Commerce

Loving Clarity wrote:

 

Pamela Galli wrote:

 

That was not an OH, it was a quick focus group in prep for the real OH, which will be entirely about Maturity, on Thurs. She is now better prepared for the Thurs. meeting than if she had not taken the initiative to have some questions answered beforehand.

no, I'm talking about the thread marked "user group 2/3"

http://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/58707

It's confusing as it seems she has renamed her OH "user groups" or she just mistyped and meant to call it office hours and user groups ARE the other little meetings she's spoken of.

Quoted from that post "In order to try accomodating different schedules, I'm having this week's user group (formerly called office hours) at 9am PST on Thursday, 2/3."

Was replying to Ciaran, Loving.

ah

I went through and double checked my ratings. I don't sell mature things, other than I had one top that was a bit of a peek a boo. Still, I have been looking around MP and there is so many who have not been notified. I have a feeling there are going to be thousands of items flagged when the deadline comes.

Loving Clarity wrote:

 

Ciaran Laval wrote:

 

Loving Clarity wrote:

The "user group" is Brooke's new name for Office Hours.  The link is below.  She's posted the date and time and asked about any topics that should be discussed.

No it's not, Brooke is fully entitled to hold meeting how she sees fit and so far, it looks good, but secret meetings where you ask if it's ok to publish logs are not open office hours. I'm not against this process, we'll see how it pans out, but an office hour it is not.

yes, it is... see my post just above this one.

Ah I see what you mean now, yup there are different types of user group meetings, we'll get used to what Brooke means

Can you just set this filter to look for obviously dodgy words and then some specific to LL ones that are widely known to be dodgy, the posts popping up with problems with "an", "5" , "six" and "X" are getting extremely silly.

This filter is trying to be too clever, keep it simple.

I just relisted an ancient stone wall relief thay had been delisted because I described the stone guy sitting between 2 stone women as a "pimp".

I guess I asked for that.

But I also got another ancient stone relief delisted apparently for the word "escorted".

"Escorted"?

Seriously?

So Brooke, are you the one responsible for designating an X as being Mature? Shame on you!

Oh, God!

Thank you Ciaran!

I fix it!!!=)

As it turned out, the number 5 in the description of the fireplace and the name of the package with poses changes everything .

Hi Brooke,

Please, remove keywords "Gor, Gorean and kajira" from the blacklist.

A lot of Furnitures and Clothes from Gor are not necessarily Moderate or Adults. I have a lot of them who are simply chairs, tables, desks... And clothes for Free Women and Free Men. That clothes don't show nothing in the body. They are the less adult clothes i ever seen...

I am very worried, because for more than a week, my sales in the Marketplace are almost zero.

Sorry my bad english.

Catherine Ashmoot wrote:

 

Hi Brooke,

Please, remove keywords "Gor, Gorean and kajira" from the blacklist.

A lot of Furnitures and Clothes from Gor are not necessarily Moderate or Adults. I have a lot of them who are simply chairs, tables, desks... And clothes for Free Women and Free Men. That clothes don't show nothing in the body. They are the less adult clothes i ever seen...

I am very worried, because for more than a week, my sales in the Marketplace are almost zero.

Sorry my bad english.

at today's Office Hours, it was made clear that anything Gorean was considered Moderate by LL and that would remain the way it is.

Loving Clarity wrote:

at today's Office Hours, it was made clear that anything Gorean was considered Moderate by LL and that would remain the way it is.

This is very very silly.

Ciaran Laval wrote:

 

Loving Clarity wrote:

at today's Office Hours, it was made clear that anything Gorean was considered Moderate by LL and that would remain the way it is.

This is very very silly.

To deem an entire community of a large portion of the SL population to be evil and deserving of being hidden and shunned by LL, that is a sad reflection of the LL we are dealing with.  IT shows how myopic and sheltered LL is and not caring / interested / respecting LL is of their customers (both those residents of SL that are part of this community as well as those that are dependent on servicing this community - the merchants).

I know thre are merchants in our community that would facepalm me for saying this but this is discrimination of a virtual community within LL customer base.

That is truly sad and shows how uncompromising LL is.

So lets play devil's advocate now regarding this GOR GOREAN and all the other bad words on LL's SLM blacklist...

Since it is so evil to even mention the word GOREAN in item listings because it might influence the children of SL, when will LL deploy the Forums/Blogs content filter to ban these same bad words from the forums?  When will LL deploy a SL Forums Maturity System that will segregate SL Forums that have "G" Rated content versus the forums, threads, postings whereby these non-child rated words can be openly used?

If LL is willing to damage the SLM marketplace and cause so much pain and disruption in the SLM because LL LEGAL says they must filter the chlidern from any mention / use / access to SLM mature items with these words, then why is LL LEGAL not concerned about these same bad words being mentioned openly in the forums without maturity filters?

Heii sorry guys but this isn't funny anymore.

Never seen such a ridiculous implementation like this Maturity Keyword filter + blacklist??

I'm honest i'm not a merchant  i maybe got 1 or 2 items listed.. i state this now as a customer

when i surf through the marketplace i see boats, flagpoles, antennas, furnitures like simple couches, builder stuff like sculptmaps or DJ equipment listed as adult items.

and this because they have got nice, costumer friendly and professional descriptions. that are longer than simple 2 lines

heii i'm sure not every marchant is ready to analyze, and rewrite their description agin again and again.

even more when they are long

Give the merchants the opportunity to decide them self what is mature/adult and what not. or publish the keywords

and do it before the good ones decide to leave the marketplace!

regards

Thats exactly what happened to me. I entirely sell boats. Modern power boats and boat parts. I cant find anything in the description that could have caused them flagged mature or adult even. But I have older items too, which I do not support anymore but I always made sure they were correctly flagged. 3 of them I flagged adult myself when I listed them. But the new system put them general. How silly is that???

What we merchants need, and thats what we demand and expect to get from LL, is a tool or function on the marketplace that clearly marks and shows us exactly the words or terms which cause flagging the items mature or adult, so we are able and get the chance to make the neccessary changes in the item description to correctly put the items where they belong and not where a stupid system puts them.

Furthermore, its really really annoying to redo something thats already been done and redone and....

My sales went down to almost zero. Do u guys even think about that u dont earn when I dont?

/me shakes her head

I have to say I agree. And besides discrimination who do you think has more money to spend? Teens...or Adults? So teens get the first more visible level of shopping on marketplace while the more hidden level belongs to the adults with the bigger pocketbooks. Can we says sales are going to suffer BIG TIME...um too late, my sales have taken a toilet flush, my once thriving business is sad, and I seriously want to cry. So my question is...why would LL want to do this? I mean, if people are spending less, they are buying less lindens, which means LL is making less money. Why would they want to do this? Couldn't there have been an easier way to integrate the teens etc without making the adults suffer. Oh, and is this blog really going to do any good? I hate to say but, I doubt it . I have talked to a lot of merchants about things over the last year and the feeling is all the same, ready to leave SL and do business in the RL. Yes we have the economy to tend with but we can take measures against that, work harder, promote harder, etc. In this world we are totally at the mercy of someone else that can do something that would affect our sales and we cannot do a thing about it. If I am smart enough to start a business here, I can do it in RL, it's something i have to think long and hard about now.

Ciaran Laval wrote:

 

Loving Clarity wrote:

at today's Office Hours, it was made clear that anything Gorean was considered Moderate by LL and that would remain the way it is.

This is very very silly.

I do hope that Neko and Vampire are also filtered. We all know how the Nekos act, right? And vampire are scary sexual beings plunging their jutting appendages into poor unsuspecting folk. Come on LL, if we are going to discriminate, let us do it across the bloody board.

Really LL staff, your stupidity has finally synchronized with your ignorance, and no one wants to follow you to that depth.

Reading through the transcripts of today's User Group Meeting it's clear that the legal team is now running Linden Labs and  all other employees have to pay lip service to them. In other words the lunatics have taken over the asylum. It's all preparation for the buyout folks.

Still there is  good news. These past couple of weeks have seen the incredible successful launch of a new viable working 'European' grid with  it's own economy and liberal doses of common sense. Every day I see a  familiar names over there  aquiring their sims and moving in. It's refreshing and heartening to see so much building going on again in a virtual world. The excitment is infectious. My guess is it won't be long before some enterprising individuals set up a new dedicated Marketplace equivalent to service it .

I predict a mass migration before too long.

Looks like there won't be much left in Battery Street's inventory to sell on if they keep letting the lawyers whisper their poison in their ears.

^L^

A release has just been completed. Here is the PJIRA link: WEB-3583. I have spot checked items from each merchant and found expected results, except for 2 merchants indicated in the JIRA. The issue is now closed.

If you still see issues, please file a Customer Service ticket. This will be the new process going forward (the Customer Service team did initial reviews of items on the PJIRA  and sent issues to the dev team, so this is not a change in process).  Please use this process for a quicker response to any issues.

Here are the fixes:

• by default, Residents 18 and over will be able to see Moderate content
• fixes to the filtering engine to allow things such as the number "5"

Brooke

Just curious, if someone has age verified why wouldn't they also be able to see the adult stuff. Just because they see it doesn't mean they have to buy it. I see rare few ads on marketplace that have vulgar pictures of sorts, if any that is. How about making the adult content default for anyone that is age verified and offering a filter that can filter OUT the adult content should they wish to not view it. Brooke, my sales have dropped in half and all the other merchants I have talked to say same, some say worse than that, some say gone to nothing. Surely something can be done about this because like another merchant said, if we are not making money then you are not making money. The adults are the ones with the money, not so much the teens.

The issue is most definitely NOT fixed, the filtering problems that are resulting in my General content products being flagged as Moderate persist.

Please re-open the JIRA asap, and assign resources to review and correct the items listed ASAP.

Catherine Ashmoot wrote:

 

Hi Brooke,

Please, remove keywords "Gor, Gorean and kajira" from the blacklist.

A lot of Furnitures and Clothes from Gor are not necessarily Moderate or Adults. I have a lot of them who are simply chairs, tables, desks... And clothes for Free Women and Free Men. That clothes don't show nothing in the body. They are the less adult clothes i ever seen...

I am very worried, because for more than a week, my sales in the Marketplace are almost zero.

Sorry my bad english.

Posted by Brooke in the Jira 3583:

Note that Gorean content will continue to be Moderate, but now will  be seen by default by anyone 18 or over. For those who would like the  official response on Gorean and similar communities, here it is:

Linden Lab is continually striving to balance policies with safety and the overall user experiences of the residents.

The recent Marketplace Maturity Ratings changes have been put into  place to prevent those residents who are under 18 years of age from  viewing content that is geared toward those residents who are over 18  years of age while offering greater control to the users who are over 18  years of age to decide the types of content they wish to see and be  exposed to.

The various communities within Second Life are a very valuable part  of the user experience, but some communities and products have been  identified as being specifically targeted to those users who are over 18  years of age and are considered Moderate Content.

This change allows residents who are over 18 years of age to still  freely see products targeted at those communities while limiting or  preventing users who are under 18 years of age from seeing those items.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heaven forbid I market a non animated medieval style kitchen to both teens AND goreans.

Not sure if an IM or email compaign to the new top Linden would help.

We all know that Brooke is doing the best she can and is ad professional as I have ever seen a public facing Linden, but all her communications have made it clear that SHE is not the one calling the shots on this stupid blacklist filtering process and has no direct effective powers to negotiate neither its removal nor any fundamental changes of it (i.e. removing words like GOR and GOREAN from the keywords search).

This is being significantly influenced by the LEGAL LINDENS that have no concept or care if LL loses current revenue or customers - nor do they show their face in publice to face the heat they have created.  They have a stovepipe objective - protect company for potential litigation regardless of business impact.  It is being dictated by the senior executives of LL - including the new CEO that is a brand new wet-behind-the-ears SL resident and has little understanding of a virtual world that has a strong significant business economy (not a bonus fake economy like sims).

Maybe us Merchants need to get the contact info of CEO LINDEN and start expressing our concerns to him.

Forget the small group meeting between Brooke and a sampling of us Merchants.  This meeting should be between a sampling of us Merchants and CEO, LEGAL, COMMERCE.  We need to talk with the persons that actually have the power to negotiate and make changes if they can be convinced that the BLACKLIST FILTER method is uttering lame and stupid and does nothing but hurt the economy and insult/blacklist a significant segment of SL customers that have been discriminated against because they are part of a community.

I still think if the SL Merchants are going to have any effective voice, we cant be as un organized as we are now.  We need some formal organization of a group where our issue can be discussed and structured into critical concerns and demands against LL and where we can set up a rotation of representatives.  We also should meet and talk off the SL blogs/forums if we are going to do this.

If you all think this is an idea, I got the place that I created in december 2009 with private registration and many of you are already members of this SL Merchants group of forums.

Just some thougts.

I hate to think you are serious. When a company's legal team advises them that X is a lawsuit waiting to happen, that's the end of discussion.

I don't know what world it is that you are working in, but that's the way things are in the US.

Pamela Galli wrote:

 

I hate to think you are serious. When a company's legal team advises them that X is a lawsuit waiting to happen, that's the end of discussion.

I don't know what world it is that you are working in, but that's the way things are in the US.

So pamela.... you think this is the best solution / approach that the legal team or sr. LL management could come up with?

I am on a planet where a business thinks far enough ahead NOT to make stupid myopic decisions like "lets merge the teen grid to the adult grid so that we can save some operational costs and not have to manage and operate two production grids - think of all the money we will save".

I live in a world that when my company makes such a dumb move, that the legal mitigation strategies to protect my company from the political and legal risks dont also damage my critical customer base and its revenue streams.

As a solutions architect for base of companies that makes LL look like a corner drugstore, I can tell you that if our legal team told us the legal risks to the company, we would think deep and hard how we could protect ourselves WITHOUT impacting our customer base.  Our primary objective would be to protect our current customer base and its revenue stream - and any legal protection solution had better fit with that objective.

I am from a planet Pam that would say this SLM Maturity Filtering solution is a horrid idea, inaccurate, easy to get around, and damages the existing customer base.

I dont know what planet you are on Pamela, but that is the planet I am on.  But I guess since you say that is how things work in the USA - no wonder their economy is in the tank.