Some Hot New Marketplace Functionality

[Reed Linden]

In case you missed it, check out the new filters on the marketplace for demo and limited quantity items, as well as the new redelivery options. Finally, if you have any questions, feedback, or just want to hear about what's coming next for our web properties, come on out to the web user group meeting later today!

 

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

Thank you so much.  I hope I can filter out all the gatcha stuff to?

Edited January 8, 2020 by Tarina Sewell

[Selene Gregoire]

6 minutes ago, Tarina Sewell said:

Thank you so much.  I hope I can filter out all the gatcha stuff to?

Sure if you don't mind filtering out all limited items along with.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

20 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Sure if you don't mind filtering out all limited items along with.

I saw the limited number option after posting, and yes.. I am willing to make that trade off.

[wesleytron]

30 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Sure if you don't mind filtering out all limited items along with.

I'd say most people aren't looking for those limited editions though. For the majority of people who are tired of getting page after page of gachas in their new releases searches, filtering out limited quantity items clears your marketplace searches of those results overnight - just by picking one radio button. So the benefits outweigh the disadvantages of any edge cases.

Aside from adding a category for Gacha, which LL have already done, I don't see what much else they can do. How do you distinguish between what is a gacha item and what isn't a gacha other than using a category?

The thing is - there is no such thing as gacha on the marketplace. Gacha isn't an object type that can be separated out from everything else by the MP. "Gacha" is just a buzzword, which can only be selected by the reseller if they choose to. As far as the MP is concerned it is indistinguishable from any other kind of resealable object/used item. How do you isolate them?

Also, on the marketplace, the randomisation aspect of the purchase is removed - so technically they are no longer 'gachas' anyway. They are just 'used items', capable of being resold like most other used items. So why should there be specific 'discrimination' against something called a gacha compared to any other type of content?

Edited January 8, 2020 by wesleytron

[Alyona Su]

26 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

33 minutes ago, Tarina Sewell said:

Thank you so much.  I hope I can filter out all the gatcha stuff to?

Sure if you don't mind filtering out all limited items along with.

Oversimplification of response.

@Tarina Sewell - You can tick the COPY filter to remove most Gachas. Ticking the No Limited Items, helps with that exponentially and you won't be missing much other than things like Breedables, etc. as others have mentioned. So, it would seem that for the majority of Marketplace shoppers, ticking both COPY and NO LIMITED ITEMS will, more often than not, bring the best, most sane results in most searches.

[Fauve Aeon]

17 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Sure if you don't mind filtering out all limited items along with.

it will still be helpful to me, because the Limited Edition or OOAK things I’ve purchased, I’ve known to search for specifically by name, and the time the release drops. I can’t remember a time when I’ve just accidentally  ‘happened across’ a marvelous limited edition on MP, in a general search for something else...so checking ‘copy’ and checking ‘don’t show limited quantity’ should be effective for filtering out most Gacha for me.
 

I’ve written a cut/paste string with ‘NOT’ modifiers to catch much of the d*e*m*o, _demo_, Dem0 kinds of things that I know are deliberately mis-named and then set my L$ range above L$1. I’m thinking the ‘don’t show demos’ checkbox still might not catch those quite so well. 

[Selene Gregoire]

41 minutes ago, Tarina Sewell said:

I saw the limited number option after posting, and yes.. I am willing to make that trade off.

You may be but others are not. I don't purchase gachas so I don't want to see them but I do want limited number of items to show. I'm not alone in that either. So we're caught between a rock and a hard place. Many will want to see one and not the other so the best way to handle that is to create a "don't show gachas" to separate them from limited number items.

[Selene Gregoire]

38 minutes ago, wesleytron said:

I'd say most people aren't looking for those limited editions though. For the majority of people who are tired of getting page after page of gachas in their new releases searches, filtering out limited quantity items clears your marketplace searches of those results overnight - just by picking one radio button. So the benefits outweigh the disadvantages of any edge cases.

Aside from adding a category for Gacha, which LL have already done, I don't see what much else they can do. How do you distinguish between what is a gacha item and what isn't a gacha other than using a category?

The thing is - there is no such thing as gacha on the marketplace. Gacha isn't an object type that can be separated out from everything else by the MP. "Gacha" is just a buzzword, which can only be selected by the reseller if they choose to. As far as the MP is concerned it is indistinguishable from any other kind of resealable object/used item. How do you isolate them?

Also, on the marketplace, the randomisation aspect of the purchase is removed - so technically they are no longer 'gachas' anyway. They are just 'used items', capable of being resold like most other used items. So why should there be specific 'discrimination' against something called a gacha compared to any other type of content?

You keep talking about categories. I am not. I am talking about adding one more checkbox to filter out just gachas. Nothing more and nothing less. There is no category for limited number of items. 

[Selene Gregoire]

39 minutes ago, Fauve Aeon said:

it will still be helpful to me, because the Limited Edition or OOAK things I’ve purchased, I’ve known to search for specifically by name, and the time the release drops. I can’t remember a time when I’ve just accidentally  ‘happened across’ a marvelous limited edition on MP, in a general search for something else...so checking ‘copy’ and checking ‘don’t show limited quantity’ should be effective for filtering out most Gacha for me.
 

I’ve written a cut/paste string with ‘NOT’ modifiers to catch much of the d*e*m*o, _demo_, Dem0 kinds of things that I know are deliberately mis-named and then set my L$ range above L$1. I’m thinking the ‘don’t show demos’ checkbox still might not catch those quite so well. 

I've not said it isn't helpful as is. I'm saying LL needs to add one more checkbox specifically for filtering out gachas and not limited number items.

I don't mind gachas being on the MP. It's the resellers that I wouldn't miss if they were removed from the MP since they do more to contribute to the clutter.

[Fauve Aeon]

14 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

I am talking about adding one more checkbox to filter out just gachas.

If Gacha resellers just listed their Gacha resale items as ‘Gacha’ then that would make sense, a filter could catch them. But they aren’t required to even be put in the Gacha or Resale category, and won’t be unless something else changes..so I don’t think trying to group them under a checkbox saying “don’t show ‘Gacha’ “ when that word is rarely even used in the item title will help. By nature, they are no copy, yes trans so filtering for those and also adding “NOT gacha, NOT Gacha, NOT GACHA” to the search is the best way I know to filter them out at this point.

[wesleytron]

 

30 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

I am talking about adding one more checkbox to filter out just gachas.

I know - but how do you define "Gacha"?

How can the marketplace know that the limited quantity, once used item a person wants to put on the MP for resale is from a gacha?

And why should so-called gacha items and not other things be specifically singled out for this kind of treatment?

Like I say - Gachas don't technically exist on the MP (gachas are the machine, not the item) - the giraffe plushy bought inworld from a virtual gacha machine is just a giraffe plushy once it's for resale on the marketplace.

30 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

There is no category for limited number of items.

Perhaps an alternative filter would be one where you can show only limited quantity items that are (or originally were) limited to two or above.

Edited January 8, 2020 by wesleytron

[Selene Gregoire]

A couple of you need to go read the older threads about gachas on the MP and see what others have said that I am doing such a piss poor job of trying to convey. They also refer to the items in a gacha machine as gachas and call them gachas on the MP.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Selene Gregoire

[Tari Landar]

I've said it before, I will say it again...there is an easy 2 part method to appease both gacha sellers and gacha shoppers, along with those who wish to exclude such from their searches. LL doesn't listen, some commenters probably won't either, but this is literally how every marketplace style website functions-they implement easy fixes whenever and wherever possible, they don't hem and haw over it for almost a decade first and then choose the least appealing, or least purposefully-functional method possible, lol. 

TLDR; bolded section..

IF....

LL made a checkbox, radio button, whatthehellever for merchants selling to tick if the item is a gacha-and make it a requirement

(super easy to code, in fact, it's already in use for other options merchants can select currently when listing, it's merely a word or two that needs changing to adapt it, few minutes of coding tops...and again..ALREADY IN USE, so we know it works, testing would be even simpler, and it can also then be adapted for future use..variations, etc.)

and ALSO IF (this is now a when)

LL made a tick box for searchers to select that they do not want to see gachas in their searches

Bam... most gacha problems solved

LL has it halfway right, they finally added the tick box for searching. They attempted to appease people by adding a gacha category (which even in theory doesn't work, I have no idea how it made it off the idea table, lol). Unfortunately the mere fact that they said "It's not mandatory and we will never make it mandatory", pretty much sank that ship before it even sailed. Some say "BUT lots of things are in the gacha category"..and they're right (lots might be a subjective term, but they're right, kinda), however the vast majority of them are NOT in that category-because as LL has said, they can be under any number of categories, and they could, reasonably, fit under other categories, so it is so. 

The above solution proposed , first proposed years ago, I might add, not a new concept, would: allow people to continue to put their gacha wares in whatever category is best suited, still allow people to ignore gachas during searches, give merchants one more way to  reach their target audience with proper listing practices (radio buttons and checkboxes fall under that category), eliminate most of the groaning that revolves around the sheer number of gachas flooding the mp in pretty much every category (they dominate if you list "newest first", and many shop that way), while still allowing people to shop for limited quantity items that are NOT gachas (breedables are pretty common, but also exclusives, etc..)

Will it please everyone? Nope, nothing ever can. But It will sure as hell solve a lot of, although relatively minor, groaning and issues people have.  The more important questions are..why won't ll implement it, and why did it take them years just to implement two minor things, the checkbox and category, (for which the coding already existed, was already in use, and merely needed slight tweaking to verbiage to add in)? I don't presume to know the actual answers, but I can make some pretty good educated guesses and neither speaks highly of...so I shan't answer them at all

Easy fixes are not LL's forte, they never have been, they may never be. I don't presume to understand why, either, it's very counterproductive and definitely not intuitive. 
 

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

So, it would seem that for the majority of Marketplace shoppers, ticking both COPY and NO LIMITED ITEMS will, more often than not, bring the best, most sane results in most searches.

Outside of all of the keyword spam that causes all sorts of misc garbage to returned.  No way around that other than spending hours reporting things and modifying your search to have a dozen (or more ) NOT options.

 

 

4 hours ago, Reed Linden said:

In case you missed it, check out the new filters on the marketplace for demo and limited quantity items, as well as the new redelivery options. Finally, if you have any questions, feedback, or just want to hear about what's coming next for our web properties, come on out to the web user group meeting later today!

 

The Demo filter only works if an item is actually tied to the "full version".  There are tons of items that are Demos - according to their titles - that are not tied to any 'full version and thus that checkbox does not filter them out'.   So we still have to add "NOT demo" to every search.

 

[Fauve Aeon]

18 minutes ago, Tari Landar said:

TLDR; bolded section..

IF....
 

 

If...people use it when listing things, which is not any more enforceable than any other MP listing requirement without expending hours of employee time to follow up on all the reported miscategorised Gacha items. I’m not sure there is any consequences for listing mistakes/misuse now besides delisting something with a message to fix the listing, so I’m not sure there’s strong incentive. 

[Alyona Su]

40 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Outside of all of the keyword spam that causes all sorts of misc garbage to returned.  No way around that other than spending hours reporting things and modifying your search to have a dozen (or more ) NOT options.

The Demo filter only works if an item is actually tied to the "full version".  There are tons of items that are Demos - according to their titles - that are not tied to any 'full version and thus that checkbox does not filter them out'.   So we still have to add "NOT demo" to every search.

 

I use all three operators: AND, OR, and NOT.  As for the "fake" demos not tied to full versions: MP TOS violation, I flag them for that.

[Tari Landar]

17 minutes ago, Fauve Aeon said:

If...people use it when listing things, which is not any more enforceable than any other MP listing requirement without expending hours of employee time to follow up on all the reported miscategorised Gacha items. I’m not sure there is any consequences for listing mistakes/misuse now besides delisting something with a message to fix the listing, so I’m not sure there’s strong incentive. 

Nothing is 100% enforceable, but it's a bit *more enforceable by making the checkbox a requirement for merchants when creating a listing (as in, you cannot list without checking one of the two boxes, gacha or no gacha). Gachas are no more mis-categorized already than any other thing on the mp, so they already expend the same amount of time as anything else that gets reported (And one can presume that most things, likely never get reported, so, that's kind of a wash, imo)

If LL followed the very basic tenets of programming, including the KISS methods, we wouldn't be where we are with MP right now. Unfortunately., they choose not to, and they don't choose to reuse coding the way they should. Some (maybe most? I don't know) people wouldn't balk at LL if they said "making these changes to existing coding is going to be hard", because programming is and can be, very hard. Those who understand coding will wonder why the hell code reuse isn't already taking place, when it damn well should, and why these VERY simple changes weren't implemented before. 

Like I said, nothing can ever appease everyone, but there's no damn sense in making more problems when you can solve a lot of them with work that already has been done (was done years ago), already works, already is in use, and already serves multiple purposes. 

As an aside...touting this as a "hot new feature" is weird (to me, I respect it's not to some) when this change was proposed years ago, and literally would have only required the reuse of existing code with slight verbiage changes...not functionalities-which are often the most problematic. It is a nice feature, I'm not knocking it,  it's just not nearly as effective as it could be, or could have been, plus they could have moved on to other mp projects like working on how to streamline the mp (variations, etc..) into a more pleasant experience for shoppers and merchants alike. 

LL gets my kudos on a lot of things, a LOT of things..but the mp...nope, it's a failure on their part and has been for a long time, it makes me sad...I think so much more of LL than they apparently think of themselves in this arena. Maybe that's my problem..I see MP"s and LL"s potential with the MP..and they simply don't want to achieve that...dunno..I"m a grump today. 

[Selene Gregoire]

1 hour ago, Tari Landar said:

LL made a checkbox, radio button, whatthehellever for merchants selling to tick if the item is a gacha-and make it a requirement

(super easy to code, in fact, it's already in use for other options merchants can select currently when listing, it's merely a word or two that needs changing to adapt it, few minutes of coding tops...and again..ALREADY IN USE, so we know it works, testing would be even simpler, and it can also then be adapted for future use..variations, etc.)

and ALSO IF (this is now a when)

LL made a tick box for searchers to select that they do not want to see gachas in their searches

Bam... most gacha problems solved

LL has it halfway right, they finally added the tick box for searching. They attempted to appease people by adding a gacha category (which even in theory doesn't work, I have no idea how it made it off the idea table, lol). Unfortunately the mere fact that they said "It's not mandatory and we will never make it mandatory", pretty much sank that ship before it even sailed. Some say "BUT lots of things are in the gacha category"..and they're right (lots might be a subjective term, but they're right, kinda), however the vast majority of them are NOT in that category-because as LL has said, they can be under any number of categories, and they could, reasonably, fit under other categories, so it is so. 

The above solution proposed , first proposed years ago, I might add, not a new concept, would: allow people to continue to put their gacha wares in whatever category is best suited, still allow people to ignore gachas during searches, give merchants one more way to  reach their target audience with proper listing practices (radio buttons and checkboxes fall under that category), eliminate most of the groaning that revolves around the sheer number of gachas flooding the mp in pretty much every category (they dominate if you list "newest first", and many shop that way), while still allowing people to shop for limited quantity items that are NOT gachas (breedables are pretty common, but also exclusives, etc..)

Thank you Tari. This is exactly what I was trying to convey. And this time? It wasn't tl;dr.  

[LittleMe Jewell]

45 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

I use all three operators: AND, OR, and NOT.  As for the "fake" demos not tied to full versions: MP TOS violation, I flag them for that.

Ahh, I didn't know that all Demos had to be tied to the full version.  

In any case, I often get tired of spending so much time reporting things.  Sometimes it seems like there are more things listed incorrectly than correctly.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

IF....

LL made a checkbox, radio button, whatthehellever for merchants selling to tick if the item is a gacha-and make it a requirement

(super easy to code, in fact, it's already in use for other options merchants can select currently when listing, it's merely a word or two that needs changing to adapt it, few minutes of coding tops...and again..ALREADY IN USE, so we know it works, testing would be even simpler, and it can also then be adapted for future use..variations, etc.)

and ALSO IF (this is now a when)

LL made a tick box for searchers to select that they do not want to see gachas in their searches

Bam... most gacha problems solved

LL has it halfway right

You also have it halfway right. If LL did exactly what you said, what about all the gachas that are already listed?

Does every existing product get retroactively marked as non-gacha? Do all products on MP need to be relisted?

This would also "punish" non-gacha merchants by forcing them to deal with specific settings that are specifically not related to their product, even if they've never -- and will never -- make a listing for a gacha. The solution for this problem would be to have the "not gacha" option pre-selected, but that would again sink the ship before it sails just like the Gacha category..

And don't get me wrong, this gacha situation is pretty silly. While these new filters are useful, they're only a bandaid to what the actual problem is. Heck, I would volunteer my own time so I could manually go through hundreds of pages of MP and review/move any gacha items I could find. PM me @Linden Lab 😊

Edited January 9, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Tari Landar]

21 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

You also have it halfway right. If LL did exactly what you said, what about all the gachas that are already listed?

Does every existing product get retroactively marked as non-gacha? Do all products on MP need to be relisted?

This would also "punish" non-gacha merchants by forcing them to deal with specific settings that are specifically not related to their product, even if they've never -- and will never -- make a listing for a gacha. The solution for this problem would be to have the "not gacha" option pre-selected, but that would again sink the ship before it sails just like the Gacha category..

And don't get me wrong, this gacha situation is pretty silly. While these new filters are useful, they're only a bandaid to what the actual problem is. Heck, I would volunteer my own time so I could manually go through hundreds of pages of MP and review/move any gacha items I could find. PM me @Linden Lab 😊

There s no solution (that LL is capable of, or willing to pursue at this time -I'd be willing to take that back if the evidence ever suggests/ed otherwise) that is retroactively effective, except placing 100% of the work on merchants-which is most definitely not fair. But, sadly, it really is the only viable solution at the current time. LL is certainly not going to go one by one and check all listings and make that adjustment where necessary. They could code in a method for merchants to do so in bulk-which will lighten the load somewhat, but..eh..I"m not on the side of the fence that believes they're capable of coding that in (or, rather, have the desire to, because that actually would require new code work, and definitely take more time, money, man power, etc) and again,not a perfect solution either. A perfect solution can't exist in this case, the ball's been rolling down the hill for years already. 

My solution isn't a retroactive one, and definitely not perfect either (but does solve more problems than it causes) -or expected to work retroactively, it's a progressive one,  one that should've been implemented day one of MP. I don't know of a single e-commerce website (which MP is) that existed when MP was implemented that didn't already use such methods -a means to better categorize/list,  and simplify the experience for merchants and shoppers alike. Even half.com used it in 1999, long before sl and mp existed (I accept no excuses on this, in case that wasn't obvious, lol).  I'm a bit ***** retentive on this one because LL Isn't really doing anything to fix problems, they're, like you said, putting bandaids on things in the hopes that it'll please people, and I find that to be a very, very weird practice. It does slightly irritate me that we're expected to jump and shout, praise them and "Ooh new shiny", for a functionality that has literally NO reason to not have already been in place (a functionality that already existed, this wasn't a project that needed all new code, we already use various checkboxes for searching and listing). MP is probably the one mountain I will probably live and die on in sl, and rarely concede on because it has the potential to be amazing...and it irks me when potential like that isn't met, lol. (Maybe it irks me more than it should, but it does)

 

This is like cheering on a child who got tired of being told to clean his room, so he just shoved it all under his bed. Sure, most of the visible floor might be clean..but the room sure as hell isn't. It might be funny when they're toddlers, it stops being so (And harder to break them of bad habits) when they're teenagers and still being that damn lazy.  

Even my remedial students understand basic programming tenets, efficiency, streamlining, etc.. and most of them are between 8 and 16, lmao.  As someone that has used sl both in the past and still currently uses it to some extent for lessons...the MP is part of our "how not to program an e-commerce website" and "how not to deal with customer complaints and requests for your e-commerce website" lessons  . IT's actually been used in some of my IT courses while pursuing my degrees as well.  KISS- I should make this more obvious, my apologies to anyone that doesn't understand me when I keep saying it...it stands for Keep It Simple Silly (usually Stupid, but we use the nice connotation instead, lol)  is something we live and die by, you don't complicate things if you don't have to.  

 

 

[Fauve Aeon]

I’m testing the search with Do Not Show: Demo Items, and there really are a lot of demos that are not tied to full versions. 
I’m flagging some things and I’ll check to see how quickly they are removed or updated. 
 

I’m wondering what ‘inflated listing price’ means in the reporting dropdown? 

 

[ItHadToComeToThis]

I....can.....remove....gacha......oh lord yes. The scourge of the marketplace is (probably nearly) gone!!

[ItHadToComeToThis]

1 hour ago, Tari Landar said:

 

I know it would never happen. But, I would love to see a fresh marketplace coded from the ground up with all of the issues we have faced / are facing taken into account and accounted for and a whole load of new neat features added in.