Automatically unlisted items - what's going on?

[Tari Landar]

Programming languages very much can read and utilize context-it's not something that most may necessarily always want or need their programs to do (partially because...resource management is a fickle cow, it's quite individually dependent on the situation). Whether or not one wants to complicate such a project, or rather to what degree one wants to complicate it can be a bit tricky. This particular project, in this particular arena, is over-complicated but in a backasswards sort of way-in that it's getting worse, not better. I can see how making attempts at predictions would (did in this case) get way too complicated super fast..which is where the keep it simple stupid rule should apply. It's been a problem for a long time, it's getting to be a worse problem, those arbitrary lists with no context at all are making things worse. The law of diminishing returns came into play years ago, lol. . It stands to reason that rolling back and repairing will at least reduce some of the problem. It will also allow more room for future growth, future changes, and I suppose more than anything..stop driving merchants bananas over something they didn't do. (and to most people that's probably the absolute most important thing- I agree with them, if it's too complicated, stop doing it, lol)

I still think LL is taking a stab in the dark at the MP, and for the most part, I would say...good on them for doing so, even though it has failed marvelously time and time again in this particular aspect (this whole words list thing and the after effects of such, to put it simply). In other aspects the MP has succeeded marvelously. In this case..continuing to do what they're doing, especially at this rate, is only going to offer unsatisfactory results for all. 

Whatever programming (or whatever persons and their knowledge/experience) is/are used for the backend of MP may not currently allow for the use (implementation might be a better word) of different effects and coeffects, implicit parameters, scoping, ambiguity, dataflow, etc. to make use of context, because we have no idea the resources LL has made available for such, or which programming they're using precisely (and I wouldn't expect them to tell anyone). But, programming in general very much CAN make good use of these, and many more awesome things which no one wants to read. 

[Da5id Weatherwax]

A fair point, and it is certainly *possible* for LL to build in the kind of heuristic logic required for context to be a factor. I think we can, however, legitimately debate over whether the amount of coding time and the maintenance of that code would or would not outweigh the intended saving of staff time required to respond to legitimate complaints over listings. I suspect that you and I would find ourselves in full agreement over how that debate would play out, not to mention the impact to the easy operation of the marketplace while such a heuristic algorithm is yet "untrained"

[Tari Landar]

1 hour ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

A fair point, and it is certainly *possible* for LL to build in the kind of heuristic logic required for context to be a factor. I think we can, however, legitimately debate over whether the amount of coding time and the maintenance of that code would or would not outweigh the intended saving of staff time required to respond to legitimate complaints over listings. I suspect that you and I would find ourselves in full agreement over how that debate would play out, not to mention the impact to the easy operation of the marketplace while such a heuristic algorithm is yet "untrained"

Oh it wouldn't be worth it, that's not even debate worthy, imo, lol. It would be far too expensive as far as resources are concerned for LL (I would debate over whether or not other companies can do it, but not LL, they can't-and it's not a knock on them before anyone thinks that, just the facts). It is most definitely not a worthy venture for LL, which is why they need to go back to employing the keep it simple stupid method

I think it is entirely possible they may have attempted to employ such, or some, logic and that's why it both failed and continues to fail as fabulously as it does, because, well, it's complex and if you don't know what you're doing, you'll break more than you'll fix. (I'm particularly fond of breaking programs, I just have more sense than to do so on a live program, lol)

At any rate, they need to go back to what was working before, and then proceed from there. It wasn't perfect (no system is), and had plenty of flaws, but it wasn't quite this bad, lol. I hope they do, and I hope they fix things for merchants and stop asking merchants to hunt them down, because some merchants may have entire sections or whole stores to "report"-that's so much work for some of them, and an unfair request, imo. That part probably annoys me more than others, I admit that, it's just...meh, I was taught that's not how you do things. 

[Elvina Ewing]

and the LL's continuous silence on this topic is surprising/unsettling/annoying/frustrating/...

[Erwin Solo]

On 9/30/2019 at 12:17 PM, Reed Linden said:

Hey, Elvina!  I'm so sorry to hear that you had so many items unlisted. Obviously, that's not something we want. I suspect that was probably as a result of a change I made, so I've checked into it, and I believe you should be able to relist your items now with the original wording intact. Please give it a try and if it's still not working for you, please contact our support agents for further assistance.  

When you submit a support ticket about such thing, they tell you to submit a JIRA.  Case in point:

Quote

<redacted> Linden

said 8 years ago

Hello Erwin Solo,

Customer Support does not have access to, and is not provided, any information regarding what criteria is used to determine the Maturity Ratings for listings on the Second Life Marketplace web site.

We are unable to provide you any information regarding why your listing is being set to the more restrictive Maturity Rating on the Second Life Marketplace web site.

If you are unable to determine why your listing is being changed to the Adult Maturity rating, our recommendation would be to remove the description from the listing and add it back one paragraph at a time until you are able to locate the word, phrase or information that is causing your listing to be set to the Adult rating.

Once you have determine the word, term, or phrase that is causing your listing to be set to the more restrictive Maturity Rating, you may then create a Second Life Marketplace Bug Report and include the words that are causing the issue in the Bug Report and the Marketplace Team will be able to investigate the issue further.

For information on how to submit Second Life Bug Reports, please see the Second Life Knowledge Base page, locate here:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-report-a-bug/ta-p/733545

Regards,

<redacted> Linden
--
Linden Lab
SL Marketplace Customer Support
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/
http://www.secondlife.com

 

[Erwin Solo]

 

Edited November 3, 2019 by Erwin Solo

[iamyourneighbour]

It's brand words, 
star wars, starwars, gucci, etc and variations now get an automatic delist.

I found out because I used "we gucci" in description.

[Pamela Galli]

I think most of us are aware that using a brand name is forbidden, tho not consistently. But two of us got our stiff delisted for using the word converse CLEARLY as in talking. So LL doesn’t bother accounting for these instances. They just apply their hamfisted filters and don’t bother with context. No skin off their noses, it only inconveniences merchants so who cares?

[Alyona Su]

12 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

I think most of us are aware that using a brand name is forbidden, tho not consistently. But two of us got our stiff delisted for using the word converse CLEARLY as in talking. So LL doesn’t bother accounting for these instances. They just apply their hamfisted filters and don’t bother with context. No skin off their noses, it only inconveniences merchants so who cares?

I agree that if it is the term converse that got things delisted then it is an inappropriate filter. Though there are surely outside forces that gave Linden Lab cause to add that word to the filter, the source of which is beyond the scope of this discussion, but "ham-fisted" may not be the appropriate term to direct to Linden lab itself.

As for the term converse, it seem it would be easier to rephrase the any statement containing it to use the word conversation, which would far more common a used word than "converse", which is a verb when relating to communication. Remember there also are adjective and  noun versions, which do not relate to communication at all, both describe the concept of "opposite," so already the verb out outnumbered in terms of common use.

Perhaps a thesaurus is the way to go, adapt and move on.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Pamela Galli]

1 hour ago, Alyona Su said:

Perhaps a thesaurus is the way to go, adapt and move on

Oh really? You think a thesaurus would tell me not to use the words ivory or dove because there are bars of soap with those names, along with all the products in the world that have ordinary words as their names? How would that work now?  

This game of LL’s has been going on for many years. We merchants are tired of playing, esp those of us with hundreds or thousands of things that suddenly get delisted without notice. 

As I have said repeatedly: Give us a list of words to avoid and we will avoid them.

 

[Alyona Su]

20 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

We merchants are tired of playing [...]

I reiterate: Adapt or move on. I agree it would be more helpful to have a list provided and such words as converse (versus Converse) should be an exception to the rule. But it is what it is. So submit your grievance into the Market Place JIRA.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Pamela Galli]

2 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

I reiterate: Adapt or move on. I agree it would be more helpful to have a list provided and such words as converse (versus Converse) should be an exception to the rule. But it is what it is. So submit your grievance into the Market Place JIRA.

Sooo, when things need fixing, recite the Serenity Prayer and cross your fingers.

[Rhiannon Tamerlane]

I had it happen to me too. One of my items (I only have four, for Pete's sake...) is de-listed. I received no notification of any kind, and in fact, the only way I can find even the START of the problem is by editing the item listing, making no changes, and THEN it tells me "Successfully updated, but banned text in the description field caused an automatic unlisting of the product". That's about as helpful as a sock full of mud to the face, Linden Labs. Do you suppose maybe you could HIGHLIGHT the offending word(s) in the listing editor so I know what I need to fix?

The worst part is, one of my other three items has an almost exactly identical listing, yet it's not been de-listed.

ETA - so it turns out the problem word was 'Burberry', which is a coat company name. It also happens to be the name of a tartan pattern; 'Burberry Check'. The best part of this foolishness? In the SAME LISTING is 'Clan Dunlop'. 'Dunlop' is a brand name, too, but it didn't flag on that once I'd removed the word 'Burberry'.

I'd just like to note to @Alyona Su, above, that while a thesaurus might help for words like 'converse' vs a brand name 'Converse', it's not going to help much when a family or clan name - e.g., Clan Dunlop - also contains a trade name.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Rhiannon Tamerlane
Additional information

[Alyona Su]

1 hour ago, Pamela Galli said:

Sooo, when things need fixing, recite the Serenity Prayer and cross your fingers.

Only if it works for you. Or, you can do like you should: File a support ticket and use the JIRA. Or you can just not do that and complain about it. When it rains I don't complain about it, I just get under cover. It's called "Adapt and move on." ~shrugs~

[Pamela Galli]

11 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

Only if it works for you. Or, you can do like you should: File a support ticket and use the JIRA. Or you can just not do that and complain about it. When it rains I don't complain about it, I just get under cover. It's called "Adapt and move on." ~shrugs~

Why would we keep filing duplicate JIRAs for this? We longtime merchants have been dealing with this for at least eleven years and filing JIRAS all the while. 

If you are trying to contribute useful information on this topic (in the the Merchant Forum, btw), you are to be commended for the effort, but — it’s not in any way useful to us. 

[Alyona Su]

2 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

Why would we keep filing duplicate JIRAs for this? We longtime merchants have been dealing with this for at least eleven years and filing JIRAS all the while. 

If you are trying to contribute useful information on this topic (in the the Merchant Forum, btw), you are to be commended for the effort, but — it’s not in any way useful to us. 

Neither is repeating what others have already reported. Go ahead, take the last word as the dead horse still has some beating left in it.

[Tari Landar]

The majority of the anguish angst, anger, frustration, hair pulling...I'll stop there, lol...is because merchants can't DO anything to fix these problems. We can't actually "adapt and move on" when the rules get changed, the goal posts get moved, the lines get blurred, LL doesn't keep up their end of the bargain, LL fails to accept responsibility for the actual problems at hand except to say "oops, our bad"....I mean I really could list all of the issues with the idea that merchants can simply adapt and move on, but most folks here in this particular forum are already well aware of them.

In a lot of circumstances, most really, that's fantastic advice, it honestly is. But as far as THIS issue is concerned, it's really not, because merchants can't keep adapting when what they have to adapt to changes before they can adapt to it and then they have to start adapting all over again, just to have it put on repeat, endlessly. Now I get that people don't like others harping on LL for some issues, and there are plenty that are definitely not LL's fault. But this particular mess (which is much deeper, much more broad, much more problematic than many, even many merchants realize), is 100% on them and their fault. This isn't a matter of merchants failing to adapt and move on, or beating a dead horse. It's a singular issue that gets compounded constantly, and the issue itself (plus all of its child issues) is growing at an exponential rate all of a sudden (as in, within the last few years). It's always been an issue, ever since LL took the option of an external "store" out of the hands of others who were much better at running them. But the issue was only gaining very slow momentum for a long time. Yes, it was a problem, and for some a SERIOUS problem. But now..oy boy, this has gone so much further.

This is 100% something LL could fix, if they actually listened. While they do listen to some things residents have to say, they listen to very little that merchants have to say and even less that MP merchants have to say.  It's not like this is a feature request, this is a basic functionality request and it makes no sense for it to be getting worse a decade on, rather than improving over time. Technology and our knowledge of such (including programming) has grown tremendously in the time since MP's inception.  It stands to reason that merchants and shoppers alike should expect more, should expect better. The fact that LL takes the most nonchalant attitude with THIS particular problem, really is a slap in the face to all merchants on MP.

Trust me when I tell you that merchants have been adapting and have been moving on, since day one. At some point, that old chestnut is going to crumble into oblivion (it did that a long time ago, lol). All we're left with now is dust, so we work with the dust, at least until LL decides to turn the fan on again and blow that dust all around. Then we have to wait for new dust piles to form, and start over again. It's a never-ending battle, really. For some eventually the negatives outweigh the positives and they just give up. That's a complete shame, imo. No one should think merchants simply moving away from MP entirely, or worse, giving up entirely, is a good solution (not suggesting anyone said that, just pointing something out). 

Sometimes we get glimmers of hope, and that's what keeps others going. When the glimmer gets dashed out again, for the umpteenth time...a little compassion for those folks goes a long way. Shoppers don't always likely feel the same about MP ad merchants do, because the experience is different. A lot of the issues that plague shoppers (and yes I know merchants are shoppers too, lol) are self-created, not LL created, and some are actual limitations in the MP capabilities versus LL simply not wanting to do a bit of work. Most of the issues that plague merchants, however, are completely LL created, but they take such criticism as a slight against them personally versus a slight against their methodologies. So then they get cranky and nothing gets fixed, lol. 

It is what it is, whether or not LL ever fixes the issues they are capable of fixing, people will press forward and use the service anyway, and LL will still make money off it. We can still complain though, because there is always that off chance that someone will join the team or already be on the team that comes in and says "you know what..let's fix this ***** right this time"

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by Tari Landar

[Elvina Ewing]

13 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

Neither is repeating what others have already reported. Go ahead, take the last word as the dead horse still has some beating left in it.

if that what it takes to make LL wake up and code in a warning message for a merchant when their listings gets unlisted, i will repeat it 100x, 1000x, and so should everybody else who's dealing with this $hit.

[Elissa Taka]

Yeah, my partner (who has manager access™ to my store) just told me she got a message™ on the MP website that one of our listings was removed for trademark violation. 

Ok fine, but... Which one? I went through my emails, my view into the MP merchant home, etc. Not a peep™. We can't even figure out what was removed, and if it had stock™ that had been returned, nothing in trash™, etc.. It's a mystery. 

I kind of understand LL's position. My guess™ is someone like someone from a well known trademark holder (star wars, who knows) caused a ton of trouble because of a few merchants, so they want to proactively™ fend it off. But obviously it's having collateral damage™. 

The fact is, most listings™ don't violate trademarks, intentionally or otherwise. But this is a sore point that will chip™ away at our morale and trust. And in its current trajectory, SL will eventually™ be forced™ to ban™ every™ word™ in the dictionary™. 

Lindens, if you're listening, please talk to us. Involve us. Let us help figure out what to do about it. The users created all the content on the grid, so we might have an idea or two about policing it properly. Maybe use the power of crowd-sourcing. But please don't do this in a vacuum. We're adults, we can understand the realities of legal battles and corporate pressure. We're here for you. Just talk to us. 

 

[Alyona Su]

15 hours ago, Elissa Taka said:

Ok fine, but... Which one? I went through my emails, my view into the MP merchant home, etc. Not a peep™. We can't even figure out what was removed, and if it had stock™ that had been returned, nothing in trash™, etc.. It's a mystery. 

Peruse your listings at Merchant Home. If it's not "Active" then it's not listed. "Removed..." means it was just unlisted; made inactive. Unless you maintain many inactive listing for other reasons, it should be pretty easy and quick to spot an inactive listing, even if you have thousands of items.

[Elissa Taka]

1 hour ago, Alyona Su said:

Peruse your listings at Merchant Home. If it's not "Active" then it's not listed. "Removed..." means it was just unlisted; made inactive. Unless you maintain many inactive listing for other reasons, it should be pretty easy and quick to spot an inactive listing, even if you have thousands of items.

Sadly the latter. I do maintain inactive items and have over 500.  

[Alyona Su]

7 minutes ago, Elissa Taka said:

Sadly the latter. I do maintain inactive items and have over 500.  

See that link that says "Unlisted" there?

[Dakota Linden]

Greetings!

If Linden Lab manually removes an item from the Marketplace an email will be sent IF you have opted in to receiving those emails.  You can check which emails you are set to get through your Marketplace Account page under the Notification Settings:  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/account/notification_settings

A message is displayed the next time you (or your store managers) log into your store.  This message must be acknowledged and will provide the name of the item and the reason why it was removed. 

If the information from the display message was not noted before it was dismissed, and you do not have, or are unable to locate, the email, you can see which items were removed (as opposed to just unlisted) through your Manage Listings page. 

The entry will be highlighted in yellow & the reason why it was removed will be shown in the yellow highlighted area. If you have a lot of items, change the option to show 100 items per page and then check each page.  Since the entry will be highlighted in yellow, a quick scroll down the page looking for just the yellow highlight will make the process faster since it is not necessary to try to look at every entry, and instead just scan for the yellow and when you see it you can stop scrolling, or scroll back up to the entry itself. 

[Elissa Taka]

4 hours ago, Dakota Linden said:

Greetings!

If Linden Lab manually removes an item from the Marketplace an email will be sent IF you have opted in to receiving those emails.  You can check which emails you are set to get through your Marketplace Account page under the Notification Settings:  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/account/notification_settings

A message is displayed the next time you (or your store managers) log into your store.  This message must be acknowledged and will provide the name of the item and the reason why it was removed. 

If the information from the display message was not noted before it was dismissed, and you do not have, or are unable to locate, the email, you can see which items were removed (as opposed to just unlisted) through your Manage Listings page. 

The entry will be highlighted in yellow & the reason why it was removed will be shown in the yellow highlighted area. If you have a lot of items, change the option to show 100 items per page and then check each page.  Since the entry will be highlighted in yellow, a quick scroll down the page looking for just the yellow highlight will make the process faster since it is not necessary to try to look at every entry, and instead just scan for the yellow and when you see it you can stop scrolling, or scroll back up to the entry itself. 

Hey thanks for the response. I'm almost embarrassed by begging for someone's official attention.

Ok I was about complain that that must be broken, but I had been searching all unlisted entries (i.e.: clicking on the "Unlisted" in the View: All | Listed | Unlisted section). As I was typing that my partner came across them in the "All" listing. For others experiencing this, blocked products are neither listed or unlisted. They only show up when "All" is selected.

Interestingly, I did have almost every merchant notification enabled (except "Inworld purchase notification" - that was the only one disabled). Maybe someone (me? or a Linden?) should open a Jira ticket for this. If it's me I'm more than willing to do it. 

I'll humbly admit that the keywords for those did contain partial trademark (i.e.: just the keyword by itself "Louis" for a bag that looked like a certain famous bag designer). My bad, and we promise we won't try and fudge the keywords again. For now on it's "leather handbag" etc, as it should've been. 

 

So two questions:

1. Is there a way for us to fix the keywords/description and reactivate it, to save the trouble of reuploading pictures, etc?

2. If not, if I pull the products out of the "Marketplace Listings" in the viewer, then create new listings (albeit with better chosen keywords and descriptions), is there any penalty if I make a mistake again? 

 

Thanks. 💖

 

[Pamela Galli]

nvm, found what I asked

Edited November 6, 2019 by Pamela Galli