Apply for the Marketplace Direct Delivery Beta Program!

[Darrius Gothly]

ROFLMAO!!

Toy!! That is BRILLIANT in its simplicity. HAHAHAH!! I didn't think of that either till I read your post.

A Magic Box is already the PERFECT place to pull the delivery inventory from. As long as it exists, it has space in the Asset Server. Why go to all the trouble of building a new folder in your own inventory? Just use the Contents of the existing Magic boxes!!

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

ROFLMAO!!

Toy!! That is BRILLIANT in its simplicity. HAHAHAH!! I didn't think of that either till I read your post.

A Magic Box is already the PERFECT place to pull the delivery inventory from. As long as it exists, it has space in the Asset Server. Why go to all the trouble of building a new folder in your own inventory? Just use the Contents of the existing Magic boxes!!

---

Thanks!  Seems to make all the sense to me. 

Now even Sassy and Zanara who both believe that "it all happens in the Asset Server/DB" and the DD is just a simple SQL call process, might agree that a DD process happening on the 1 million+  SLM ASSETS inside the already existing 100,000+ magicboxes which all have their Assets/UUID located in the Asset Server, might be the better system design idea than...

to force the 50K+ Merchants to migrate/transfer all their SLM item assets in their magicboxes (or wherever they will be forced to populate this new DD system folder from) and further bloat already oversized personal avatar account inventories.

But, as you know Darrius, LL has a 99.9% track record of not listening to any customers or merchants (except the rare exclusive few) - no matter how good an idea it is.  The reason, the LL Dev team has likely 90% coded and internally released this DD code based on a fundamentally weak/flawed solution they came up with.   1) they are too stubborn/impatient to actually back track on all the work they already did...  2)  they egos would be majorly bruised that a group of Merchant knowing a fraction of the system layout of SLM and SL actually come up with a much more simple and elegent and painless DD solution than they did.

So.... this good idea will just go under... "Good Concept - Kudos! Now shutup and let us drive"

But thank Darrius !

[Sassy Romano]

For those with many products, splitting them across boxes and then maintaining mutliple copies of those magic boxes can be an unwanted administrative burden, prone to accidental product version issues, plus needing a bit of land for each of those box locations.

As for redundancy, redundancy of what?  Adding multiple extra links to the same central asset UUID in the asset cluster doesn't gain anything if direct delivery is already sending from that central asset UUID. Having lots of apparent redundant magic boxes would be of no benefit if the central asset server was not available.

Bloating inventory?  Surely creators already have the original version in their inventory of their item?  I'm expecting DD to introduce a "Sales folder" and all you'd do is add an inventory link to that or move the original.  No bloat.

Also bear in mind that the object UUID inside the magic box is just a pointer to the item in the asset server so ... if all you had to do was drag back the content of your magic boxes, all those that you scattered around, to the "Sales folder" and that was it, how hard would that be?  I could have done that faster than write this response and I don't know if it would be as simple as that, i'm sure it could be made so that it's not

I do agree that the Marketplace team operates in isolation from their key stakeholders and display little evidence of what we actually need and how their changes affect us but if I have the opportunity to participate in the beta then i'd rather know what i'm going to be dealing with than not.

We shall see, until then FUD really doesn't help anyone.

[Hintswen Guardian]

 

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

Plus needing a bit of land for each of those box locations.

---

 

Many merchants who have multiple magic boxes also have multiple stores, there are also rent a prim places which will allow people to keep a second box rezzed without the need for extra land.

 

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

As for redundancy, redundancy of what?  Adding multiple extra links to the same central asset UUID in the asset cluster doesn't gain anything if direct delivery is already sending from that central asset UUID. Having lots of apparent redundant magic boxes would be of no benefit if the central asset server was not available.

---

 

The scripts. If the region is down the scripts will not be running and cannot deliver any inventory. It has nothing to do with the asser server not bieng availiable.

 

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

Bloating inventory?  Surely creators already have the original version in their inventory of their item?  I'm expecting DD to introduce a "Sales folder" and all you'd do is add an inventory link to that or move the original.  No bloat.

---

 

Not all people keep their original copy in their inventory. I know some of my products are not in my inventory, only my Magic Boxes.

 

[Darrius Gothly]

The effort required to set up DD using a new delivery folder for the merchants is ... everyone must create the new folder (unless LL creates it for them), then build the appropriate product folders inside the special folder, then copy or move the delivery versions into the new product folders, then verify on Marketplace that everything matches up by editing each and every listing.

The effort required to set up DD with existing Magic Boxes being the source of objects is .. nothing. The Marketplace already knows all of our Magic Boxes, it already has the association of the Product Listings to the objects inside those Magic Boxes, and all the necessary relationships are already in place.

I'm reasonably sure that given a choice between editing every single listing AGAIN or simply having things automatically switch over to DD .. most merchants will choose the automatic option.

Over time, if you want to go through the process, you can move everything into one overstuffed Magic Box and remove all the others. But even if you don't, it won't matter because everything will work using Asset Server database copies and totally eliminate the need for scripted delivery.

[Sassy Romano]

---

Hintswen Guardian wrote:

 

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

Plus needing a bit of land for each of those box locations.

---

 

Many merchants who have multiple magic boxes also have multiple stores, there are also rent a prim places which will allow people to keep a second box rezzed without the need for extra land.

 

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

As for redundancy, redundancy of what?  Adding multiple extra links to the same central asset UUID in the asset cluster doesn't gain anything if direct delivery is already sending from that central asset UUID. Having lots of apparent redundant magic boxes would be of no benefit if the central asset server was not available.

---

 

The scripts. If the region is down the scripts will not be running and cannot deliver any inventory. It has nothing to do with the asser server not bieng availiable.

 

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

Bloating inventory?  Surely creators already have the original version in their inventory of their item?  I'm expecting DD to introduce a "Sales folder" and all you'd do is add an inventory link to that or move the original.  No bloat.

---

 

Not all people keep their original copy in their inventory. I know some of my products are not in my inventory, only my Magic Boxes.

 

---

Multiple boxes = lots more administrative effort, I mentioned, that, i'm happy to move from that model.

You mentioned scripts, there will be no scripts needed for Direct Delivery, that's the point and why I said multiple magic boxes in the way that was mentioned will not introduce any redundancy at all, only perceived.

[Sassy Romano]

We don't know the exact process yet Darius, hence my mention of not adding any more FUD. 

I understood what was being proposed and yes doing nothing is often preferable but doing something that's little effort and even has both short and long term benefit is even more preferable.   Well it is to me anyway.

[Darrius Gothly]

We do know that they intend to take it from our personal inventory. Of course they have been incredibly quiet about ANY details, so that may have changed too.

There is one really effective preventative against FUD though .. explain what the heck is going on! Silence breeds FUD, not the other way 'round.

[Sassy Romano]

A typical Project worksheet for stakeholder involvement:-

http://sites.google.com/site/ravisat/Project_Planning_Stakeholder_Involve.GIF

The one for LL results in a 404.

[Rya Nitely]

 

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

The effort required to set up DD using a new delivery folder for the merchants is ... everyone must create the new folder (unless LL creates it for them), then build the appropriate product folders inside the special folder, then copy or move the delivery versions into the new product folders, then verify on Marketplace that everything matches up by editing each and every listing.

The effort required to set up DD with existing Magic Boxes being the source of objects is .. nothing. The Marketplace already knows all of our Magic Boxes, it already has the association of the Product Listings to the objects inside those Magic Boxes, and all the necessary relationships are already in place.

I'm reasonably sure that given a choice between editing every single listing AGAIN or simply having things automatically switch over to DD .. most merchants will choose the automatic option.

Over time, if you want to go through the process, you can move everything into one overstuffed Magic Box and remove all the others. But even if you don't, it won't matter because everything will work using Asset Server database copies and totally eliminate the need for scripted delivery.

---

The reward for the effort of setting up DD using a new delivery folder is long term convenience.

Darrius, If you had a larger inventory, and you were actively updating and adding new items, making small changes and having to TP over 3 sims to replace the item in your magic box then you would know how inconvenient they are. I have to update mine everyday, usually several times a day, and I only have one magic box - I can only imagine how much harder it would be if you had multiple.The best thing about this system is that your marketplace inventory will be with you all the time, no matter where you are you will be able to update or add to your inventory or do fast manual deliveries to customers directly from your marketplace inventory. I often grab an item from my magic box to manually deliver to customers (this insures they get the latest version), and to do this I have to TP over to the magic box, rez the item and then take it into my inventory and then send it. It's a big headache.

And as for merchants taking the time to move items to the new DD folder - this is good because all those merchants who are no longer actively maintaining their products will be left behind when Magic boxes become obsolete.

 

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Rya Nitely wrote:

 

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

The effort required to set up DD using a new delivery folder for the merchants is ... everyone must create the new folder (unless LL creates it for them), then build the appropriate product folders inside the special folder, then copy or move the delivery versions into the new product folders, then verify on Marketplace that everything matches up by editing each and every listing.

The effort required to set up DD with existing Magic Boxes being the source of objects is .. nothing. The Marketplace already knows all of our Magic Boxes, it already has the association of the Product Listings to the objects inside those Magic Boxes, and all the necessary relationships are already in place.

I'm reasonably sure that given a choice between editing every single listing AGAIN or simply having things automatically switch over to DD .. most merchants will choose the automatic option.

Over time, if you want to go through the process, you can move everything into one overstuffed Magic Box and remove all the others. But even if you don't, it won't matter because everything will work using Asset Server database copies and totally eliminate the need for scripted delivery.

---

The reward for the effort of setting up DD using a new delivery folder is long term convenience.

Darrius, If you had a larger inventory, and you were actively updating and adding new items, making small changes and having to TP over 3 sims to replace the item in your magic box then you would know how inconvenient they are. I have to update mine everyday, usually several times a day, and I only have one magic box - I can only imagine how much harder it would be if you had multiple.The best thing about this system is that your marketplace inventory will be with you all the time, no matter where you are you will be able to update or add to your inventory or do fast manual deliveries to customers directly from your marketplace inventory. I often grab an item from my magic box to manually deliver to customers (this insures they get the latest version), and to do this I have to TP over to the magic box, rez the item and then take it into my inventory and then send it. It's a big headache.

And as for merchants taking the time to move items to the new DD folder - this is good because all those merchants who are no longer actively maintaining their products will be left behind when Magic boxes become obsolete.

 

---

This is where although I see your points (and sassy's) I disagree that this is that big of an inconvenience.  Specially with one Magic box - like I have.

again... I like the idea that the DD migration would have ZERO involvement for the 50,000 merchants versus the System Folder - which will impact all 50,000 merchants.  And this is being dismissed by both u and sassy as not a big deal and in fact for the Greater good.  totally disagree with you on this. 

A system geek that only thinks of technology would dismiss the migration inconvenience of 50,000 merchants.  You need to think about your users.  short and long term.

you both mention the greater good of the convenience of the SLM inventory in your main inventory as a system folder but totally dismiss the risks and security and the performance lag.

Unlike you.... I have one magic box and I LOVE and deeply want to maintain my SLM sellable inventory in a seperate rezzed object that is apart from my personal inventory.  I do not see how its so inconvenient that I would want to have to add the risk of DD accessing my personal inventory and increase my inventory size to add more lag and to have a folder i can accidently manipulate.

You both dismiss the benefits of the SLM items having distinct isolation.

AND it will clean up as much as the painful migration from xstreet to slm did.  That cleanup of SLM will not do ANYTHING to help slm or your sales.  so that is a wasted benefit.

[Darrius Gothly]

 

---

Rya Nitely wrote:

 

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

The effort required to set up DD using a new delivery folder for the merchants is ... everyone must create the new folder (unless LL creates it for them), then build the appropriate product folders inside the special folder, then copy or move the delivery versions into the new product folders, then verify on Marketplace that everything matches up by editing each and every listing.

The effort required to set up DD with existing Magic Boxes being the source of objects is .. nothing. The Marketplace already knows all of our Magic Boxes, it already has the association of the Product Listings to the objects inside those Magic Boxes, and all the necessary relationships are already in place.

I'm reasonably sure that given a choice between editing every single listing AGAIN or simply having things automatically switch over to DD .. most merchants will choose the automatic option.

Over time, if you want to go through the process, you can move everything into one overstuffed Magic Box and remove all the others. But even if you don't, it won't matter because everything will work using Asset Server database copies and totally eliminate the need for scripted delivery.

---

The reward for the effort of setting up DD using a new delivery folder is long term convenience.

Darrius, If you had a larger inventory, and you were actively updating and adding new items, making small changes and having to TP over 3 sims to replace the item in your magic box then you would know how inconvenient they are. I have to update mine everyday, usually several times a day, and I only have one magic box - I can only imagine how much harder it would be if you had multiple.The best thing about this system is that your marketplace inventory will be with you all the time, no matter where you are you will be able to update or add to your inventory or do fast manual deliveries to customers directly from your marketplace inventory. I often grab an item from my magic box to manually deliver to customers (this insures they get the latest version), and to do this I have to TP over to the magic box, rez the item and then take it into my inventory and then send it. It's a big headache.

And as for merchants taking the time to move items to the new DD folder - this is good because all those merchants who are no longer actively maintaining their products will be left behind when Magic boxes become obsolete.

 

---

 

The beauty of moving the DD system's "source" to the inventory inside our Magic Boxes is that you will no longer "need" to maintain multiple boxes on multiple Sims. The whole purpose of those multiple boxes is to eliminate delivery lag when items need to be sent out. After the switch to DD begins, the items will not be sent by commanding a remote script to deliver the item, but by simply copying the item's data record to the recipient's inventory "file". Basically the logic to figure out which item to send remains in place .. the only change is that instead of calling a routine that ultimately sends a command to the magic box, DD calls a replacement routine that copies the data record. Net result .. very small code changes .. further resulting in faster implementation with higher success rate.

Next comes the UI design. There is none to be done. The Marketplace already has in place everything needed to accept "Contents Updates" from the Magic Boxes. In fact, all of our listings already have Magic Box content items associated properly. In order to add an item, you simply drop it into one of your Magic Boxes and .. in short order it is available. You won't need boxes on multiple Sims anymore because the contents list of the Magic Boxes will never be "offline" the way Sims go offline now. So after the switch to DD begins, you can immediately go pick up all your duplicated boxes .. they aren't needed any more. But you will leave the set you have on your "home" Sim and continue updating them in exactly the same way you do now.

If you want, you can even eliminate the extra boxes in your home Sim too. The only reason to restrict the number of items in a Magic Box now is to speed the delivery process .. specifically reduce the amount of inventory lookup the Magic Box must do when told to deliver an item. But since that will happen on the Asset Server, it happens at DBMS key lookup speed (which is VERY fast) and not at the molasses-like speed of the scripted lookup that happens now.

However it ALSO allows you to keep multiple Magic Boxes so you can organize your deliverables into categories, product lines, or whatever classification you might wish, without adding extra folders or other confusing hierarchical nonsense. Starting a new Product Line? Drop out a new Magic Box, put your items in it .. and presto the entire process of making those items ready for delivery is done. And ALL that code works now! There is nothing new to write or test!

As for disabling (or weeding out) items from inactive Merchants .. LL missed that boat already when they ported everything over to the Marketplace. They could have easily said "Mark the items you want ported over and we will copy them for you." Or they could have said "All items will be migrated in the inactive state and you must mark them active to make them deliverable." They had several ways to weed out those inactive merchants then .. and they completely avoided those options. I think they WANT to keep those items listed, just as they do not want to remove old and clearly abandoned user accounts. It must be painfully obvious to them, just by looking at accounts that have a "last login date" prior to the migration, which ones are truly unserviced and unattended. It would take a simple SQL Select query to wipe out every single "dead" account .. in a matter of minutes. They do not need to put all 50,000 of us through another marathon drill to figure out which accounts are no longer attended.

(In fact, their move to connect the In-World account balance with the XStreet account balance made it even more possible for people to become absentee merchants ... as there was no longer a need for anyone to log in to Second Life at all in order to cash out their proceeds from sales.)

The benefits to this plan are many. The development time is greatly reduced .. the introduction of new and untested code minimized .. the need for complicated UI interfaces eliminated .. the need for multiple Magic Boxes spread over the grid eliminated .. and the overall disruption to the Merchant community reduced to almost zero. What's NOT to like about this idea?

[Sassy Romano]

What's not to like about MP inventory in a single prim?  Go and manipulate 1000+ objects in a single prim content and you'll have the answer!

As Rya pointed out, some dislike the need to tp back to that box, find the object with a huge number of objects is a pain.  Our inventory has "search", object content does not.

If the region is down, I can't get to it.

If i'm not logged in with a gui client, I can't get to it but I can log in using a text SL client and get to my inventory and deliver.

Still needs land to put it on, some people would prefer not to have that need and it will be redundant to own land if it's direct from inventory.  (I'm not suggesting the land thing is good or bad, just that's what some would prefer)

Finally, as you say, there's no need to have redundant boxes, so can consolidate all into one which at that point is no different to just copying all to a folder in inventory so it's all around how that's handled by LL, in fact it's less steps to leave them in the right folder in inventory than to then drag them back to the single box.

Either way not all will be happy but i'd rather just see what's offered than have the constant FUD going around.

 

[Darrius Gothly]

 

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

What's not to like about MP inventory in a single prim?  Go and manipulate 1000+ objects in a single prim content and you'll have the answer!

As Rya pointed out, some dislike the need to tp back to that box, find the object with a huge number of objects is a pain.  Our inventory has "search", object content does not.

If the region is down, I can't get to it.

If i'm not logged in with a gui client, I can't get to it but I can log in using a text SL client and get to my inventory and deliver.

Still needs land to put it on, some people would prefer not to have that need and it will be redundant to own land if it's direct from inventory.  (I'm not suggesting the land thing is good or bad, just that's what some would prefer)

Finally, as you say, there's no need to have redundant boxes, so can consolidate all into one which at that point is no different to just copying all to a folder in inventory so it's all around how that's handled by LL, in fact it's less steps to leave them in the right folder in inventory than to then drag them back to the single box.

Either way not all will be happy but i'd rather just see what's offered than have the constant FUD going around.

 

---

 

Well .. I wouldn't put 1000 objects into a single prim. Nor would I want to manage a folder with 1000 objects in it either .. even with Search. I'd want to have some way to categorize or organize the contents of that folder .. most likely with subfolders. But from what little has been said about DD and the way they intend to implement it .. you won't have that option. (But that remains to be seen .. so we'll postpone that rant until they actually say which way they're doing it.)

If you need to manually deliver something, DD won't change that. But if you need to manually deliver something because a delivery from Marketplace failed .. then DD failed too .. and that's what they're fixing. So if you still need to do manual deliveries, DD doesn't work.

I'm not sure how most folks work, but when I'm ready to release something it's because I've finished packaging it, adding notecards, landmarks, etc .. and i'm in world at that time. It's zero effort to TP to my box (and even less when I'm working in my lab where my boxes are located) and drop the item inside. I will grant you that copying or moving the "finished box" to a delivery folder will be easier and won't require access to the Sim where the Magic Box is located .. but seriously how often do you release something when your home sim is down? And if it is down, how long do you wait for it to come back? An hour .. at most? So even if I "package and finish" my product in some location other than where my Magic Boxes are located, I'm pretty much assured I can get to them to finish the process in short order.

Now onto your last statement .. this is not FUD. This is us trying to work out how to make their goals of Direct Delivery match up with our needs as Merchants. The only thing that makes this FUD-like is the fact that it's a totally one-sided (merchants only) discussion. Well .. there's only one party that can FIX that too .. Linden Lab and the Marketplace Devs.

You're a computer professional .. same as me. We BOTH know that there are ways to answer the questions and concerns that have been raised without giving away company secrets. There's also no reason to keep a lot of this stuff secret anyway. As I've already pointed out, they have a 100% lock on the DD concept because absolutely no one else can compete with them at that level.

Direct Delivery is going to be a radical change in how Merchants sell through the Marketplace. Radical changes come with a large opportunity to be massively destructive .. or incredibly simple. In the past, they have shown little concern for the impact it has on us .. the Merchants. The fact that they don't even have enough respect for us to give us some basic information that could dispell a lot of concerns .. shows me they STILL have no respect.

And if they don't respect what concerns us .. they DAMN sure won't care that their "glorious fix" also causes us more months and months of hassle and confusion. Remember Sassy .. one Dev on their team fixing one problem is just that .. one problem fixed. But if that one Dev pushes that problem onto us, it suddenly multiplies into 50,000 problems because EVERY merchant will have to face it, overcome it or work around it. That is a bit of math that to date seems totally lost on their development team.

ETA: Forgot the "Land for Magic Box" issue: Yes, Merchants will still need land to rez a Magic Box. There are already merchants in business renting land for that purpose. There are tons of places and helpful people that will loan you enough space for one or two prims if you can't afford to rent space. It's a non-problem. But wiping out the need for Magic Boxes will also put a big dent in an existing service/income stream for some folks .. and we honestly do not need more Linden Lab efforts that compete with existing businesses. Linden Homes took a bite out of prefab and home builders as well as home furnishing makers .. wasn't that enough of a lesson to not compete with your own customers?

[Rya Nitely]

 

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

 

The beauty of moving the DD system's "source" to the inventory inside our Magic Boxes is that you will no longer "need" to maintain multiple boxes on multiple Sims. The whole purpose of those multiple boxes is to eliminate delivery lag when items need to be sent out. After the switch to DD begins, the items will not be sent by commanding a remote script to deliver the item, but by simply copying the item's data record to the recipient's inventory "file". Basically the logic to figure out which item to send remains in place .. the only change is that instead of calling a routine that ultimately sends a command to the magic box, DD calls a replacement routine that copies the data record. Net result .. very small code changes .. further resulting in faster implementation with higher success rate.

Next comes the UI design. There is none to be done. The Marketplace already has in place everything needed to accept "Contents Updates" from the Magic Boxes. In fact, all of our listings already have Magic Box content items associated properly. In order to add an item, you simply drop it into one of your Magic Boxes and .. in short order it is available. You won't need boxes on multiple Sims anymore because the contents list of the Magic Boxes will never be "offline" the way Sims go offline now. So after the switch to DD begins, you can immediately go pick up all your duplicated boxes .. they aren't needed any more. But you will leave the set you have on your "home" Sim and continue updating them in exactly the same way you do now.

If you want, you can even eliminate the extra boxes in your home Sim too. The only reason to restrict the number of items in a Magic Box now is to speed the delivery process .. specifically reduce the amount of inventory lookup the Magic Box must do when told to deliver an item. But since that will happen on the Asset Server, it happens at DBMS key lookup speed (which is VERY fast) and not at the molasses-like speed of the scripted lookup that happens now.

However it ALSO allows you to keep multiple Magic Boxes so you can organize your deliverables into categories, product lines, or whatever classification you might wish, without adding extra folders or other confusing hierarchical nonsense. Starting a new Product Line? Drop out a new Magic Box, put your items in it .. and presto the entire process of making those items ready for delivery is done. And ALL that code works now! There is nothing new to write or test!

As for disabling (or weeding out) items from inactive Merchants .. LL missed that boat already when they ported everything over to the Marketplace. They could have easily said "Mark the items you want ported over and we will copy them for you." Or they could have said "All items will be migrated in the inactive state and you must mark them active to make them deliverable." They had several ways to weed out those inactive merchants then .. and they completely avoided those options. I think they WANT to keep those items listed, just as they do not want to remove old and clearly abandoned user accounts. It must be painfully obvious to them, just by looking at accounts that have a "last login date" prior to the migration, which ones are truly unserviced and unattended. It would take a simple SQL Select query to wipe out every single "dead" account .. in a matter of minutes. They do not need to put all 50,000 of us through another marathon drill to figure out which accounts are no longer attended.

(In fact, their move to connect the In-World account balance with the XStreet account balance made it even more possible for people to become absentee merchants ... as there was no longer a need for anyone to log in to Second Life at all in order to cash out their proceeds from sales.)

The benefits to this plan are many. The development time is greatly reduced .. the introduction of new and untested code minimized .. the need for complicated UI interfaces eliminated .. the need for multiple Magic Boxes spread over the grid eliminated .. and the overall disruption to the Merchant community reduced to almost zero. What's NOT to like about this idea?

---

 

I try to read everything you write in your repiies, which are often long but I take the time because that is courtesy. My replies are not long, so if you respond please take the time to read them properly. You keep talking about my multiple magic boxes, where I specifically said I only have one. Nevertheless, it is a huge inconvenience to work on an item in one sim and have to TP back to my home sim to put it in the magic box. Just because you and Toy don't experience it you need to allow that others do. (I remember a recent post of Toy's where he said the last item he created was August. )

What you said about LL missing the boat in weeding out inactive merchants, you're probably right, and they might find a way to keep them all on board this time round too. 

@ Toy  Unsupported items are a problem when inactive merchants collect the money but no longer log in to provide customer service. In my opinion that's almost like stealing, but that's a different subject.

[Darrius Gothly]

 

---

Rya Nitely wrote:

I try to read everything you write in your repiies, which are often long but I take the time because that is courtesy. My replies are not long, so if you respond please take the time to read them properly. You keep talking about my multiple magic boxes, where I specifically said I only have one. Nevertheless, it is a huge inconvenience to work on an item in one sim and have to TP back to my home sim to put it in the magic box. Just because you and Toy don't experience it you need to allow that others do. (I remember a recent post of Toy's where he said the last item he created was August. )

---

 

You're right .. I did misread you. I saw the bit about tping across 3 sims and leapt to the conclusion you had boxes spread out like that. I totally missed the "only one box" that came shortly thereafter. My apologies.

May I ask why you have your Magic Box located somewhere other than where you make your items?

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

The beauty of moving the DD system's "source" to the inventory inside our Magic Boxes is that you will no longer "need" to maintain multiple boxes on multiple Sims. The whole purpose of those multiple boxes is to eliminate delivery lag when items need to be sent out. After the switch to DD begins, the items will not be sent by commanding a remote script to deliver the item, but by simply copying the item's data record to the recipient's inventory "file". Basically the logic to figure out which item to send remains in place .. the only change is that instead of calling a routine that ultimately sends a command to the magic box, DD calls a replacement routine that copies the data record. Net result .. very small code changes .. further resulting in faster implementation with higher success rate.

Next comes the UI design. There is none to be done. The Marketplace already has in place everything needed to accept "Contents Updates" from the Magic Boxes. In fact, all of our listings already have Magic Box content items associated properly. In order to add an item, you simply drop it into one of your Magic Boxes and .. in short order it is available. You won't need boxes on multiple Sims anymore because the contents list of the Magic Boxes will never be "offline" the way Sims go offline now. So after the switch to DD begins, you can immediately go pick up all your duplicated boxes .. they aren't needed any more. But you will leave the set you have on your "home" Sim and continue updating them in exactly the same way you do now.

If you want, you can even eliminate the extra boxes in your home Sim too. The only reason to restrict the number of items in a Magic Box now is to speed the delivery process .. specifically reduce the amount of inventory lookup the Magic Box must do when told to deliver an item. But since that will happen on the Asset Server, it happens at DBMS key lookup speed (which is VERY fast) and not at the molasses-like speed of the scripted lookup that happens now.

However it ALSO allows you to keep multiple Magic Boxes so you can organize your deliverables into categories, product lines, or whatever classification you might wish, without adding extra folders or other confusing hierarchical nonsense. Starting a new Product Line? Drop out a new Magic Box, put your items in it .. and presto the entire process of making those items ready for delivery is done. And ALL that code works now! There is nothing new to write or test!

As for disabling (or weeding out) items from inactive Merchants .. LL missed that boat already when they ported everything over to the Marketplace. They could have easily said "Mark the items you want ported over and we will copy them for you." Or they could have said "All items will be migrated in the inactive state and you must mark them active to make them deliverable." They had several ways to weed out those inactive merchants then .. and they completely avoided those options. I think they WANT to keep those items listed, just as they do not want to remove old and clearly abandoned user accounts. It must be painfully obvious to them, just by looking at accounts that have a "last login date" prior to the migration, which ones are truly unserviced and unattended. It would take a simple SQL Select query to wipe out every single "dead" account .. in a matter of minutes. They do not need to put all 50,000 of us through another marathon drill to figure out which accounts are no longer attended.

(In fact, their move to connect the In-World account balance with the XStreet account balance made it even more possible for people to become absentee merchants ... as there was no longer a need for anyone to log in to Second Life at all in order to cash out their proceeds from sales.)

The benefits to this plan are many. The development time is greatly reduced .. the introduction of new and untested code minimized .. the need for complicated UI interfaces eliminated .. the need for multiple Magic Boxes spread over the grid eliminated .. and the overall disruption to the Merchant community reduced to almost zero. What's NOT to like about this idea?

---

I really cannot add much more to the benefits of changing the DD source to the already existing MagicBoxes that Darrius didnt already say above.

We can debate and discuss how the LL "System Folder in your Inventory" has some benefits but honestly, they cannot compared to the development, migration, and simplicity of using the Magicboxes as a source.

Remember ppl, we ARE NOT talking about deploying a DD system that will impact:

•  a small system,  with
•  a small amount of information (over a million SLM items / listings), that
• currently stores all their items in a small number of locations (guessing 3 x Merchants or 150K Magicboxes)
• very small number of direct system Users (roughly guessing 50,000 impacted Merchants), with 
• and a small number of indirect users of the system (All the SLM shoppers), that
• generates a few daily transactions (I can only guess the daily sales transactions in SLM)

So, when designing new systems and system function into a service of this size and magnitude, a systems architect and a solution developer CANNOT dismiss the impacts of their changes to this large a systems.

What might seem like the perfect solution to one Merchant who is willing to take a little pain for the convenience of having his/her inventory in their personal inventory, does not make it the best larger scale solution for the entire system.

A solution designer needs to look at the bigger picture and risks/impact to transition are MAJOR ones that cannot be dismissed.  And as Darrius pointed out, there is no arguing that if the new DD system were to change its source to the MagicBox instead of switching ALL 50,000 merchant's SLM items to their personal inventory, HANDS DOWN the easiest and most simple solution for LL to go forward with is a DD that leverages the Magicboxes.

THAT BEING SAID.... and thinking strategically....

If LL were smart and changed the DD to source the Magicboxes as the first deploy.... they would have perfectly positioned their DD service to execute on phase two (which is what I have been advocating all along) of the DD service expansion....

They could later exapnd the DD service to ADDITIONAL & CONFIGURABLE SOURCES !!

Phase 2 of DD:  to add Personal Inventory SLM System Folder as a source & a means for the Merchant to set which one they would prefer to use (for those that want ultra convenience vs security)

Phase 3 of DD: to add the source of an Alt Account (i.e. the account of a business partner or central business account)

 

BUT.... the 1st phase must be to deploy the solution with the smallest transition impact to the huge userbase of SLM.  That is the source of the Magicboxes.

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

What's not to like about MP inventory in a single prim?  Go and manipulate 1000+ objects in a single prim content and you'll have the answer!

As Rya pointed out, some dislike the need to tp back to that box, find the object with a huge number of objects is a pain.  Our inventory has "search", object content does not.

If the region is down, I can't get to it.

If i'm not logged in with a gui client, I can't get to it but I can log in using a text SL client and get to my inventory and deliver.

Still needs land to put it on, some people would prefer not to have that need and it will be redundant to own land if it's direct from inventory.  (I'm not suggesting the land thing is good or bad, just that's what some would prefer)

Finally, as you say, there's no need to have redundant boxes, so can consolidate all into one which at that point is no different to just copying all to a folder in inventory so it's all around how that's handled by LL, in fact it's less steps to leave them in the right folder in inventory than to then drag them back to the single box.

Either way not all will be happy but i'd rather just see what's offered than have the constant FUD going around.

 

---

First of all Sassy... I wish ppl would stop calling this FUD in the terms of it being some negative connotation. 

1)  The only reason we can call discussing concerns of an upcoming system that will impact ALL OF US and that has to-date no released details by LL as FUD is because all we have to go on right now is what little trickle of information LL has allowed to leak into the public (or that their first wave of secret Merchants in the know have let leak).  In light of the little data we have now - we know enough to know the general idea and we are discussing the potential concerns of a DD system that would follow this model.  If that is called FUD... then great. 

2) Even if we knew more details, discussing the potential negative impacts of a system is not FUD... its a healthy and extremely important component of proper system design that helps detect potential future issues at deploy / prodcution time.  Sassy - you sound like a person in the tech industry.  I would have to guess you must have been in some large scale systems developments and deployments.  If so, are you telling me that your design team NEVER discussed the potential negative impacts of a solution from transition and production/operations views?  As a solution designer myself, this FUD process as you are calling it is a major part of my week for my own designs and those of others on my teams.

As for your points on the negatives of the Magicbox solution...

 

1. I will challenge you and ask you how many times in your career as a Merchant of SLM has your Magicbox not been available to you to access it (i.e. to have it available to ADD or REMOVE an item) because your sim, parcel, region has been down?  I know your SLM store is likely much larger than mine but are you saying your magicbox is on a sim (likely where your store is) that is down so often that you have frequently not been able to access your Magicbox?  If so Sassy, I would suggest that you have MUCH BIGGER ISSUE!
2. Even if your store sim where you locate your magicbox on is crashing so many times that you cannot effectively access your magicbox (which I debate how many times this really happens to you), how critical is it really that you NEED access to the magicbox at that exact time to add or remove an item.  Remember, in the new DD Magicbox soruce model, the only time you need access to the Magicbox is to add or remove an item.  NOTHING ELSE.  If its an emergency issue - you can delist an item on the SLM site.
3. So, you brought it the issue of FUD... I challenge you that your points on access to the magicbox truly qualifies as FUD since the issue rarely happens now on a real live system and the impact of this problem is not critical at all - when the sim comes back up - you can access your magic box.
4. As such, any of your points / issues with the magicbox model that relate to accessing it the MINUTE YOU NEED IT would also not be a big concern since for 99.9% of Merchants - this would be something most merchants would simply wait till the magicbox is available again.
5. I would agree that it would be nice if the SOURCE (regardless of what is the source) would have a form of subfolder management but the magicboxes nor the SLM system folder would likely have this feature.
6. I would agree that currently you would have the ability to search in a system folder vs a magicbox and if you had a box with 1000 item - this becomes more important.  But, at least for me, of ALL the SLM Merchant activities I have in a given day week year - one of the smallest activities I have is working inside my Magicbox.  So I am quite surprised that all your issues you bring up against the Magicbox as the first source related to maintaining it.  In the grand scheme of all the benefits and impacts that either DD solution should be considering - I do not see this as a big one.

 

[Toysoldier Thor]

Rya,

I so agree that an issue of inactive SLM Merchant accounts and inactive selling items should be addressed.  This was an issue that LL tried via a wrong approach to address in 2009 with the Money grabbing Monthly LISTING TAXES.

But yes - if a proper solution could be deployed (some ideas were brought forward to LL via forums but as usual LL never engages in any healthy solution discussions with Mechants) then I would be all for it.

but like you said... that is a different subject.

[Toysoldier Thor]

Yesterday I did poke at Rodvik about the serious concerns I have on LL Commerce Team's misguided activities, like the Dash Deal efforts and the weak architecture of the upcoming Direct Delivery.  He did respond saying he would bring these concerns to the LL Commerce Team.

I would stop pumping the "FUD" as Sassy calls it if Brooke's development team would engage an open discussion with us interested merchants with concerns of the current DD design and with what we feel are much more solids designs on DD.

I truly do hope Rodvik does talk to Brooke and company and asks them and the development team to look more seriously at our concerns as well as our ideas for what would be a much more SEAMLESS DD solution to deploy.

Its not just for our benefit - its for theirs!

If the cutover to the new DD is simple, with little development effort and much lower risk of migration / transition issues, it means less post implementation work and less lost sales on SLM.

[Darrius Gothly]

I'm gonna disagree with one thing you say here Toy:

 

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

... LL never engages in any healthy solution discussions with Mechants) ...

---

 

Yesterday's CTUG meeting was a wonderful experience in open brainstorming about possible solutions to a "problem" .. AND happened at the behest of Amanda and her team. I left that meeting feeling energized and positive about the process. It may be that none of our ideas or suggestions get used .. but frankly I would be astonished if they did dump the whole lot of them because there were some gems in there.

Unfortunately .. and for whatever reason .. the Marketplace Team seems not to follow the same beneficial methods being proven effective by the CTUG and Sim Dev teams, but I can't say "LL never...." because I'm seeing examples of "LL doing..."

Whatever rope is around Brooke's neck holding her and her team back from talking WITH us .. I wish someone would cut it loose and let them ENGAGE with us.

[Darrius Gothly]

(general musings...not aimed at you Toy)

As a parent of three offspring, I've had to learn to shut my mouth and let life teach them some of the lessons that I cannot. But I am able to let go because I know life will deal them much harder, more painful lessons than I ever could. Thus I am confident that if they did not listen to me, they will learn anyway.

But when it comes to the mistakes made in the decisions by various groups within LL, there is no consequence to their actions that will teach them better. People come, people go .. and the same mistakes get repeated over and over again. There is no "lesson" being learned.

That is why I cannot let go in this case .. because if I do let go, and the rest of us "sky is falling negative FUD spreaders" lets go .. there will be nothing left to stop the rush toward failure.

How do I know it will be failure? Nearly 30 years of doing things VERY wrong .. then learning not to do that again and doing it very RIGHT instead. I learned, I paid the dues, and I suffered through a lot of my own (and others') massive mistakes. That is why I'm so adamant that those same mistakes not be repeated again.

To date, no one has really stepped forward and stated with authority "Darrius, your ideas are totally wrong." They HAVE stepped forward and said "Darrius stop spreading FUD" .. but that is entirely different. If someone can show me why my concerns are wrong and back that up with reasonable theories (not facts, but reasonable educated theories) then I will be willing to reconsider. However, in the absence of that form of debate, I will stick to my guns on this issue.

I'm more than happy to admit I am wrong, but only IF I am wrong. But don't expect me to shut up just because what I'm saying is scary or unpleasant. I would much rather keep my eyes open and see the scary stuff coming, than keep them closed and run off the cliff because I was afraid to look where I was going.

[Rya Nitely]

 

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

 

You're right .. I did misread you. I saw the bit about tping across 3 sims and leapt to the conclusion you had boxes spread out like that. I totally missed the "only one box" that came shortly thereafter. My apologies.

May I ask why you have your Magic Box located somewhere other than where you make your items?

---

 

Apology accepted.

I normally work right next to my magic box, but we make very large items that are displayed over 3 sims. When I put a new item out on display that's when I notice improvements or fixes that are needed, and I do it right there on the display item and then take a copy to put in the magic box. These improvements are not only on new items, it might be on an older item in a different sim, and the work to fix or improve it is done on the spot and a copy taken. The type of items we create are best inspected this way - out on display the way it's meant to be seen and not in our workshop. So flying or tping from a displayed item to the magic box is a regular thing.

[Darrius Gothly]

 

---

Rya Nitely wrote:

I normally work right next to my magic box, but we make very large items that are displayed over 3 sims. When I put a new item out on display that's when I notice improvements or fixes that are needed, and I do it right there on the display item and then take a copy to put in the magic box. These improvements are not only on new items, it might be on an older item in a different sim, and the work to fix or improve it is done on the spot and a copy taken. The type of items we create are best inspected this way - out on display the way it's meant to be seen and not in our workshop. So flying or tping from a displayed item to the magic box is a regular thing.

---

 

Makes sense .. and that is one of the "Magic" things in SL .. taking a giant sim-sized build and squishing it down into a tiny box small enough to fit inside another box.

Thinking of the "now" situation, have you thought about putting separate magic boxes on each Sim? That way you'd be on the same Sim as the items being sold at least .. and you could reduce the inventory in your Magic Box by 2/3rds. It doesn't sound like you're having any delivery issues (at least none I remember seeing you mention) but it's one of those "no pain" optimizations that would shorten your trips and add a layer of organization that might be beneficial.

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

I'm gonna disagree with one thing you say here Toy:

 

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

... LL never engages in any healthy solution discussions with Mechants) ...

---

 

Yesterday's CTUG meeting was a wonderful experience in open brainstorming about possible solutions to a "problem" .. AND happened at the behest of Amanda and her team. I left that meeting feeling energized and positive about the process. It may be that none of our ideas or suggestions get used .. but frankly I would be astonished if they did dump the whole lot of them because there were some gems in there.

Unfortunately .. and for whatever reason .. the Marketplace Team seems not to follow the same beneficial methods being proven effective by the CTUG and Sim Dev teams, but I can't say "LL never...." because I'm seeing examples of "LL doing..."

Whatever rope is around Brooke's neck holding her and her team back from talking WITH us .. I wish someone would cut it loose and let them ENGAGE with us.

---

Within the scope of what I am invited to or engaged with related to the LL staff, my position stands.

I guess its an "out of sight - out of mind".  For those invited to engage with Lindens like Amanda, Brooke, whomever, my statement would seem incorrect.

So I will clarify...  FOR ME AND MY EXPERIENCE WITH LL - specially the LL Commerce Team - LL never engages in healthy solution brain storming with its merchants.

I am surprised Amanda called upon LL Merchants to engage in solution development and yet Brooke did not participate in this meeting?

I would also have to think that the whole Dash Deal concept had to - at least in part - have some Amanda input.

Anyway... I stand by my statement from my perspective.  I have seen COUNTLESS great ideas brought up and discussed and try to be championed inside the formal LL Commerce forums.  I challenge you Darrius to point me to 3 threads in these forums whereby Brooke or the Commerce team said - "wow you all make a good point lets discuss this further and see if we can figure this out or address it". 

AND PS - I dont mean Brooke calling a meeting with a common select few of her fave merchants to simply pretend to listen to the concerns and then simply say "thanks but we are still gonna do things our way"

PPS - What does CTUG stand for?