Marketplace and Direct Delivery Update: huh?

[Tonya Souther]

A couple of days ago, CommerceTeam Linden posted:

"We are aware that some Merchants are still having problems with the Merchant Outbox. We are are working with TPVs and our internal development teams to address this issue."

As the lead Mac developer for the Phoenix and Firestorm viewers, all I can say is:

Huh?

To the best of my knowledge and the others on the team I've spoken to, nobody has approached us about this. I think I can speak for the whole team when I say we'd love to help, but we don't know of anything we need to do to fix problems.

[Sassy Romano]

You just need to make it work Tonya :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

Come on..chop chop, things to do you know!

I believe that what CTL is saying is "We haven't yet figured out how to manipulate a few tables in a database that reflect the behaviour when a limited quantity item is sold and aren't sure where the issues around Merchant Outbox failing to initialise lie but we've got new shiny to work on now so we'll hand it over to TPV's in principle so that the blame for it being fixed is that the TPV haven't got around to it yet."

Actually, this is standard as you well know from the deformer project.  That too needs TPV input to develop the UI but nobody wants to tell you what this is.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

It's almost like when Rod said they were testing Linden Realms in public rather than beta grid to make it easier to test, and that only to develop tools for "all of us". And yet here we are wtih Linden Realms still capturing away thousands of user hours from merchants, club owners, etc.

Only different.

Or when you try to get more money out that you earned and find you have to actually be approved to get your own money and that you'll get the customer support dodge when you try.

Only different.

Or that you'll get a fully working direct delivery in less than 2 years and get a partially working direct delivery and a bear with no pants.

Only different.

Or when you get professionals that go by psuedonyms (Lindens) and then decide that this isn't secure enough so condense their identity down to "Commerce Team".

Only different.

Or a Rod enhanced roadmap that in the last quarter of 2012 is still incomplete.

Only different.

Or that you'll get a project "shine on" which invests in new servers, but which actually nixes one datacenter to save money and then stuffs even more regions onto newer machines paid for with the savings.

Only different.

I'd suggest that maybe they should try something simpler as far as products than a virtual world as it seems to be a bit beyond them, but they already are.

[Perrie Juran]

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Tonya Souther wrote:

A couple of days ago, CommerceTeam Linden

posted

:

"

We are aware that some Merchants are still having problems with the Merchant Outbox. We are are working with TPVs and our internal development teams to address this issue."

As the lead Mac developer for the Phoenix and Firestorm viewers, all I can say is:

Huh?

To the best of my knowledge and the others on the team I've spoken to, nobody has approached us about this. I think I can speak for the whole team when I say we'd love to help, but we don't know of anything we need to do to fix problems.

---

CTL just failed to say which TPV's.

What was the name of the Ava from that Viewer we aren't supposed to mention?  Maybe that is who CTL is referring to?  

 

 

(p.s.  thank you for your work on FS.  my comment was is in no way intended as a jab at FS.  i'm a happy FS user)

 

[Darrius Gothly]

First off, thank you Tonya and your entire team for providing such a sterling example of how a development team can and should be run. You've fundamentally taken a much more diverse, less explicitly motivated group of people and forged them into a dynamic, responsive and highly professional unit with high moral and professional standards. When placed in contrast with the corporate entity known as Linden Lab ... with their higher imperatives by way of employment rules and regulations and the explicit motivation of paychecks ... they have succeeded only in demonstrating the power of the lowest common denominator. (And when I refer to the Phoenix/Firestorm team as "less explicitly motivated", I mean you are all volunteers without the explicit motivation of a paycheck to ensure you do anything at all.)

Now .. onward to my central point ...

---

Tonya Souther wrote:

A couple of days ago, CommerceTeam Linden

posted

:

"

We are aware that some Merchants are still having problems with the Merchant Outbox. We are are working with TPVs and our internal development teams to address this issue."

As the lead Mac developer for the Phoenix and Firestorm viewers, all I can say is:

Huh?

To the best of my knowledge and the others on the team I've spoken to, nobody has approached us about this. I think I can speak for the whole team when I say we'd love to help, but we don't know of anything we need to do to fix problems.

---

I began a blog post about this exact topic .. then trashed it when I started digging into the meat of my point. I realized I didn't have a dog that I could reliably place into the ring. However it struck me as incredibly disingenuous of CTL to have tossed the TPV Community under the wheels of their own dysfunctional bus. Anyone that reads the post with a measure of naivete will come away with the impression that the "usual troubles of managing disparate external groups" is somehow to blame for the continued failures in the Merchant Outbox. Yet this is not only incorrect, it's blatantly misinformative.

Linden Lab has control of the code that runs in the Viewers to establish and utilize the connection to the servers that is the essence of the Merchant Outbox. They set the communication protocol and they establish how data is exchanged at every step in the process. The only points of control the TPV developers have are sideline features such as UI coloration and end-user interaction. Linden Lab also has complete control over the Server-side of the Merchant Outbox conversation. The TPV Community has no say in that end of the process whatsoever.

So how on EARTH can LL's development staff claim they are "working with TPVs" to fix the failures that now exist in Outbox functionality? The TPV Community as a whole has nothing they are allowed to do that would even slightly impact the process!

Quite honestly Tonya, it's muddying statements such as this recent post by CTL that reinforces my intense level of distrust in their whole corporate personality. I can easily accept being lied to by a corporation when there are reasonable imperatives that can cause them to obscure the truth. But being lied to in every shape, at every turn, and most often simply because they obviously don't have a clue what they're doing is clear evidence they have no personal or professional ethics on which to operate. That's a shade of their corporate personality that has grown by leaps and bounds with each new management team and each new project they've undertaken. Instead of getting "better" as a company, they have instead only gotten "better" at lying, deceiving and conjuring up new ways to shift the apparent blame to anyone but themselves.

Is it really any wonder that their customer base continues to shrink?

[Sassy Romano]

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

---

Tonya Souther wrote:

"

We are aware that some Merchants are still having problems with the Merchant Outbox. We are are working with TPVs and our internal development teams to address this issue."

---

So how on EARTH can LL's development staff claim they are "working with TPVs" to fix the failures that now exist in Outbox functionality? The TPV Community as a whole has nothing they are allowed to do that would even slightly impact the process!

---

Darrius, I do believe your powers of observation have turned against you.  Since I speak fluent Linden, let me assist you thus:-

CTL: "We are aware that some Merchants are still having problems with the Merchant Outbox. We are are working with TPVs and our internal development teams to address this issue."

Actually translates to:

"You know what folks?  We're out of resource, not really sure what the issues are, all our protocols work fine inside the corporate boundary and our gigabit ethernet links.  Clearly then the issue is an end user problem.  We dont' deal with end users anymore, that's why we shut down improved the bug reporting process to make it more streamlined.  We'd rather just let people develop their own solutions such as having people pay ex-Lindens to provide mesh deformer code that we didn't want to put in in the first place even though it was a total fail to omit it.

Firestorm has been voted number one viewer so it was just easier to say that they can fix it since they have dedicated unpaid suckers resource.

Anyway, soz about the outbox thing but you can carry on using Magic boxes indefinitely anyway so what's the issue?  By the way, look out soon for the next resident survey where we'll be polling to find out what the latest social media hype is that you'd like us to add a "like this" button to Marketplace listings for".

As you can see, "Linden Language" is a highly condensed form and to the untrained eye, you could easily miss the detail, as you did Darrius. 

Hope that helps.

[Porky Gorky]

Nice post Sassy....I did a proper LOL :matte-motes-big-grin:

[Kampu Oyen]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

However it struck me as incredibly disingenuous of CTL to have tossed the TPV Community under the wheels of their own dysfunctional bus.

---

I don't think it's necessarily intended to punish TPV's or their users as such.

It seems to me like just one more incremental deterrent to using the SLM rather than running an in-world shop.

That is, anything that leaves the SLM technically functional but limits its total functionality is something you should expect  to continue, and you should expect only to see more such things over the next few months.

 

[phaedra Exonar]

May be the whole marketplace should just be turned over to the Phoenix Firestorm team, great job on making a viewer more stable then the LL viewer!

What scares me about "The transition from Magic Boxes to Direct Delivery has been extended indefinitely" is that it all so likely means that all other needed work on the marketplace has been extended indefinitely until DD is fixed. 

[Darrius Gothly]

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Kampu Oyen wrote:

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

However it struck me as incredibly disingenuous of CTL to have tossed the TPV Community under the wheels of their own dysfunctional bus.

---

I don't think it's necessarily intended to punish TPV's or their users as such.

It seems to me like just one more incremental deterrent to using the SLM rather than running an in-world shop.

That is, anything that leaves the SLM technically functional but limits its total functionality is something you should expect  to continue, and you should expect only to see more such things over the next few months. 

---

I don't ascribe the "winding down" activity you routinely highlight to a general motive or goal, but rather more toward their inability to comprehend what is needed, how to go about implementing it and a total lack of competent resources (meaning people) to accomplish anything worthwhile. If I would attribute this trend to any one source, I would more likely hang it around the neck of LL's divergence into other products and not at all to some malevolent or harmful intent.

Even if they have somehow decided to shoot the Marketplace in the head while shooting themselves in the foot, I just don't see that much control or focus on the part of LL Management to implement such a strategy and keep it completely secret. Far too much leaks out on stuff that is much more damaging to LL than it would be to find out they've hatched some sort of hair-brained scheme to kill off the Marketplace.

You may continue post-dicting events to your heart's content, but if you are accomplishing anything at all in your continued vendetta it is to so dull people to the whole nest of issues such that when something of import really does happen, the majority of people are more likely to turn away in disgust because "it's just more of that LL bashing BS!"

[Kampu Oyen]

>I don't ascribe the "winding down" activity you routinely highlight to a general motive or goal, but rather more toward their inability to comprehend what is needed, how to go about implementing it and a total lack of competent resources (meaning people) to accomplish anything worthwhile. If I would attribute this trend to any one source, I would more likely hang it around the neck of LL's divergence into other products and not at all to some malevolent or harmful intent.

Then why not just put everything back the way it was a year ago and leave it that way?

Why keep breaking things instead of at least reversing some of the bad changes?

>Even if they have somehow decided to shoot the Marketplace in the head while shooting themselves in the foot, I just don't see that much control or focus on the part of LL Management to implement such a strategy and keep it completely secret. Far too much leaks out on stuff that is much more damaging to LL than it would be to find out they've hatched some sort of hair-brained scheme to kill off the Marketplace.

This assumes some kind of concerted effort which I don't think is present. What I think is present is one person who can't be easily cut out like the cancer she is because she has legal rights over some code to which Rod believes LL is now dependent; one person with the authority both to threaten her underlings with open-ended unemployment scenarios and to threaten her superiors with simply taking her code and leaving if they do not accede to her continuing demands for even greater control within the company. There's probably not much to leak because it's increasingly one person making all the decisions on her own, and because anyone who leaks anything has no exit strategy in the current economy.

>You may continue post-dicting events to your heart's content, but if you are accomplishing anything at all in your continued vendetta it is to so dull people to the whole nest of issues such that when something of import really does happen, the majority of people are more likely to turn away in disgust because "it's just more of that LL bashing BS!"

I'm really sorry that you see things that way. The only "post-dicted" event so far is shall/indefinitely. But I do promise you'll see more. You'll know what they are because something will go not as badly as it should have for some mysterious reason.

As for LL-bashing, there are about 100 Lindens I'm not bashing, and really only 1 with whom I have what I expect will be irresoluble ethical differences.

Even so, I might consider dropping the "vendetta" when the SLM is as useful as it was a year ago.

As a minimum criterion, that's pretty reasonable, isn't it?

[Kampu Oyen]

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phaedra Exonar wrote:

 

What scares me about "The transition from Magic Boxes to Direct Delivery has been extended indefinitely" is that it all so likely means that all other needed work on the marketplace has been extended indefinitely until DD is fixed. 

---

There's no "fixing" DD.

It now exists in essentially the form it was intended to take; no breedables and almost no TPV, meaning no breedables and practically no TPV in connection with the SLM as soon as the boxes finally get disabled.

That being the whole point to begin with, why would you expect them to "fix" it, ever?

 

[Sassy Romano]

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Kampu Oyen wrote:

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phaedra Exonar wrote:

 

What scares me about "The transition from Magic Boxes to Direct Delivery has been extended indefinitely" is that it all so likely means that all other needed work on the marketplace has been extended indefinitely until DD is fixed. 

---

There's no "fixing" DD.

It now exists in essentially the form it was intended to take; no breedables and almost no TPV, meaning no breedables and practically no TPV in connection with the SLM as soon as the boxes finally get disabled.

That being the whole point to begin with, why would you expect them to "fix" it, ever?

 

---

What do you mean "almost no TPV"?  Current TPV's work just the same as LL's viewer as far as MP merchant outbox and purchases happen.

As to "fixing it", CTL has always posted that it's an intention to support products with limited permissions so it's not so much as "fixing it" but actually finishing it.  I cannot understand why it isn't done.  An item that's listed on MP is nothing more than a database record.  Our inventory and that of MP is also nothing more than a set of database records.  It's just a database update process that needs to be done.  No client code change, no sim code change, just record manipulation at the transaction end, i.e. MP.

At present, the Direct Delivery project has failed to deliver on the promise.  We were told that it was needed in order to solve the issues of slow or unreliable delivery.  Slow would have been addressed by multi-threading the delivery process on the Marketplace side and reliable delivery could have been achieved by providing an updated script function to llGiveInventory (used by magic boxes and other inworld vending systems) to get feedback about receipt of the inventory offer.

Neither of these would have been so project intensive, affecting the whole buying process, viewer and merchant listing process but would have achieved the stated objective.  Timely, reliable delivery.

Delivering folders?  Delivering unpacked?  Nice to have but not the compelling reason that was originally outlined that would require all MP resource.

I'm very disappointed that Magic Boxes haven't been removed.  Not out of spite to those who haven't or can't migrate but simply as a method to (temporarily) remove dormant merchants from the Marketplace, the ones who never log in, never support products.  Although this could easily be solved by adding the merchant last log in date to each listing.  Again, server side, a few minutes development work.  About the same it took to add the Facebook and other buttons.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

For the record, I  tend to read all of your posts, although most of the time I find them with lots of words and little substance and fact.

Also I tend to agree with your targetted Linden, or whoever is leading the commerce team ... at best it's horrible management and at worst they may actually be getting paid somehow, some way based on marketplace earnings, which is not in the best interest of individual merchants or in the long run in a declining market.

I do have doubts of your sincerity, sometimes it seems like you just get off on the conspiracy thing.

The breedables point hits a nerve, as far as direct delivery not handling unique items, and so of course I'm with you on an incomplete implementation.

On the other hand, if you're going to start including too many merchants in the grand conspiracy, I think at that point it becomes completely useless ... if everyone becomes an enemy you're talking to yourself, not the community.

That said, if I could wear a cheerleader outfit with pride and not be a victim, then you can be our resident nutter without being a victim, which is kind of my stance ... "he may be a nutter, but he's OUR nutter".

If someone from outside of SL were to pick on you, I'd be there defending you, just because you stick up for your own.

Forums have always been a problem for me with communicating, humor, sarcasm and the smirks that you can't see that might imply the light hearted bits behind the point are often lost.

The one thing you might want to recognize though is that conspiracy as opposed to a reasonable bit of conjecture doesn't help the credibility of the community as a whole, in fact you might just be a Linden sent here for just that purpose, making you the most evil critter in the petting zoo!

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Good points.

Down and dirty estimates are that developing and implementing direct delivery have cost this company somewhere near $250,000 or more in salaries and expenses over a prolonged timeframe.

No company in their right mind would look at this kind of non performance and not do something about it.

But an indicator of whether it is a winding down phase, or lack of management is what work comes next.

Last we heard was something along the lines of "perfomance should be better, come test it!". As if every web developer doesn't know how to set up and test performance without live users.

Last we knew that on this team there were at least 4 or 5 non-coders. Brooke, Colossus, Dakota, etc. The support person is justified, the "business development" and management positions simply aren't needed, one or two product managers overseeing the overall product line (SL only, not the newer products) are all that's needed.

The marketplace never needed and still doesn't need anyone tweaking how sales are made, optimizing the market for more sales, etc. All it needs is a simple working product and let the rest of the market take care of itself. The more clever these employees get, the more the market degrades for individuals. The overall spread may be best to rack up the commission for LL, but certainly not best for the market and the seller.

So now that they've blown more than a year (going on 2?) on direct delivery and and over a quarter million dollars in expenses, have to agree the big question is ... what's next? Features we've been asking for or promised 2 years ago? Anything?

Half expecting Rod to come in on a white horse with new merchant programs and features that cost people even more money. That was hinted at in his roadmap. You know it's not going to be free if they come up with some "power seller" type of thing.

We've all got another 6 months to kill waiting to find out if LL can actually handle features in a glorified open source shopping cart patched into virtual items in a database, right?

[Darrius Gothly]

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Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

For the record, I  tend to read all of your posts, ...(snip)

---

We seriously need an "I Agree" button for posts. Well said, thank you Dart.

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

 

Delivering folders?  Delivering unpacked?  Nice to have but not the compelling reason that was originally outlined that would require all MP resource.

 

---

This comment made me think of a comment from a thread on General here:

"yup, and many merchants are abusing direct delivery to send the very same boxes they were sending anyway. So people still need to unpack those boxes, something direct delivery was intended to do away with.

May start making a list of lazy merchants doing that and reporting them all."

So let me get this straight...this person thinks "many merchants" are "abusing" DD by sending their items boxed, which is a *choice* that is built into DD.  Now that ought to be "fun times" when LL starts getting reports about all the "lazy merchants" using a feature built into DD. *Shakes head*

 

 

As far as I can tell from checking the MP and online profile, the poster is not a merchant, thus very likely does not even know that a merchant can choose to keep items boxed, or not, in DD.  She may not even realize some merchants, for various reasons, still use Magic Boxes, thus the boxed items.  I read this as, "I don't want to deal with boxes and I'm going to throw a tantrum (making a list of lazy merchants to report) until everyone sends items to folders."

However, the bigger issue here, as I see it, is the confusion re: DD that exists in the SL community at large.  *In the Second Life Merchant group chat awhile back someone said they were having difficulty with failed deliveries and asked if anyone else was experiencing the same.  The first response was, "You shouldn't be having that problem; direct delivery solved that."

So, in addition to everything stated in your post...the confusion, misinformation, half-information, etc. that surrounds DD is rife. 

*ETA - That should have read the in world Second Life Merchant group chat...but you all probably picked up on that. :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

 

 

 

[phaedra Exonar]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

---

I'm very disappointed that Magic Boxes haven't been removed.  Not out of spite to those who haven't or can't migrate but simply as a method to (temporarily) remove dormant merchants from the Marketplace, the ones who never log in, never support products.  Although this could easily be solved by adding the merchant last log in date to each listing.  Again, server side, a few minutes development work.  About the same it took to add the Facebook and other buttons.

---

I've been tracking weekly the total numbers of items listed on the marketplace starting at the beginning of this year to see the over all growth of the market place and all so to see how much of a drop there is when magic boxes are finally gone, I can post the chart once it happens.  I all so have to wonder if running both the DD and magic box systems at the same time is behind some of the marketplace issues.

 

[Darrius Gothly]

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phaedra Exonar wrote:

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

I'm very disappointed that Magic Boxes haven't been removed.  Not out of spite to those who haven't or can't migrate but simply as a method to (temporarily) remove dormant merchants from the Marketplace, the ones who never log in, never support products.  Although this could easily be solved by adding the merchant last log in date to each listing.  Again, server side, a few minutes development work.  About the same it took to add the Facebook and other buttons.

---

I've been tracking weekly the total numbers of items listed on the marketplace starting at the beginning of this year to see the over all growth of the market place and all so to see how much of a drop there is when magic boxes are finally gone, I can post the chart once it happens.  I all so have to wonder if running both the DD and magic box systems at the same time is behind some of the marketplace issues. 

---

I don't think the parallel delivery systems, DD and Magic Boxes, have any effect on delivery issues. They are two totally separated process paths within the Marketplace and as such appear to operate completely independent of each other. I may be wrong, but my observation of the two systems seems to bear this out.

However I am very interested to see if the eventual discontinuation of Magic Boxes .. if such actually comes to pass ... results in any real reduction in the number of products for sale on the Marketplace. I would hope it does because it should remove Magix Box delivered items from the Marketplace. However I strongly suspect the listings will continue to be listed, customers will still be allowed to purchase the items, and will subsequently receive no support from a MIA Merchant and no resolution from LL Customer Support because they will not address an issue with a Merchant that does not respond. (That's a user-to-user issue and thus a situation where they will not intervene.)

I hope I'm wrong. I really really hope that the Marketplace does deactivate listings that remain Magic Box deliveries. I also really really hope that those active Merchants that are currently restricted to using Magic Boxes due to other issues (such as their personal computer or the products they are selling) are able to find the resources and functionality that allows them to migrate to Direct Delivery. For me, the only real benefit would be to remove the scores of inactive Merchants that are no longer present in SL, that have products that are not supported and that do not participate in the actual commerce within SL. It would be beneficial to weed out the chaff at this stage, I just really hope that whatever thinning does occur only thins out the Merchants and Products that truly need to be removed and doesn't also penalize active viable Merchants just because of ancilliary issues not related to the real problem at all.

[Inara Pey]

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Tonya Souther wrote:

A couple of days ago, CommerceTeam Linden

posted

:

"

We are aware that some Merchants are still having problems with the Merchant Outbox. We are are working with TPVs and our internal development teams to address this issue."

As the lead Mac developer for the Phoenix and Firestorm viewers, all I can say is:

Huh?

To the best of my knowledge and the others on the team I've spoken to, nobody has approached us about this. I think I can speak for the whole team when I say we'd love to help, but we don't know of anything we need to do to fix problems.

---

Tonya,

I wonder if the comment refers to getting the Outbox working on Linux, rather than anything broader.Didn't the initial fix for getting the MO working on Linux come from Lance or someone in the TPV community?

It's still soddy communications, if so, but might explain what they're attempting to say. Just a thought.

[Talia Davidov]

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Czari Zenovka wrote:

This comment made me think of a comment from a thread on General

here

:

"yup, and many merchants are abusing direct delivery to send the very same boxes they were sending anyway. So people still need to unpack those boxes, something direct delivery was intended to do away with.

May start making a list of lazy merchants doing that and reporting them all."

 

---

*looks for emoticon of banging head on desk

I actually caught myself rereading this for a third time to make sure I was not missing something . . reporting for using boxes, I um . .meh *bangs head on desk again.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

"it's muddying statements such as this recent post by CTL that reinforces my intense level of distrust in their whole corporate personality. I can easily accept being lied to by a corporation when there are reasonable imperatives that can cause them to obscure the truth. But being lied to in every shape, at every turn, and most often simply because they obviously don't have a clue what they're doing is clear evidence they have no personal or professional ethics on which to operate."

Darrius, it sounds more like LL PR people not knowing what they are talking about, because they come from a different planet than the people being involved with the viewer code. (I hope.)

[Darrius Gothly]

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Arduenn Schwartzman wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

it's muddying statements such as this recent post by CTL that reinforces my intense level of distrust in their whole corporate personality. I can easily accept being lied to by a corporation when there are reasonable imperatives that can cause them to obscure the truth. But being lied to in every shape, at every turn, and most often simply because they obviously don't have a clue what they're doing is clear evidence they have no personal or professional ethics on which to operate.

---

Darrius, it sounds more like LL PR people not knowing what they are talking about, because they come from a different planet than the people being involved with the viewer code. (I hope.)

---

 I would normally agree, but the moniker on the post was CommerceTeam Linden .. a catch-all name that has traditionally been from the head of the Commerce Dev Team, Brooke Linden. The Merchant Outbox and Direct Delivery are her project and solely hers. They may have the PR Department writing blog posts for them, but generally this has not been the case.

Actually I believe it was more a "slip of the tongue" in that CTL was just going down the laundry list of people that are typically involved with everything they do, and without giving the least bit of thought to what was actually being said. But again. all the more reason to write with utmost clarity as such broad-brushed statements leave a very wrong impression in the minds of the casual reader.

A true technologist would never have written that statement, owing to the fact that they would know that the TPVs had nothing whatsoever to do with the progress. But again, that's more points against CTL.

All in all, it was a bum-fisted statement that should be corrected and used as a lesson on what NOT to do in the future.