Commerce

Hi,

I'm French and I have a little trouble understanding these changes, since they are served in English only... if I understand correctly the new rules, ALL the skins with nipples (even if there are not showed on the pictures) must be set in the Adult section on the marketplace and selled into Adult sim inworld, right ?

References to tobacco use as Moderate Content?

Well, I have a freebie box of tobacco. The automated system asigned that box a General content. I have changed the level to Moderate. I don't understand that level for the tobacco but ...

You stated yesterday in front of dozens of residents that mature items will be changed to adult. Loads of reports are surfacing you changed mature to general. Care to comment?

It would be a great help when you could publish the list of keywords that make an item 'adult', and the keywords that make an item 'moderate'.

Hi Brooke - thanks for that. Actually, the guidelines are clearer than before, that really helps too (might be some loopholes and grey areas, but that's one step ahead).

Question for you: I've looked at my items, which are mostly "adult". However, it seems that anything I have listed recently (i.e. since some time between mid-December and the beginning of January) has not been automatically changed. Were you using a copy of the Marketplace taken some time ago, by any chance? And if so, could we be informed of the date - that would help us checking the latest items for their maturity.

That sure would help.

Thanks!

Madeliefste Oh wrote:

 

It would be a great help when you could publish the list of keywords that make an item 'adult', and the keywords that make an item 'moderate'.

That would be an interesting list of words . I picture Brooke straining her mind and typing out all the naughty words she can think of, or maybe she will do it in voice at the next meeting

*lol*

But really.. I for example have an item, and I just cannot figure out what is mature about it. It is a devil's tail. There is nothing sexual or violent in the description or keywords. I have deleted several words that could maybe have caused a mature listing, but none of the words seemd to be the one.The listing just keeps coming back as mature. I have spend more then half an hour already on this single item, and still have not figured out what is mature about it.

Another question I have is: Is this mature keyword list that filters the items only for English listings, or do all five languages have their own keyword filter lists?

You know, I think I am psychic. Somehow I just had a premonition that this change would turn out exactly like this!

1664 Listings. Just muddled through them all - hope I got them right...

And yes, it erred in both directions - marking some pretty blatantly adult animations as 'general' and other innocuous ones as 'adult', probably due to keywords like 'Gorean' - which is not adult in and of itself.

Can I change the maturity rate of my items? I have some items marked as "moderate" and one "adult" but my items are all "general"... no nudity or violence.

Some are belly dance costumes but no "silks", they are like real belly dance tribal style costumes, but I use "kajira" keyword because I think It can be used for roleplay. should I delete any keyword relate to gor ?

(sorry my english)

 

edit: I can't change the maturity rates now they go back to "moderate" or "adult"

Yes you can. but I just figured out that ALL my listings that  contain "Gor" or "Gorean" were changed to moderate. Kajira, I would expect, would be another forbidden word.

So now things like a barrel stove and vegetable stand are unsafe for teenagers to purchase.

I am furious -- as merchants we are expected to weigh now whether to market to Goreans or to teenagers? These are items that are completely devoid of sexual content, but apply to the role play settings of many eras, including Gor.

I'm going to say that Goreans will still continue to be a large part of my business, and teenagers, not so much. I guess that wasn't so hard, Brooke.

But It can't be this way! if I remove those keywords I lose an important part of my costumers and it's not fair that I can't sell my items to teens my items are "general" I think we have allowed to change the maturity rate. Its only that now its not working

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.

Ji Yheng wrote:.

So now things like a barrel stove and vegetable stand are unsafe for teenagers to purchase.

I am furious -- as merchants we are expected to weigh now whether to market to Goreans or to teenagers?

Wouldn't someone looking for a barrel stove more likely search for barrel stove? Someone looking for a vegetable stand search for vegetable stand?

I think the "too creative use of keywords" is part of the problem with results that don't necessarily make sense to a shopper, I pretty much gave up shopping on the Marketplace because of this.

There's hardly any kind of item that you couldn't "link" to a certain keyword with creative explanations ("this skin will look fabulous when standing next to an Easter bunny" (so let's add Easter bunny as keyword), "these shoes will look fabulous under your Christmas tree" (so let's add Christmas tree as keyword), "this shirt will flatter any high quality skin" (so let's add skin to keywords), "this beach hut will even look better with furniture" (so let's add furniture as keyword)....... Unfortunately many merchants do just that, not realizing that it will harm their business in the end. This change might actually help with unrelated results to some extent because merchants have to chose more wisely.

Regarding your two examples - both of the items you have mentioned are not specific Gor items, they can be used for pretty much every kind of SL lifestyle. As a shopper I'd prefer to get results that are specifically Gor if I searched for that term and not hundreds of items in between that can be used for pretty much everything else as well.

Apart from that all of my Marketplace items show "general", it seems like nothing has changed for me Marketplace wise. Inworld is a different matter with my mature land that I had bought in good faith years ago when it was perfectly ok to have a PG store on mature land...

I had a new Adult item --  a birdbath, with little singing birds that cock their heads and raise up their tails.

The problem is, "Gor" as a keyword has become a shortcut for "more or less medieval or rustic without being confined to a specific period and/or culture".  And, we've got a rather short character limit on keywords.  It makes sense from a merchant's standpoint to use "Gor" as a search keyword in any item that would fit well into a Gorean themed outfit or sim, because we'd be losing sales otherwise - maybe the person browsing knows they want some furniture or decor for their new parcel, but they don't know that they want a barrel stove specifically until they see it.

I've just picked the two examples from the last post I had read before my reply, this applies to many, many, many other keywords as well. At first I thought we were given too few keywords / characters to work with, but I find results to be utterly frustrating in many cases (unlike back on Xstreet where I could always quickly find what I was looking for) - too many merchants use every available character just because there still are a few left, no matter if it's really related to the item or not.

This is especially a problem for those who sell items that depend on these keywords because there's no other way to describe them differently (like the Christmas tree or skin example above), results are cluttered with so many unrelated results that it's not really fun to shop for these kind of items unless you spend a lot of extra time to refine search. Like I said, there's hardly an item that you couldn't associate to one of the "popular" keywords if you just use a bit of imagination, but this serves nobody in the long run.

For customers this can only lead to a very frustrating shopping experience. I always try to be very considerate with my own keywords, but when I see how other people list their items I might as well stop fixing my items by adding keywords for each item separately and just copy/paste one general set of keywords to all the remaining listings I still have to fix.

My own Marketplace "shopping volume" has decreased by about 90% compared to what I spent back on Xstreet because of the unsatisfactory results I tend to get.

Anyway, I didn't mean to derail this thread but this maturity change might in fact solve some of the keyword related problems because people have to pay more attention to them now, making some choices.

Hi,

 

Thanks for reaming my store. I really appreciate it because boy did I need something to keep me busy for 12 hours.

 

Pray tell why one listing is fine, yet when I copy and paste the exact everything in the "non-sinful" listing into the "sinful" one and save, it still gets forced adult?

If "the text in the keywords field forced a change in the maturity level" is code for something, can someone explain? I've even removed all the keywords and put God in and it's still so naughty it's adult. I've removed ALL THE TEXT in some listings and it still gets forced adult. Where's the logic? PLEASE FIX YOUR BUSINESS SLAUGHTERING BUG. Thanks!

People should probably be aware for items that aren't adult that were forced adult for no reason what-so-ever.

Even if you remove all the keywords, all the text, everything from the listing and save it as General, it will still get forced adult. Really, there's NOTHING you can do to fix your listing. Your listings are screwed, your shop is screwed, you are screwed. Spare yourself the agony of chasing a goose that doesn't exist.

I'm going to file a ticket, maybe this fatal bug will get fixed in a few months.

Could it be possible that there's some kind of daily "maturity check" in place, not updating maturity rating instantly? I've seen delays for other items as well when I updated keywords, some of them took nearly 2 days before the changes where reflected in search.

After reading every post to this point, I think the root of the anguish and frustration might be related to the mechanism used to shove a listing into one of the three maturity categories. This first pass used a "Pass/Fail" rating system that basically states "any listing containing just one of the many words on the naughty list is automatically considered a naughty listing." Unfortunately, as we have seen by way of numerous examples, this black or white grading system is too restrictive and too inflexible; real life is seldom if ever that clear cut.

I propose that the rating enforcement algorithm be modified to use a "grading algorithm" similar to that used by various Email Spam Detectors. Words on "The List" would not just be used to indicate a naughty listing, but would instead be used to grade a listing. When the program scans a listing, it will accumulate a total grade for each of the two non-general ratings (Moderate and Adult). If a listing receives a total grade that is above the threshold for that rating then it is forced to that rating. The Adult rating would take precedence over the Moderate rating.

This method would not only allow listings with such relatively innocent terms as Gor or Gorean to exist without shoving them into the Moderate or Adult categories, but it would lend itself to smoother, more accurate adjustment as we gain more understanding of "current word usage and meaning". (For example, it used to be totally unacceptable to utter the word "bitch" in public, yet today you hear it quite often and not a soul even hesitates or pays a bit of notice.)

There WILL be exceptions of course, Pamela's birdbath is an absolutely delightful example of this. But I believe a more flexible, less binary grading system will go a long way toward making the system more acceptable to all.

Pamela Galli wrote:

I had a new Adult item --  a birdbath, with little singing birds that cock their heads and raise up their tails.

/me falls down laughing hysterically ... Those dirty DIRTY birds!

ETA: Pamela, I am given to understand that "penis" is a more acceptable alternative to "cock". Perhaps you should rewrite the listing so those naughty birds penis their heads.

 

Message was edited by: Darrius Gothly because sometimes the smart-ass just will NOT be denied!!!

No, not the case, because I was able to modify a listing and change the maturity, but on all the "God obeying" ones that are safe, changing them back from adult is blasphemy.

So I do know it is possible to instantly change it. It just WON'T, it keeps spewing a proverbial projectile spray of raw BS saying there's something in the keywords forcing it back to adult. And guess what, it does it even when there ARE NO KEYWORDS.

I'm having the world's BIGGEST conniption right now. I never had a problem with LL but I'm about to shoot FIRE out of my eyeballs.

I found an item that was set to adult among my items which I had missed when first looking at my listings.

At first I couldn't change it back to general, but then I found the reason - it's an item with a few cuddle poses and I made it clear in my description that it doesn't come with xxx poses, just so people won't expect something else. After having removed xxx from my description I could change it back to general.

So it seems that not only keywords and titles are being taken into consideration but descriptions as well.