The No-Mod Rebuttal

[Pamela Galli]

2 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

But that would make no sense to the average SL user.  Heck, it only sort of makes sense to me.

Pretty sure she was kidding. The prims would probably all start bouncing around.

[LittleMe Jewell]

16 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Pretty sure she was kidding. The prims would probably all start bouncing around.

See - proof that I only understood a few words of it, but not the entire statement.

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

28 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Pretty sure she was kidding. The prims would probably all start bouncing around.

   Yeah, I was kidding. I pretty much agree with the OP about mod vs. no-mod. But I don't think things will change.

[mikka Luik]

Post title : The No-Mod Rebuttal
rebuttal
rɪˈbʌtl/
noun
noun: rebuttal; plural noun: rebuttals

    an instance of rebutting evidence or an accusation.
    synonyms:    refutation, denial, disproving, counter-argument, countering, invalidation, negation, contradiction; counterstatement, surrejoinder, rebutter, surrebutter, replication;
    rareconfutation, disproval
    "a point-by-point rebuttal of the accusations"

So sorry as a 1/0 coder as accused elsewhere..
Where is the accusation this is based on.

[ChinRey]

3 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

Pretty sure she was kidding. The prims would probably all start bouncing around.

Tempting idea though...

Or try to add this little snippet to every part of the linkset:

default{
changed(integer change){
if (change & CHANGED_LINK)llDie();
}
}

 

Especially effective it the house is no copy too. That'll give them a lesson they won't forget.

[MoiraKathleen]

Generally I usually buy mod items, but still buy no-mod once in awhile if it's something I really want (or unless it's clothing, hair or shoes, which I usually don't think to check). If I modify something, the majority of the time it is to change alpha blending to alpha masking if I'm getting alpha conflict issues.  I also almost always turn full-bright off unless it's supposed to be some type of light thing that needs that for some reason.  I do occasionally resize wall hangings or paintings, furniture or flower/grass patches where I need something smaller.  I have run into an issue where having the item mod doesn't solve everything when trying to resize furniture which has prop items that are rezzed - like pots on a stove or dishes in a sink, or desk accessories.  When I've made the item smaller, the props continue to rezz at the original height.  I rarely, if ever, try modifying items that are no-copy - I like knowing if it gets messed up too much, I can delete it and rezz out a fresh copy.  For resizing clothing or jewelry, if necessary, I prefer using a script rather than trying to do it myself.  The script may not work perfectly, but generally works better for those types of items than me trying to do it myself.

[Qie Niangao]

8 hours ago, moirakathleen said:

I have run into an issue where having the item mod doesn't solve everything when trying to resize furniture which has prop items that are rezzed - like pots on a stove or dishes in a sink, or desk accessories.  When I've made the item smaller, the props continue to rezz at the original height.

This is one case of a more general challenge with making scripted items easily modifiable by users: it tests the competence of the scripter. For example, I recently spent hours making a little box of dancing gingerbread cookies conform to resizing, among other possible mods by the user. (It wasn't the gingerbread dancers that made this challenging, but rather scaling particle properties and projected light sources, mostly.)

For furniture using off-the-shelf scripts (e.g., AVsitter, nPose, etc), the end user can generally adjust prop positioning, but it requires some effort and some knowledge of how to specify those positions to the script. There are tools that can help and instructions, but it may seem a bit daunting at first.

Possibly encouraging: as long as the object itself is modifiable, any script-readable notecard inside can be copied and replaced, regardless of its permissions, by having a script read it to chat for copy-and-paste. (I wrote a simple script that instead loads the notecard contents in a browser, to make it a bit easier.)

[MoiraKathleen]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

For furniture using off-the-shelf scripts (e.g., AVsitter, nPose, etc), the end user can generally adjust prop positioning, but it requires some effort and some knowledge of how to specify those positions to the script. There are tools that can help and instructions, but it may seem a bit daunting at first.

Possibly encouraging: as long as the object itself is modifiable, any script-readable notecard inside can be copied and replaced, regardless of its permissions, by having a script read it to chat for copy-and-paste. (I wrote a simple script that instead loads the notecard contents in a browser, to make it a bit easier.)

Thanks for the information. These might be a little more than I want to take on right now, but it's nice to know that there may be things that can be done, if I get to the point where I'm ready to dig into it some more.

[Penny Patton]

On 1/19/2018 at 3:41 PM, mikka Luik said:

Post title : The No-Mod Rebuttal
rebuttal
rɪˈbʌtl/
noun
noun: rebuttal; plural noun: rebuttals

    an instance of rebutting evidence or an accusation.
    synonyms:    refutation, denial, disproving, counter-argument, countering, invalidation, negation, contradiction; counterstatement, surrejoinder, rebutter, surrebutter, replication;
    rareconfutation, disproval
    "a point-by-point rebuttal of the accusations"

So sorry as a 1/0 coder as accused elsewhere..
Where is the accusation this is based on.

Are you saying you're unfamiliar with the claims being refuted in the original post of this thread? That you require evidence that anyone has made these claims? I didn't feel it was necessary to name names and call people out directly, but you don't need to look any further than responses in this very thread to find people attempting to argue the other side.

[Phil Deakins]

My memory isn't perfect, but I don't remember anyone in this thread arguing "the other side" of what you posted in your op, except that they don't always apply, which is something you've said yourself, even in your post. I've seen one or two posts saying things like, 'My stuff is no-mod. Suck it up', but that's not arguing the other side.

Edited January 21, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Madison Heartsong]

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

My memory isn't perfect, but I don't remember anyone in this thread arguing "the other side" of what you posted in your op, except that they don't always apply, which is something you've said yourself, even in your post. I've seen one or two posts saying things like, 'My stuff is no-mod. Suck it up', but that's not arguing the other side.

In the other thread, I definitely saw some posts where people defended making things no mod, though I'm guessing what brought this on were similar arguments the OP has seen elsewhere.  It is educating the public as much as creators, which needs to be done to bring pressure for more mod items.

I didn't know that it took a technical glitch to allow me to enjoy that most items for sale can be copied.  I'd be very unhappy if my choices were very limited if I didn't want to buy no-copy items (and I don't, because I lost two no-copy items to glitches, so I will no longer buy them; but if copyable items were as rare as moddable items are in some areas, I might have not have enough copyable choices).

I don't know if, without a glitch, there will be enough demand for moddable items (really, resistance to no mod) to make creators who want to sell their content feel they need to make it moddable to sell much. but I'd really like to see that happen.  I can't do major mods, but I certainly can and do resize and on occasion recolor and on even rarer occasion link.  I did link a scripted item and broke it, but it was copy so I pulled out a new one from my inventory and it was all fine (if someone uses that to defend no mod, I'd instead suggest making sure the folder it ends up in says clearly "NO SUPPORT FOR MODDED ITEMS. IF YOU MOD, KEEP THE ORIGINAL AS BACKUP OR YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN."  I hope as many people as possible let people know all the things they can't do if an item is no mod and how it could hurt them in the future (I know much less about how to mod than i will, say, a year from now, and anything I might think I wouldn't mod anyway, I might in a year-- or some glitch with a change in the engine could occur).

I'll slightly defend no mod in a limited case, of artistic vision, for someone who creates items they like, and any they sell is a bonus.  They aren't making them to sell, but making something for themselves to use, and figure they may as well sell it to anyone who likes it.  If they want a wider market, they should have to make it mod, and a resizer script if it's no mod is common sense.  But you mentioned the one no mod item you ever sold was a sculpture, and I get that.  You made a work of art, and while you should have (if you didn't) included a resizer script for those for whom the size didn't fit, you wanted your work of art to look like you made it.  As long as you were willing to accept fewer sales, I think that's reasonable  In all sorts of endeavor, there's a clash between what artists want artistically and what's likely to have more commercial success.  I think going for art is acceptable there, though one should have to accept that it will limit commercial success.  A work of art I likely wouldn't discriminate so much against no mod if I liked it, as long as it could be resized through a script. 

Furniture and clothing, someone can feel like fulfilling an artistic vision in things like that, but people should be very reluctant to buy it such that if one wants to sell many they should have to go mod; moddable clothing is unfortunately not as common as i'd like, so I often have to settle for a hud to change texture; which is too bad, because (while keeping an original as a copy in case I screwed it up) doing things like resizing clothing-- which I know works for some kinds of mesh clothing and not others-- or turning full bright on or off, etc., are things that can make an item work better with my avatar.  I won't buy clothing if I neither have mod nor a hud to retexture; but I wish I could have mod on everything.  Furniture (and any other things for the house like plants), enough is mod that I can outright refuse to buy no mod and still have a very good selection.  It's copy/mod or I don't buy it.  Even things I don't touch as of now, I want to be able to down the road when I know more-- or in case something no longer works as apparently happened with what people have spoken of with invisiprims.

[Phil Deakins]

@Madison531 You wrote a very good post. Ty.

I'll put a case to you concerning furniture and houses. My first SL business was renting out skyboxes, so I was familiar with that part of SL. It was that business that directly led to my low prim furniture business. I sold everything mod-trans (except that sculpture). BUT I didn't sell anything copyable, except for my usual exception, which, in this case, was cushions

 

1 hour ago, Madison531 said:

It's copy/mod or I don't buy it.

That's the reason I'm writing this. In the case of furniture I was never willing to sell copy/mod/no-trans items because of rental properties. At its peak I had over 60 skyboxes rented out. Some people have so many homes rented out that they dwarf the meagre set that I had, and some have fewer than 60. The thing is, if I sold a copyable sexbed, for instance, then copies of it would have been in hundreds of rented furnished homes, and I'd hardly been paid for any of them. That's a perspective of the copy permission for objects by a seller. It's not the only perspective that sellers have, but it's one of them.

I was frequently asked for copyable items for that purpose, and they offered 3 or 4 times the amount of a single one. I would have grabbed that sort of deal when I was renting out my 60+ skyboxes. But I didn't accept any of those offers. Instead, I offered quantity discounts, which were often taken up.

I mentioned 'furniture and houses' earlier, although I never sold houses. If I had, the same thinking would have applied, and for the same reason.

I thought you might be interested to know that there are other, perfectly valid, perspectives than just the buyer's.

Edited January 21, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Madison Heartsong]

4 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

I mentioned 'furniture and houses' earlier, although I never sold houses. If I did, the same thinking would have applied, and for the same reason.

I thought you might be interested in other perspectives than just the buyer's.

I understand why a seller might want no copy.  Some put out a no-copy/trans version for a lower price, which is fine with me if they also have a copy/mod/no-trans for a higher price that isn't ridiculously higher (double at most) to make up for the fact that sometimes it will be used in more than one place.  I have a few items, and I know others do as well, that are copyable, in use in my house, and in use in a sim I play in.  I know that's "abusing" copy privileges to some extent, and if the problems with no copy were fixable without letting that happen, I'd understand preventing it.

As a buyer, there are two reasons though that I think it's foolish to buy no-copy:  I directly referred to the possibility of loss, and then, indirectly mentioned, that I can safely mod something that's copyable and if that screws something up I can grab a new copy.  I'm glad that now that the market is set up as it was (which without the glitch may never have happened, so here's to the glitch), I'd be much more limited if I wanted copy items only.

For those who might use them in 50+ places, it would be perfectly fine with me if there were a way to limit the number of copies to, say, 5.  I know (or am pretty sure) nothing like that can be done with the current system, but it would be a fair compromise.  Lose one or two, mess up one or two trying to mod it, you're fine then...but you can't run off an unlimited number for rental properties.  If you mess up more trying to mod them, show the seller the ones you messed up and the seller hopefully will let you have an extra one above the 5 if you agree that if you mod that one and mess it up it's your loss.   But that isn't possible, and losing one or messing one up meaning your money is thrown away, I find unacceptable.

Even from a seller perspective, no copy for clothes or animations or anything that stays in the inventory and is no-trans, can still only be used by one avatar, so I can't imagine why those are ever no copy, though there do exist some that are.  Copy is very useful there, in the case of clothes not only for the above reasons but even just to have different colors for different outfits without having to change them every time I put a different outfit on.  And I don't see with something like clothes, how no copy helps the seller at all.

[Phil Deakins]

@Madison531

I was only talking about objects, not clothing or avatars. I have no real expereince of those, so I can't form a realistic opinion.

I'm not tying to persuade you at all. You wrote a very good, well thought out, post, and I just thought it was worth mentioning that there are other valid points of view, and that it's not only about buyers. There are pros and cons no matter which way the permissions are set.

Incidentally, I wouldn't consider it "abuse" to rez copies of items in various places. The seller assumes it.

 

[Bree Giffen]

I try to get mod/copy as much as possible for anything that is rezzed in a parcel such as furniture and home decorations. I'm not so concerned with avatar accessories except for hair. I still get errant locks of hair that I'd love to push aside.

As a creator, I have set things mod/copy when I want to encourage other residents to make their own versions even going so far as making the script and internal items mod/copy. Essentially, creating a proof of concept and allowing everyone to develop it further. 

[Madison Heartsong]

@Phil Deakins

While it's probably a dream compromise to think LL will make it possible, when you created objects, if there had been a way to allow copies but only a certain number (like 5), would you have been willing to sell copy versions then?

It seems like the perfect compromise, if it were possible, between letting people put an unlimited number on rental properties and protecting the customer from loss of the item through one or two mistakes (or as still can happen when rezzing mesh on mesh among other things, bugs).

[Phil Deakins]

@Madison531 Possibly not 5, and possibly not any, but I don't know. I would have needed to give it some thought. In my case, as with many sellers, the buyer wouldn't have suffered a loss (and never did when they screwed up), because, being trans objects, they could always return them for a replacement, which is what used to happen. As long as everything that was supposed to be inside them was inside them, replacing was never a problem.

The only time the customer would lose out through a screw-up would be when I've left SL for good. When that happens, all my sales will be so far in the past that screw-ups are very unlikely to happen. And, even if they did happen, the customer wouldn't want a direct replacement unless they are into retro furniture

[Madison Heartsong]

5 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

@Madison531 Possibly not 5, and possibly not any, but I don't know. I would have needed to give it some thought. In my case, as with many sellers, the buyer wouldn't have suffered a loss (and never did when they screwed up), because, being trans objects, they could always return them for a replacement, which is what used to happen. As long as everything that was supposed to be inside them was inside them, replacing was never a problem.

Well, what actually happened with me was I lost two no-copy items due to problems with them rezzing, which I guess happened but at a much worse rate when the bug that blessed us long term with copyable items existed.  It still happens.

I only screwed up one item through a mod/linking it, and that one was copy, so I lost nothing there.  I pulled the original back from my inventory.  If it hadn't been copy I would have lost it, although if it had been yours you'd have replaced it.  But, losing an item through rezzing problems happened twice (one of the two actually eventually got back into my lost and found folder, but I'd already bought a similar, copy, more expensive, replacement), I couldn't have returned it because I lost it, maybe due to an error on my part, or maybe a glitch in sl.  It doesn't really matter much, in that I paid for it and didn't get the use of it.  So now it's copy or no sale.  And in non-clothing, non mesh body/head, where requiring copy/mod doesn't limit me all that much, it's copy/mod or no sale.  And if it's no mod clothing, it had better at least have a hud to at least change textures.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Madison531
Typo fix

[Phil Deakins]

@Madison531 Just a little aside. Rereading my previous post, I just rememberd one occasion when a customer tried to get a replacement for a sex bed that no longer worked. She didn't get one. The reason was that all the animations had been removed Not everyone who asks for a replacement gets one, but it's rare that they don't.

[Penny Patton]

15 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

That's the reason I'm writing this. In the case of furniture I was never willing to sell copy/mod/no-trans items because of rental properties. At its peak I had over 60 skyboxes rented out. Some people have so many homes rented out that they dwarf the meagre set that I had, and some have fewer than 60. The thing is, if I sold a copyable sexbed, for instance, then copies of it would have been in hundreds of rented furnished homes, and I'd hardly been paid for any of them.

I've heard this argument before for no-copy but I'm not sure it's really a problem. I think it might be one of those imagined problems where people see a possibility and assume it will become a widespread problem without it ever actually happening. And I'm not trying to dismiss the concern out of hand, it seems like a reasonable concern on the face of it, but I have a few reasons for believing it's probably not really an issue.

 First and foremost is that it assumes there is a large market for people who want to rent homes they cannot furnish or personalize themselves.  I've never seen such rentals in SL but I'm also not the target market for such a product. Still, if such a market exists at all I can't imagine it being sizable enough to actually affect any furniture seller's business, or that the people renting such homes have any interest in purchasing furniture for themselves in the first place.

 Second, there's a lot of popular furniture brands who happily sell copy/mod and seem to be entirely unaffected by this issue.

 It might be interesting to see a no-copy seller release a piece of copyable furniture, just as high quality as their best content, and see how it's sales fare against the the no-copy furniture.

[Richardus Raymaker]

On 1/16/2018 at 3:32 AM, Penny Patton said:

 

"I don't want my customers ruining my artistic vision!"

This really funny i do read it on this forum.

Because this same excuse i did hear on new platform. And i see it as a very weak excuse Anyway no-mod objects are a hell. If the creator is gone you cannot fix it etc.

[Phil Deakins]

5 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

I've heard this argument before for no-copy but I'm not sure it's really a problem. I think it might be one of those imagined problems where people see a possibility and assume it will become a widespread problem without it ever actually happening. And I'm not trying to dismiss the concern out of hand, it seems like a reasonable concern on the face of it, but I have a few reasons for believing it's probably not really an issue.

It was definitely not imagination. Over the years I got a lot of requests for copy items for that exact purpose. And there may have been many more who didn't ask. Even after I closed the store last year, one such customer of many years, kept coming for further quantities of things. Not any more though. The last time, I let her have copyable versions, so she doesn't need to come back for more. That's what I do now when old customers come back for something, and I'm happy to do it. The latest one was just a few days ago.

 

5 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

First and foremost is that it assumes there is a large market for people who want to rent homes they cannot furnish or personalize themselves.  I've never seen such rentals in SL but I'm also not the target market for such a product. Still, if such a market exists at all I can't imagine it being sizable enough to actually affect any furniture seller's business, or that the people renting such homes have any interest in purchasing furniture for themselves in the first place.

When I arrived in SL I rented a furnished skybox. Then when I rented out skyboxes, they were all furnished. (I did remove furniture when requested, so that they could use their own). I sold to landlords for their furnished homes, and helped them with it. They used to keep coming back for further quantities. And, of course, I had many copy requests from landlords who were renting out furnished homes, many of whom bought with quantity discounts. The market does (or did) widely exist.

 

5 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

 Second, there's a lot of popular furniture brands who happily sell copy/mod and seem to be entirely unaffected by this issue.

We can't know that, and they may not know that either. There is no reason for someone who buys a copyable couch, for instance, and places copies of it in dozens of homes, to mention it to the seller, so the seller may never know. I only know because of the many requests that I had, and my hands-on experiences with landlords.

 

5 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

It might be interesting to see a no-copy seller release a piece of copyable furniture, just as high quality as their best content, and see how it's sales fare against the the no-copy furniture.

It might make an interesting experiment, but I doubt that it would indicate much. I would expect the copy item would sell normally - the same as the rest. I wouldn't expect people who only buy copyable items to rush to a no-copy store to buy that one item, or people to choose it over other models in the store that they prefer.

 

I used to be right at the very forefront of low prim furniture, all no-copy, and I sold a lot of stuff - enough to earn well above the average RL livelihood from it. Apart from landlords that I've mentioned, (and possibly during the short time that I sold a temp-rezzer) nobody ever asked me for copyable items. But all that was at a time before some attitudes altered for some people - only some people. I still think it's pretty much confined to forum(s) users   I think that clothing really does need to be copy/no-trans, but I don't think the same needs to apply to objects such as furniture. Yes, some people wouldn't buy no-copy furniture any more, but my best guess is that it isn't a widespread attitude amongst the population as reading in the forums might suggest. And there are very few people here who said they wouldn't buy no-copy objects. If I were starting again in furniture, I'd probably do it the same as before, for the same reason. Especially for furniture with animations. Furniture without animations is/was so cheap that it wouldn't really matter, but, for me, it would matter with more expensive furniture.

ETA: I really don't think that copyable furniture is particularly needed by anyone (except landlords who rent out furnished homes). Some furnishings, yes, such as candles and houseplants, but not things like sofas, tables, kitchens, beds, etc. People aren't going to rez things like that all over their homes just because they can. The reason why copyable is desirable is when it's mod and gets screwed up. It's far more convenient to rez another copy than to wait while the seller replaces it. So, imo, the desirability of copyable furniture is simply the convenience of replacing a screw-up, which, to my way of thinking, isn't fair to the creator-seller.

QUESTIONS: Suppose two or more friends are sharing a house. It does happen. Why should one of them be able to buy a good sexbed that costs quite a lot - probably several thousand L$ - and rez a copy of it in each of the housemate's bedrooms? Also, why should that buyer be able to rez copies of it in their friends' bedrooms who live in other houses far far away?

Edited January 22, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Callum Meriman]

50 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

QUESTIONS: Suppose two or more friends are sharing a house. It does happen. Why should one of them be able to buy a sexbed that costs quite a lot - probably several thousand L$ - and rez a copy of it in each of the house-sharer's bedrooms? Also, why should that buyer be able to rez copies of it in their friends' bedrooms who live in other houses far far away?

Owner menus.

Eventually the person borrowing the bed gets tired of not having full access, and because people are boring and will replace like-with-like, they buy a second copy of your bed.

Spreading them all over SL means more people see them, and more people will buy them when the time comes to own their own.

[Phil Deakins]

It's a valid answer, Callum. But it wouldn't persuade me to sell a copyable expensive sexbed.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

It was definitely not imagination. Over the years I got a lot of requests for copy items for that exact purpose. And there may have been many more who didn't ask.

On reflection, I'm pretty sure that at least some of the landlords who asked for copy items were just setting up their rental businesses, and at least some of them probably didn't succeed, or perhaps didn't last for very long. So I'm thinking that maybe the situation wasn't quite as black as I made it sound earlier. I've no way of knowing though.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Phil Deakins