Vicious Abuse Reports to Flag Items on MP

Prokofy Neva · December 12, 2015

I have a small store on the MP and sell only one or three things a week -- I'm hardly a creator and most of my items are either gags or for themes on various sims. Occasionally I put a gatcha to sale.

That's why it's highly suspicious to me that every week, I am notified of "violations" on the MP. My volume of sales is tiny and my sales are miniscule -- what's up with this?

Do Lindens scour the MP to declare items "in violation"? I think this is more likely the behaviour of hecklers and griefers.

In almost every case, the "violation" is a "category violation". I personally find the categories one of the most vexatious and stupid features of the MP and often forget to choose something for that reason and have to go edit my listing.

Here's an example of today's "violation". For years, I had some fairy thimbles decorated with fairy food like wedding cake or pine nuts for sale to decorate your fairy grove. The ad clearly states that this is not food that can actually feed a breedable but it is part of the RP decor of a fairy home. Nobody has ever complained to me in years of selling this "top selling" (for me) item that it somehow failed to feed their fairies, as anybody who has the fairies knows they need feed -- or not, if they are the kind that are just decor.

The category I put this item in was "Breedable: Fairies". It has been in that category for years. Why? Because there *isn't* a category called "accessories for your breedables" that you can click off -- it's just the name of the animal or thing bred.

In looking through Fairies, I see various trees, houses, leaves, things for fairies that obviously are not the breedables themselves, but what can decorate the area with them. None of these have been "abuse reported".

The problem with these abuse reports is that they take your item off sale -- and you might not even notice it right away.

For example, I had a citronella candle that is part of a motel court cabin set that is intended ot be the "bug repellant". It says it keeps away SL insects. Now we all know that there are no insects in SL that require bug repellant because it's all pixels. But for that matter EVERYTHING in SL is all pixels and you could make that point about anything.

I put this item in "gadgets" merely because you could turn it on or off, it was in a metal bucket, and was part of an RP thing.

So this gets abuse-reported, evidently because it's not "a gadget" (however that may defined) but is "lighting". So I put it in "lighting"....only to have it abuse-reported AGAIN and removed -- evidently because it should have been put in "lighting>candles."

The problem with these removals is that the remover/Lindens don't tell you what category you SHOULD put something in, they just remove the item as if you are an evil false advertiser.

I have to wonder why this function exists. If there is a "category violation" it seems to me you should have 24 hours to fix it, and be told the category it should go in. If the latter is too impossible because there are too may, you should at least get time to fix it before your sales are stopped.

That someone would take the time to go viciously flag items that make less than a penny in real life and sell a few times a month if that is beyond me. Yet it's so very Second Life.

As with all ARs, it's my belief that as in RL, you should be able to face your accusers, and see the names of the people doing that. And then if there is a pattern of a few rivals or enemies doing it, the Lindens could then disclipline them for harassment. In an deal world. Which we don't live in.

Darrius Gothly · December 13, 2015

(this is becoming a scary habit but ...)

I have to agree with you Prokofy, I would guess the "violations" are the result of hecklers too. I also agree, it's juvenile and totally unwarranted.

Further, the lack of "where it SHOULD go" info in a Category Violation notice is .. just plain foolish. Clearly they disagree with your choice of category, and since you've already shown where you thought it should go, they NEED to tell you where they think it goes. Without that info, you have roughly 300 other choices you could make. *facepalm*

Sadly .. we have been requesting that additional info since the early dawn of the flagging system and, as you can see, we have had no response.

Maybe with the recent magic that's been wandering around Linden Halls ...

Sassy Romano · December 13, 2015

Darrius Gothly wrote:

(this is becoming a scary habit but ...)

You and me both.

Yes, totally agree with you Prokofy.

The whole flagging system is fundamentally broken and I much preferred it in the old days when you could add a paragraph as to why you were raising the flag.

Whenever I do see certain items, usually for gratuitious keyword spamming and flag it myself, I see it is "already flagged" yet still there... sometimes for days or weeks and never gets attention.

On the other hand, a single flag against my L$1,000,000 poseball for "inflated listing price" gets it removed instantly. I just leave this one up for flagging sport now because, it's NOT in violation of anythying, the listing even carries the apology from LL for incorrectly removing it and yet it still gets flagged and removed, proving that those who flag often do not understand the criteria, cannot read and similarly the droids who act upon an erroneous flag, also cannot read.

Prokofy Neva · December 13, 2015

I don't mind being flagged "for cause" if I have not understood the rules, or failed to read them, but flagging people over "lighting" and not "candle" or for putting something *properly* in breedables because that's indeed where it goes -- not every object for sale in breedables breeds! -- shouldn't be "on". And now I've had to change that to "home decor" so that it won't get removed again although I see everybody with all kinds of hats, tables, homes, toys etc for breedables that themselves aren't the breedable or even made by the vaunted breedable makers but just accessories. So they should have that category "Breedables accessories" like they do for avatars.

I hear you about how they don't allow you then to correct and re-post. When I first started using the VMM again more actively I put an item for sale and said "come and buy it in my store so you can be sure you're getting the right thing." It was a rather expensive rare gatcha and I was afraid of entrusting it to the VMM as it was new. And I thought somebody might prefer to come inworld and see it in person that it really was in the box and was what it said it was.

Turns out that's a violation because the whole point of MP is to keep people online paying taxes and fees to Linden rather than in world where all proceeds go to the maker (and this will change in Project Sansar). And I understand that and it's a rule, and therefore the store was rightly removed. But here's the problem. I can't put it back then as a $0 sale real-estate ad, which is the only way to advertise a store here. I don't see any other way. Lots of people do that. But now I can't because that name is flagged. So sure, I could change its name and try again but I'd just as soon not skirt the rules to avoid any future problems. Now I can't advertise my store. And I guess that's the idea -- God forbid you advertise your inworld store, heaven forfend. However, there is the "see it inworld" link which you can then add to some gatchas if you have a duplicate or you collected the entire set, let's say.

But I notice very often -- probably 75% of the time I would say! -- I click on "see it inworld" for other people's products and it is NOT THERE. The land is gone, the entire sim is gone. The person has left SL and left their stuff to kaching on the MP. And they don't answer service calls anymore. I can't blame them. But there should be a way to make those inworld links update. And probably the only way is to make people pay extra for them. And frankly, I'd be happy to do that, as if it were a separate ad. And that way people would have live links and they'd work and also you could get traffic to your store as well inworld.

Sassy Romano · December 13, 2015

Yes unfortunately things like teleport and MP links are all static and the tools for manging then are non existent.

To deal with merchants who have abandoned SL, some of us have asked for a MP listing refresh function. Such s every month, the months, could be a variable value based upon activity but if no SL logins and no MP refresh, auto delist the merchant.

None of this is difficult but yet another thing that is so low on the LL radar that it's subterranean.

Darrius Gothly · December 13, 2015

It's a lot of the "little things" that have foreseeable but apparently overlooked consequences. A recent example:

I was working quite a bit with bit.ly, a URL shortening service, for one of my projects. In the process I used their service to create several custom and very easily remembered short URLs to my products on SLM. The full URLs contained links to SLM with added search and display options .. so as to focus customers directly on the product set I wanted them to see.

And then they (LL) changed how URLs are parsed (without notice or warning) and all my carefuly crafted short easy to remember URLs .. go to the Marketplace Home Page. GAHHH!! You can't edit the full URL of a shortened URL either. So my careful branding and detail .. shot to pieces in one tiny unannounced change. Bleh!

A lot of my "experience" gained over the years comes from realizing I messed up .. fixing it .. then learning not to do the same thing again. As the saying goes "The best lessons are those we barely survive." I just wish there was a guaranteed way to make the lessons of the past stick in LL's brain as well. Sometimes it seems they purposely discard past successes and forge off into territory that is known to harbor dragons and quicksand. *sigh*

Sassy Romano · December 14, 2015

Darrius Gothly wrote:

I just wish there was a guaranteed way to make the lessons of the past stick in LL's brain as well. Sometimes it seems they purposely discard past successes and forge off into territory that is known to harbor dragons and quicksand. *sigh*

The answer was in your post. When you make a mistake that affects oneself negatively in a personal way, one makes a big effort to avoid it.

When the mistake has no personal impact and nobody is held to account for the consequences to others, there's no feedback loop that gets closed.

Darrius Gothly · December 14, 2015

Agreed. And I did my time working as a faceless, nameless cog in a giant machine. Still I had pride in what left my fingers and desk. I learned from mistakes I made .. no matter who brought them back to me. Especially those I spotted myself. (The hardest kick to your tail comes from your own foot.)

I doubt strongly that competent programmers have changed that much in personality and professional behavior. So should we assume its the attributes of their cradle that protects them from .. or even dissuades them from .. learning? That would thuck.

Gadzooks .. what a soulless environment that would be. Just shooting off code .. launching it into the ever-expanding darkness .. never to hear another word plus or minus?!? I would literally start shooting things .. with spitwads and rubber bands. THICK rubber bands too!

Dakota Linden · December 14, 2015

Hi All!

If a listing is reported for being in an incorrect category, it may be unlisted. When this happens, if your account is set to receive emails from the Marketplace when actions are taken against a listing, an email will be sent to the email address on file for your account.

This email will contain a link to the product and should also contain the suggested correct category for the item.

Products should always be placed into the most appropriate sub-category for the item.

Even if a product is in an appropriate Top Level category, if the item is not in the correct sub-category, it is subject to being reported and unlisted.

This information is clearly stated in the Marketplace Listing Guidelines.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/listing_guidelines#category-guidelines

Every product in a sub-category is shown in its Top Level category. So an item in the Candles sub-category will also be shown in the Home and Garden - Lighting category.

However, a candle product in the Home and Garden - Lighting category will not be shown in the Candle category.

The Breedables category does not have sub-categories for accessories, so those accessories should not be placed into the Breedables category.

There are existing categories already under Animals for Habitats, feed, and accessories.

The best way to determine if a product should be in a particular category or sub-category is to ask your "Is it a "sub-category"?" before selecting that category.

In the case of the thimble, the question would be "Is it a Breedable Fairy?" If the answer is no, then the Breedable Faries sub-category is not the correct one for the product.

Darrius Gothly · December 14, 2015

Good Moanday Moaning Dakota. Hope you rested.

I've never received one of the aforementioned emails. Nor have I had the distinction of putting something in the wrong category .. at least that's been flagged. (Brace for impact! LOL) But the number of people that mention, post about or whinge in private about having items pulled for wrong category violation also never mention seeing instructions as clear as you've posted here. Especially someone with Prok's voracious appetite for the written word, you'd naturally assume she reads everything provided in order to resolve her issues.

Are those instructions, or at least a link to them, provided in the email sent to people notifying them of the action? Is there a link to the "Action Case" so they can go see what item was specifically pulled, and when? Faiilng to have an email address on file, is there any other method provided for people to see notices from the Marketplace? (Like emails being saved in a log file of some sort .. similar to a support system log.)

I know that some folks are veeeeery skittish about putting an email address into a web site .. even one so reputable as Linden Lab. Others just hit maximum overload and shut off email notices by removing their email address or entering one that goes to dev/null. But computer software systems should be designed to compensate and accomodate human behavior, not punish people for being human. So ...

When a product gets pulled for any reason, it is a possibly catastrophic event for a Merchant. Even though they may have made it difficult to contact them easily, the Marketplace really should offer as many other avenues of information as is possible. So are those other avenues available? If so, what are they and where can we find them?

Dakota Linden · December 14, 2015

Hello Darrius,

A message is also displayed on the Second Life Marketplace.

Darrius Gothly · December 14, 2015

Ahh .. excellent! So if a merchant has shut off (or missed) the notification via email .. the next time they log in to their Merchant Home panel they will see the info about which product(s) was pulled and why? Along with the suggested Category in the case of category listing issue?

Thank you Dakota. Hey .. you wouldn't wanna give me your phone number .. would ya? Just in case ... ? *grin*

Sassy Romano · December 14, 2015

Darrius Gothly wrote:

Thank you Dakota. Hey .. you wouldn't wanna give me your phone number .. would ya? Just in case ... ? *grin*

Darrius...nice try but Dakota doesn't have time to date you, she's too busy nuking listings on Friday afternoons for the fun of it

(I'm confident that Dakota recognises my humour here)

Darrius Gothly · December 14, 2015

Sassy Romano wrote:

Darrius Gothly wrote:

Thank you Dakota. Hey .. you wouldn't wanna give me your phone number .. would ya? Just in case ... ? *grin*

Darrius...nice try but Dakota doesn't have time to date you, she's too busy nuking listings on Friday afternoons for the fun of it

(I'm confident that Dakota recognises my humour here)

She would .. if you didn't misspell it with that horrid "u" in there! Gack! :smileylol:

Sassy Romano · December 14, 2015

it's not my fault that you can't spell

Darrius Gothly · December 14, 2015

Dno't look at me! I splel jsut fnie!

ChinRey · December 16, 2015

Darrius Gothly wrote:

Dno't look at me! I splel jsut fnie!

I thought corrcet spellign was a TOS violaition?

DartAgain · December 16, 2015

Dakota Linden wrote:

In the case of the thimble, the question would be "Is it a Breedable Fairy?" If the answer is no, then the Breedable Faries sub-category is not the correct one for the product.

I do feel somewhat vindicated that the fae are still causing mischief in some small way, though.

Prokofy Neva · December 17, 2015

Dakota,

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Can you answer whether you or other Lindens are the ones that scour the MP for violations and flag them or do you only respond to flags from residents?

Also, the system doesn't work as you say. In fact, what happens is that although I have an email on file, when I log on, I see the message flash by telling me that I am in violation. There isn't anything about any category it could go in at all. And it says that it is now resetting and won't show the message again. So I don't even have a copy of the message to study -- it just flies by.

I have never received a single email with any of this information about flagging or categories or proposed new ones at all.

I realize you believe the system works the way in which you say and maybe it does for many but it sure doesn't for me.

Why should it matter if you have put a candle in home and garden/lighting whether you have gone the extra mile and put it in yet another sub-category, "candles"? This should be viewed from the perspective of whether a merchant sells or not and his problem, and not become a grounds for punitive action that stops sales. It seems to me that a not-fully-categorized item doesn't diminish from the Lab's Linden dollar sink project, after all, these are all sinks and not sources, right? Not real revenue when in Linden dollars? Or?

The problem with the "animals" versus "breedables" as a concept is that breedables really are separate. Animals are often just decorations for a lawn. Breedables are companions and fun and resellable and all the rest. So if you make things for them you're in a different world. I really think there should be a category called "breedables/accessories" precisely because not only do the original breedable makers make accessories, third parties also make them.

The goal of the MP should be to sell products, not stop sales.

Sassy Romano · December 17, 2015

Prokofy Neva wrote:

Dakota,

Can you answer whether you or other Lindens are the ones that scour the MP for violations and flag them or do you only respond to flags from residents?

The goal of the MP should be to sell products, not stop sales.

Also Dakota and i'll take a non answer as an inferred one here but whether the operatives actually look at the issue or just click and nuke flagged items without investigation?

I ask because I don't see that a valid investigation can always be done. Say an item has mixed permissions and one part of it is no mod, a prim part, lets not get into arguing about whether customers should be asking for mod scripts in a modify item.

Old listings may have mod as the permission and lets say that the whole item is generally mod but there's one part that isn't and that's the one I want to mod. As far as i'm concerned, the item is not as described and being an old listing, would pre-date the addition of "see item details" which was added later. It's not reasonable to expect merchants to go back over all listings.

Right so now I have an item that was apparently modify but I can't change it, it's not as advertised. I can only choose from a restricted list and can't state what the issue is that needs to be investigated. To a casual inspection, the item might appear ok but it's not.

You might say "take it up with the merchant", merchant says "ha ha, you gotta be kidding, stuff you!" hence the flag for "not as advertised: permissions".

So how much investigation is done? I offer answer of "none" as I know that some of my listings, one in particular gets flagged when it's wholly compliant and gets de-listed yet if the staff had even read the listing, they'd see the LL apology for prior de-listing incorrectly.

Another question, I presume there's only one binary state flag?

It's a shame that it's not an integer if that's the case. It would be a simpler task for LL to then do a daily sort "most flagged" to "least flagged" and investigate those.

It's really frustrating to see something that's already flagged and see it there for weeks. If it's getting lots of hits on that flag, then it should be prioritised for removal instead of being a popular product in search results but inappropriate for keyword spam but lost in the sea of all flagged listings.

The value of the flagging mechanism would be higher if something that was flagged 100 times in 2 days were removed than one item flagged once a year.

Does it have a count on that flag or is it just a binary state?

Dakota Linden · December 17, 2015

Prokofy Neva wrote:

Dakota,

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Can you answer whether you or other Lindens are the ones that scour the MP for violations and flag them or do you only respond to flags from residents?

Also, the system doesn't work as you say. In fact, what happens is that although I have an email on file, when I log on, I see the message flash by telling me that I am in violation. There isn't anything about any category it could go in at all. And it says that it is now resetting and won't show the message again. So I don't even have a copy of the message to study -- it just flies by.

I have never received a single email with any of this information about flagging or categories or proposed new ones at all.

I realize you believe the system works the way in which you say and maybe it does for many but it sure doesn't for me.

Why should it matter if you have put a candle in home and garden/lighting whether you have gone the extra mile and put it in yet another sub-category, "candles"? This should be viewed from the perspective of whether a merchant sells or not and his problem, and not become a grounds for punitive action that stops sales. It seems to me that a not-fully-categorized item doesn't diminish from the Lab's Linden dollar sink project, after all, these are all sinks and not sources, right? Not real revenue when in Linden dollars? Or?

The problem with the "animals" versus "breedables" as a concept is that breedables really are separate. Animals are often just decorations for a lawn. Breedables are companions and fun and resellable and all the rest. So if you make things for them you're in a different world. I really think there should be a category called "breedables/accessories" precisely because not only do the original breedable makers make accessories, third parties also make them.

The goal of the MP should be to sell products, not stop sales.

Hi Prokofy,

1. No, Linden Lab does not actively seek out violations in the Marketplace.

2. The message is displayed when you first log into the Marketplace. Once you acknowledge the message, it is dismissed.

3. If you are not receiving the emails from the Marketplace, please check to ensure that your email options are set to receive messages from the Marketplace when any action is taken. If the option is set to On, change it to Off, save the changes, then change it back to On. This should force an update to your settings. Also, check to ensure that your email service is not automatically filtering the messages as spam. The Marketplace sends out a large volume of email messages daily and some email providers have been known to flag the messages as spam.

4. The purpose of the categories and sub-categories on the Markeplace are the exact same as with any other online Marketplace or Brick and Morter store. When you go to your local grocery store, you expect to find milk in the Dairy section, but you expect to find it with the other milk products, and not stuck in the middle of the cheese and butter areas. When you look for hamburer meat, you expect to find it with the other beef products, not mixed into the middle of the chicken products.

Imagine if you will, the following scenario.

You need eggs. You head to your local grocery store and head to the Dairy section marked Eggs. Instead of just finding eggs, you are seeing a few gallons of milk, some cheese, and lots of butter all stuck on the same shelves. You glance around and realize that there are also eggs 3 sections down with the iced coffee, and further still in the lunch meat, bacon, and yogurt areas.

You look around and realize it isn't just the eggs that are like this. EVERYTHING in the store is stocked like that.

How often would you shop at that store?

While brick and morter stores pay employees to stock shelves, the Marketplace relies on the Merchants so stock their own products.

In the USA you normally see this with carbonated drinks companies. Coca Cola, Pepsi, etc., stock the shelves themselves. The employees of the brick and morter store do not.

This is the exact same with the Marketplace. It is the Merchants responsiblity to ensure that they stock their own products and that they do so correctly.

If a product is placed into the wrong location, intead of an employee restocking the item correctly, the item is moved to a back shelf. The next time the merchant logs in, they are given the product and advised that the item was stocked incorrectly and expected to correct the issue.

Linden Lab tries to notify the Merchants immediately. But it is ultimately the Merchants responsiblity to enure that their items are stocked properly.

5. Products are always changing. As with any living entity, the Marketplace needs constant care. This includes categories as times and products change. A call for submission was done in the past when categories were added and changed. When the next call goes out, please ensure that any suggestions you have for new categories, or changes to existing categories is submitted.

Dakota Linden · December 17, 2015