly short-lived, but had a very rapid leap to the top of people's attention span. Even when it was shown that the minor lied, accessed "Adults Only" sites illegally and honestly should have been supervised by their parents, public opinion leaned toward blaming the adult anyway.

However, in the cases I'm aware of, the chat sites and chat programs used escaped much negative press. I do not recall anything other than a passing mention about how the two cyber partners first "hooked up". I'm not sure why that is, but I think it may have been due to the large size and popularity of the sites/programs involved. (I am however just guessing on that.)

ETA: The following link is from google.com showing results for "adult minor cybersex":

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=adult+minor+cybersex&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

Understood. Thank you very much for the explanation. There are things that, as a European, I can not understand at all, but your explanation has been helpful to me