Direct Delivery FAQ

[Darrius Gothly]

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Dora Gustafson wrote:

What makes you think that LL cannot block items in the new folders? I guess the new folders will have features we haven't seen before.

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I think they "could" do that if they wanted, but the programming complexity is more than if they simply take possession of it. That method fixes the problem without having to build in new "locks and checks" to prevent a scam. In short, a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem ... always preferable and usually more reliable anyway.

[Darrius Gothly]

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Couldbe Yue wrote:

that's your opinion and you're entitled to it but I disagree completely, just because you like a more difficult workflow doesn't mean the rest of us do.

I prefer folders for ease of use.  I know boxes makes it easier for merchants but that's just laziness and a disregard for their customers.  If you sell copy items them it wouldn't kill you to put box in the folder that says "backup copy - rez when needed" and that way everyone gets ease of use and has their backup nicely stored.

I sell transfer items and I try to buy only transfer items.  To make it clear, I (along with many others) *

prefer

* transfer items.  We accept the risk we run from the issues caused by the poor quality of the platform and it does not deter us. Just because you like copy items doesn't mean that everyone else should. 

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Hmm .. seriously? Okay, convince me. Why are NoCopy/Trans items better than Copy/NoTrans items? What are the advantages they offer and how often have you found yourself thankful for those advantages? And I'm not challenging, just not seeing what the benefit could be, so I'm curious why you hold that opinion.

[Hintswen Guardian]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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Hintswen Guardian wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

But since the Marketplace isn't constantly checking to see if the item is really still available, it would accept a purchase but then be unable to deliver it because the item was already given or sold to someone else.

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Which is why you can set the quantity to 1 and there you go, your item sells and is then listed as unavailiable and later unlisted completly.

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That doesn't have any effect on an item that the Merchant cannot copy but can sell (Transfer). If SLM doesn't take it into their inventory at the time of listing then the Merchant is perfectly capable of taking it back out of their Outbound Delivery folder at any time.

That would make a nice scam too, post a No Copy very valuable item for sale, then take it back out of the folder and .. soon as it gets sold, take the money and run. In the meantime, transfer the item to an Alt and do the whole scam all over again. But, since they take possession of it at the time it is listed .. the scam falls flat. IMO? BRAVO LL!

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As opposed to creating a prim, naming it whatever you want and listing it on the marketplace as anything you want it to be. Hey you can even add images of the thing you are immitating to make it look real.

Customer gets a prim with nothing in it, seller gets the money.

Wherea re you getting this idea that youritems are going to a different account when you are selling them? The warning emssage it to warn you the item is being moved to the DD folder, not copied to it.

[Couldbe Yue]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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Couldbe Yue wrote:

that's your opinion and you're entitled to it but I disagree completely, just because you like a more difficult workflow doesn't mean the rest of us do.

I prefer folders for ease of use.  I know boxes makes it easier for merchants but that's just laziness and a disregard for their customers.  If you sell copy items them it wouldn't kill you to put box in the folder that says "backup copy - rez when needed" and that way everyone gets ease of use and has their backup nicely stored.

I sell transfer items and I try to buy only transfer items.  To make it clear, I (along with many others) *

prefer

* transfer items.  We accept the risk we run from the issues caused by the poor quality of the platform and it does not deter us. Just because you like copy items doesn't mean that everyone else should. 

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Hmm .. seriously? Okay, convince me. Why are NoCopy/Trans items better than Copy/NoTrans items? What are the advantages they offer and how often have you found yourself thankful for those advantages? And I'm not challenging, just not seeing what the benefit could be, so I'm curious why you hold that opinion.

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• when I'm tired of an item I can give it away to someone else who will use it.
• I run many alts so if i buy something that doesn't suit one I can pass it on to one of the others, rather than it being stuck in an inventory of an account I stop using. This is a biggie when I'm doing shoots for products.
• I can buy with couldbe or one of my other merchant accounts and then transfer it to the alt, so I don't have to transfer cash and log in the account just because I've seen something I like when I'm out shopping
• I can give a gift to someone and actually be there when I give it.

all up it's more flexible for the way I use sl.

I'm surprised you weren't able to analyse this yourself - it's pretty basic stuff if you understand the main ways people use sl.

[Shayne Hesten]

Interesting, but what about items that are modifiable?  It is very easy even for an experience resident to make a total mess when modifying something but it does not matter, there is an original copy of it in the inventory.  If the item was no copy and it messed up, who is going to replace it?  It is not the merchant's job to do that so you either lose it or buy it again.

 

[Darrius Gothly]

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Hintswen Guardian wrote:

As opposed to creating a prim, naming it whatever you want and listing it on the marketplace as anything you want it to be. Hey you can even add images of the thing you are immitating to make it look real.

Customer gets a prim with nothing in it, seller gets the money.

Wherea re you getting this idea that youritems are going to a different account when you are selling them? The warning emssage it to warn you the item is being moved to the DD folder, not copied to it.

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Yes, there are numerous ways to scam .. I'm just commenting that they've plugged a hole for one method. And while it may not ALWAYS be a scam, it also fixes the inadvertant "oops I already gave away / sold the item. My bad" mistakes.

I'm "getting this idea" from my reading of the FAQ. As I stated above, I'm not in the Beta group so I'm interpreting based on my experience as a programmer and my comprehension skills. I could be flat dead wrong.

The sentences in specific that I'm basing my interpretation on are these:

Merchants listing no-copy items will be warned that those items will be moved as opposed to copied as an extra check to prevent accidental moves. When an item is delivered, it will be delivered from your Marketplace inventory--your in world inventory will not be affected.

Two things go into my interpretation. First is the fact that Brooke mentioned it at all. It's been my experience that most folks don't mention things that are the same .. they only mention changes and differences. While not a hard and fast rule, it does generally work that way.

Secondly is the content of the warning message .. "items will be moved as opposed to copied". When you attempt to "Copy" a NoCopy item in your current inventory ... you can't. The right-click menu doesn't include a Copy option. Viewers that support Inventory Links allow you to Copy as Link, but I'm betting you won't be able to paste that Link into the DD folders.

In any event, when you simply move a NoCopy item from one folder to another in your own Inventory, you get no such warning message now. But apparently you will get such a message if you move it into the DD folder. To me that means they are "taking possession" of the item .. by allowing it to be moved into the Outbound DD Folder, it is now "owned" by SLM. If you take it back out again, that must in some fashion notify SLM that the item is no longer available for delivery. Thus you would reacquire it simply by moving it to a regular folder.

Now .. on to another matter. If you want to get belligerent about it .. go right on ahead. But there's only one way you can stand firmly on better knowledge than me .. and that would be because you are a participant in the DD Beta. If that's the case .. dude you just blew the NDA big time. If not .. then back it down a little bit, okay? No need to get all cranky about opinions here.

[Darrius Gothly]

All pretty good reasons based on how you use SL.

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Couldbe Yue wrote:

I'm surprised you weren't able to analyse this yourself - it's pretty basic stuff if you understand the main ways people use sl.

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I have two alts. I use them rarely .. mostly for "Test Dummies" when working on new builds and gizmos .. or to test that I got perms set right. I rarely inhabit them .. and when I do, it's almost always to pose them or attach them to some crazy invention so I can watch from "outside" (using my main).

I've never been one to have or use a lot of Alts, thus I never really look at it from the perspective of those that do. I disagree that most people use lots of Alts too. Newbies rarely do, and my experience leans me toward the conclusion that the number of folks that are "multi-avatar" users is much smaller than those that have one primary and any alts are just part-time tools.

But, with that said, I certainly do see why you would want Transferrable items to pass around between your many identities and Alts .. and the gift giving thing is a good one.

[Shayne Hesten]

I think we are moving too far away from the subject of this thread now.

This question of alts can be addressed in a Jira or with representation to LL.  After all, why should alts have separate inventories, or why cannot one alt access the inventory of another alt?  It is the same RL person at the keyboard who has paid for everything.

So, maybe the answer to this problem, transferring between alts, is to have just one inventory with a folder for each alt avatar.

Now then, what was it Brooke said at the start?

[Couldbe Yue]

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Shayne Hesten wrote:

Interesting, but what about items that are modifiable?  It is very easy even for an experience resident to make a total mess when modifying something but it does not matter, there is an original copy of it in the inventory.  If the item was no copy and it messed up, who is going to replace it?  It is not the merchant's job to do that so you either lose it or buy it again.

 

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yep, only the other day I trashed a transfer item I bought and I'm quite adept (despite this little oopsie) at edititng things after almost 5 years inworld, I do what most people do, either fix it or go buy another. Despite knowing that now I'm going to get a rash of people telling me they've trashed their items because I've said this, it's very, very rare I ever get someone come to me because they've trashed it.  I probably get one a year out of the thousands of items I sell during that time and considering some of the pics I've received from people who have heavily modified the items, I'm impressed.  In the end it doesn't matter though because it can be swapped out pretty easily, they drop the damaged one on me, I have a look at it and either fix it, growl at them because most of it is missing or drop them another.

I've also trashed copy items where I hadn't taken a backup first - In those cases I also go buy another copy as it's my fault and I don't see why I should bother the merchant because of my stupidity.  Hence my suggestion to add a backup box to the folder. 

But then Couldbe's primary market is different.  I sell mainly to people who have land and have been around for a while but even my newbies seem to be the non hysteric, sensible types so I count myself all kinds of lucky.

 

[Hintswen Guardian]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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Hintswen Guardian wrote:

As opposed to creating a prim, naming it whatever you want and listing it on the marketplace as anything you want it to be. Hey you can even add images of the thing you are immitating to make it look real.

Customer gets a prim with nothing in it, seller gets the money.

Wherea re you getting this idea that youritems are going to a different account when you are selling them? The warning emssage it to warn you the item is being moved to the DD folder, not copied to it.

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Yes, there are numerous ways to scam .. I'm just commenting that they've plugged a hole for one method. And while it may not ALWAYS be a scam, it also fixes the inadvertant "oops I already gave away / sold the item. My bad" mistakes.

I'm "getting this idea" from my reading of the FAQ. As I stated above, I'm not in the Beta group so I'm interpreting based on my experience as a programmer and my comprehension skills. I could be flat dead wrong.

The sentences in specific that I'm basing my interpretation on are these:

Merchants listing no-copy items will be warned that those items will be moved as opposed to copied as an extra check to prevent accidental moves. When an item is delivered, it will be delivered from your Marketplace inventory--your in world inventory will not be affected.

Two things go into my interpretation. First is the fact that Brooke mentioned it at all. It's been my experience that most folks don't mention things that are the same .. they only mention changes and differences. While not a hard and fast rule, it does generally work that way.

Secondly is the content of the warning message .. "items will be moved as opposed to copied". When you attempt to "Copy" a NoCopy item in your current inventory ... you can't. The right-click menu doesn't include a Copy option. Viewers that support Inventory Links allow you to Copy as Link, but I'm betting you won't be able to paste that Link into the DD folders.

In any event, when you simply move a NoCopy item from one folder to another in your own Inventory, you get no such warning message now. But apparently you will get such a message if you move it into the DD folder. To me that means they are "taking possession" of the item .. by allowing it to be moved into the Outbound DD Folder, it is now "owned" by SLM. If you take it back out again, that must in some fashion notify SLM that the item is no longer available for delivery. Thus you would reacquire it simply by moving it to a regular folder.

Now .. on to another matter. If you want to get belligerent about it .. go right on ahead. But there's only one way you can stand firmly on better knowledge than me .. and that would be because you are a participant in the DD Beta. If that's the case .. dude you just blew the NDA big time. If not .. then back it down a little bit, okay? No need to get all cranky about opinions here.

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The warning message is to warn you they are being moved to the DD section of your inventory, they are not moved to another account.

[Darrius Gothly]

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Hintswen Guardian wrote:

The warning message is to warn you they are being moved to the DD section of your inventory, they are not moved to another account.

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It's a semantics thing then. Right now, the only time you get a warning with a NoCopy item is when it is changing ownership from you to someone else. Even though it's just being moved within your own inventory .. and you are essentially retaining ownership .. you get a warning message just as if you were changing its ownership to "someone else" ... that "someone else" being SLM.

From a programmatic point of view, they are taking "ownership", just making it appear as though you still own it. That's a common method to keep the books straight. It's kinda like moving money from your checking to your savings account. It's still "your money", but mentally you think of it as belonging to someone else. That keeps you from spending it instead of saving it.

[Ziggy21 Slade]

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Couldbe Yue wrote:

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I'm going to take issue with this.  I sell goods that usually contain around 5 -15 separate items and have an inventory size of around 35k.  I try to keep the growth rate down but new scripts, notecards, animations, sculpts and textures needed for builds manage to increase it and that's before things like buying stuff so couldbe doesn't always look shabby when she's out and about (ok, that's rare but she does still vanity shop sometimes).  Even if I'm harsh with my next inventory clean I don't expect to be able to get rid of more than 5k worth of stuff (draft copies of scripts and builds mainly).    Now you could tell me to box stuff up, put it in an alt etc but all that does is slow down an already slow workflow that's primarily due to the technical limitations of the platform and pushes it into the realm of unusable.

I met an account once who had only been around a few months yet had something close to 70k worth of items.  All she did was hunts and didn't even bother to unpack the stuff.  She wondered why she had inventory issues lol.  In that case I can see a case for getting snippy but if you look at some of the larger texture or sculpt makers I'd be surprised if they had less than 50k in their inventory, and very few redundant items.

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Well I will take issue your issue, : )

I have 430 items listed under this avatar including some texture packs which include 2 versions of the texture, sample prims and sounds,

I have a further 150 or so products for that business which are on sale but not listed,

I have a store which sells flags for every country in the world and some, these are sold in packs of 9, so theres over 2500 in total, made with over 1000 textures although I only listed 20,

I have 2 alts which sell breedable pets, one of which has over 3000 textures in use, but are in this avatars inventory,

I have the dusty remnants of a stack of failed projects from 4 years of solid creating,

I love sculptys and I must own at least 1 pack from almost every creator, I started counting them once and gave up at 100 packs 

I never use temporary uploads and I am not incredibly tidy so I often have several versions of the same thing where I have made minor alterations

and I still only have 30k items in inventory, I know if i put my mind to it this could be less than 15k.

OK I am not the biggest merchant in SL but I probably have more products up than the vast majority of merchants, and I know there are many people with many more items in inventory than this ( I have a non merchant friend with 120k) but I do not believe this a result of necessity.

To use your example of a sculpty maker lets say he provides the sculpt map, a very generous 3 textures, a bump map and a sample object, thats 6 items, if we allow him 20k for personal clothes and stuff  he still has to have 5000 sculptys in packs listed to reach your 50k items, and this still makes the assumption that he has items listed now which don't currently exist in inventory, which seems highly unlikely to me. 

I may well be wrong about this and perhaps Darrius or one of the clever dudes can correct or confirm , but I don't think inventory loading will be an issue for Direct Delivery after all it delivers if you aren't even online, all the action takes place on the asset server I imagine.

 

[Shayne Hesten]

I am unable to quickly find the SL Wiki reference regarding a recommended maximum of inventory items, other than remembering their recommendation it should be no more than 10k - 12k items.

However, there are various references to inventory throughout, such as this...

"Linden Lab strongly recommends you keep your inventory item count relatively low"

That is a quotation from a discussion on Outfits in the official Knowledge Base, Jeremy and Bea were the contributors.  Reference may be found at http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Outfits/ta-p/700127

 

[Darrius Gothly]

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Ziggy21 Slade wrote:

I may well be wrong about this and perhaps Darrius or one of the clever dudes can correct or confirm , but I don't think inventory loading will be an issue for Direct Delivery after all it delivers if you aren't even online, all the action takes place on the asset server I imagine. 

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The only time I think it will matter is when the Merchant mistakenly puts duplicate items into an outbound delivery folder because they didn't see the full list on their viewer. BUT ... I think ... (and pray) .. they will be using a new protocol that makes missing inventory issues a thing of the past.

I don't know that for a fact though. I'm just praying fervently, lighting a boatload of candles .. and giving serious thought to sacrificing a few chickens just to make it happen. *grin*

[Peewee Musytari]

Selling unboxed items may be better for the customer, so that they don`t have to unpack a box, but it is a horrendous idea for the Merchant, who will then have folders full of items in their "Outgoing" Folder adding all those items to their inventory count.

[Ziggy21 Slade]

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Peewee Musytari wrote:

Selling unboxed items may be better for the customer, so that they don`t have to unpack a box, but it is a horrendous idea for the Merchant, who will then have folders full of items in their "Outgoing" Folder adding all those items to their inventory count.

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Maybe it's just me, but I have these folders already,

is it really normal practice to create an item, package it and then only retain this boxed version in inventory, deleting all the unpackaged stuff?, what if you have to go back to it to update or show it to one of your friends?, you have to open your box to inventory each time, seems like a long way around to me. 

[Irene Muni]

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Peewee Musytari wrote:

Selling unboxed items may be better for the customer, so that they don`t have to unpack a box, 

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Each residdent has their own preferences, of course. But I prefer, as others have said, receive my purchase in a box. It's very usual for me delete some folders with item I use only occasionally and retain the box for those moments. Yes, if I received the purchase in a folder I can create my own box, but...

[Arwen Serpente]

I'm a "boxer" too. lol, I prefer "boxers" to "briefs"

[Sassy Romano]

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Irene Muni wrote:

Totally agree with Toysoldier . I cannot see the advantages of sell unboxed items.

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It will be an absolute godsend for me but I don't need to say why.

Other reason includes, no need to unbox it though that's pretty trivial to get around.

[Madeliefste Oh]

Hi Brooke,

How will be dealed with inventory loss?

Inventory loss is my biggest concern when it comes to Direct Delivery. Once it happened to me, that I lost about 6000 items from my inventory. Clearing cache, installing new viewer, working on a different computer, nothing helped to get the lost items back into my inventory. So I completed my inventory again by buying my own products from my inworld store. Then suddenly about three weeks later, my inventory started loading fully again and my lost items came back.

Among those items was some of my merchandise. At the time this happened the inventory loss had no influence on my sales, because I did not loose any items rezzed in world or items from my magic box. But in this new system, a loss of merchandise for three weeks from my inventory would have cost me money.

How are you going to prevend that merchants will suffer from inventory loss?

[Arwen Serpente]

Actually Ziggy21, it is normal for me to set permissions on an outfit, box it up, add all the info cards and landmarks, pose stand, etc. and to keep the boxes.  My folders are named with my own shorthand not the formal name of the outfit that is put on sale. In addition, to prevent "oopsies" from happening my rule of thumb is: if it is in a box, the permissions are set; if it is in a folder, I may not have set the permissions completely, or changed something. The only thing I distribute or sell would be a boxed item. Further to that, the folders then become "working" files... I may evolve a prim skirt or accessory, change the color, try out a new texture...obviously, the items in those files are not distributable. And yes, when I want to show an outfit to a client or a friend, I do rez a finished box and wear the outfit... it takes a split second to do. Then I delete the file to keep my inventory manageable. That's just my system. There must be tons of variations of inventory management systems among the thousands of Merchants.

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Madeliefste Oh wrote:

Hi Brooke,

How will be dealed with inventory loss?

Inventory loss is my biggest concern when it comes to Direct Delivery. Once it happened to me, that I lost about 6000 items from my inventory. Clearing cache, installing new viewer, working on a different computer, nothing helped to get the lost items back into my inventory. So I completed my inventory again by buying my own products from my inworld store. Then suddenly about three weeks later, my inventory started loading fully again and my lost items came back.

Among those items was some of my merchandise. At the time this happened the inventory loss had no influence on my sales, because I did not loose any items rezzed in world or items from my magic box. But in this new system, a loss of merchandise for three weeks from my inventory would have cost me money.

How are you going to prevend that merchants will suffer from inventory loss?

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This is one of the MAIN REASONS (among countless other reasons that have already been posted in these forums - but that Dakota says were basically ignored because none of us were / are Beta Testers) why I have MAJOR concerns about the architecture of the current DD solution.  It may sound so cool and perfect and clean as a design until you dig deeper and see the potential risks of the DD creating a NEW SOURCE of SLM content that is tied to your personal inventory.

Now Brooke has hinted (because of revealing a new API will be needed by all viewers) that the new DD design will be using an SLM specific independant DD IN and OUT folder that is not just a system folder of the Merchant's actual inventory.  I suspect this API will allow for some form of PROXY FOLDER to a corresponding SLM account of the Merchant.  As such, I am guessing this Merchant SLM IN/OUT inventory  will be completely empty until we start migrating our content from the magic boxes to this SLM DD folder.

This would explain why the DD cannot be deployed until all viewers (LL's and all the 3PVs) have incorporated this API.  Without the API, the Aavatar's account inventory does not have this new PROXIED INVENTORY FOLDERS functionality that can point to another inventory (like the new SLM DD in/out folders).

hmmmmmm - I must ponder the pros and cons to this.

 

[Paulyta Miles]

1) Do you will force the people to use this new metod? or they can still using the magic boxes?.

2) D you will force sell the item in a folders or we can still using the boxes?.

 

I don want a big inventory so i am "boxed" too.

[Josh Susanto]

As things are, people seem to be able to buy items from the box via SLM when my inventory is totally screwed up, and I am able to manually deliver from my inventory when either the box or SLM is totally screwed up.

With Direct Delivery, what option will I have when these two things have become the same?

[Peewee Musytari]

I assume if deliveries work when we are offline, that they are sent from the database and not actually dependant on how much of our inventory decides to load that day.

At least I hope so lol