Marketplace: Maturity level of some listings automatically changes to M or A

[Elvina Ewing]

First time I have noticed this was back in August... I was searching in my own store for particular items and they were not there. Turned out they were marked as Adult, so i couldn't see them because my Adult rating is turned off.

So i put all my items back to General rating and forgot about it.

Then some time in September it happened again, and only then did i realize that it must have been happening for a long time already, and that about half of my entire store has been marked as Adult or Mature for all this time!! Then  i came here to the Merchants forum to see if there was any talk about this. Nothing i could find. So i went ahead and created a JIRA. It was a week ago, and it hasn't even been looked at, at all! I am shocked to see that nobody seems to care. These are all lost sales, not only to us the merchants, but also lost commissions to LL!

I assume the problem is caused by some unknown words in the description and/or tags. But there are listings in my store that are absolutely identical, with the only difference of the colour, and one is being flagged as Adult while the other one isn't and remains General. So How am i supposed to fix this?? Half of my store is flagged Adult for no apparent reason.

If anybody cares, here is the JIRA >>  https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-231302

[Chroma Starlight]

 I can tell you these problems crop up from time to time in a general-audiences SL flickr group I participate in. There's simply just a lot of content and somewhere along the way these things may happen whenever content is rated. I suppose that as a content creator, the managing of IPR/Content-Rating issues or even shifting external standards is just something that happens, part of any operating environment the longer that you maintain a business. And also, as your business grows, it's only natural that you'll be seeing issues like these. Hopefully these are "good problems" to have.

Maybe there's someone you could pay L$ to monitor the store for content rating issues in the future? 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Chroma Starlight

[Polenth Yue]

It's been discussed here before, but it's been going on for years, so you might not find a thread in the last week or something. It's not usually clear why it happens. I've had random colours set to adult when the others aren't.

[Quistess Alpha]

9 hours ago, Elvina Ewing said:

Half of my store is flagged Adult for no apparent reason.

While I agree that some of your items, for example the pearl shoes mentioned in your JIRA might have been inappropriately moved, a fair number of items in your store (from a brief look-see) are labeled as general when they really ought to be moderate or adult. for example, https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Naughty-or-Nice-Cropped-Turtleneck-Sweater-NORSE-by-Caverna-Obscura-Maitreya-SLINK-Physique-Belleza-Freya/16236416 is clearly intended to be a bit risque, and ought be in the moderate category.

[Elvina Ewing]

Update: although my JIRA has been closed ( 🤦‍♀️), Shrike Linden left a valuable comment there that can shed some light on what is really going on. Apparently there is some text in the Other Languages tabs that triggers the maturity rating. Of course it is entirely different matter why that text is there at all and how it ended up there, because i sure didn't fill out any Other Languages tabs. Ever. Of what few items i have inspected, some of them have description in Other Languages tab that have absolutely nothing to do with the item in question. Like for example, description in arm vines listing has text and tags from gypsy shirts. It looks like i have countless hours, if not days, of tedious work ahead of me cleaning up Other Languages tabs of all 500+ affected listings. There are listings that have all 5 tabs filled with bs text, and as far as i know there is no magic button to clean all that up in just one click... 😖😣😫😭

Looks like i will have to look up another JIRA...

[Samara Sharkfin]

6 hours ago, Elvina Ewing said:

Of what few items i have inspected, some of them have description in Other Languages tab that have absolutely nothing to do with the item in question.

Hi Elvina, the issue with the keywords in other languages is explained here. It happens while using quick fill.

[Dakota Linden]

Greetings!

When Product Listings were originally  are created using a Quick Fill Template, the system fills out ALL language tabs with the information from the Quick Fill Template.  The Merchant is then required to edit each language option to update the information so that it pertained to the newly created product listing. 

Many merchants only update the default English Language Tab and do not update any of the other languages, resulting in listings that when viewed in English have the correct information for the item being sold in that listing, but when viewing the Marketplace in a localized language, would show the information from the Product Listing that was used as the Quick Fill Template. 

This should not be happening with new listings.  The current behavior is to copy the information from the English language tab only, and then  (Thank you for the updated testing, Elvina Ewing!)

If the item used for a Quick Fill Template does not have any information filled out in the Non English Localized languages, then the system will only fill in the English Language tab when the new listing is created.

If the Merchant does not enter any information in the other language localizations, the system will default to showing the information that is in the English language tab/localization. 

This means that older listings that the merchant didn't update correctly/manually may still be showing the information from whatever Listing was used as the Quick Fill Template when they created the listing. 

Merchants can use the Bulk Update feature to quickly clear all of that other information from their Product listings. 

*Visit your Merchant Home page

*Click on Marketplace Listings in the menu on the left

*Change the option to show up to 100 listings at a time

* Put a check in the box left of the word 'Date' in the column (this will select all listings on the page, up to 100 at a time)

*Scroll to the bottom of the page and change the 'Modify selected items:' option to Edit then click the Go button

The system will open a Blank Edit Listing page

*Click on Each Non English language tab (Click the Language word to open the tab)

*On each language tab but a checkmark in the boxes for Item Title, Product Features, Extended Description, and Keywords 

** DO NOT FILL OUT ANY INFORMATION IN THE FIELDS ** 

The actual fields for each of those 4 options MUST remain blank in order to clear the information. 

*Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Update button. 

The system may take a minute or 2 to process the update. Once done, the page will reload back to your Manage Listings page and you see a Green Highlighted Success message at the top of the list. 

If you have more than 100 listings, scroll to the bottom of the list, click the option to go to the next page and then rinse and repeat the above steps until all product listings have been cleared. 

 

[Elvina Ewing]

10 minutes ago, Dakota Linden said:

This should not be happening with new listings.  The current behavior is to copy the information from the English language tab only, and then if the Merchant does not enter any information in the other language localizations, the system will default to showing the information that is in the English language tab/localization. 

 

my newest listings from last week Friday did still have this problem. I used Quick Fill from a faulty item which apparently had Other Languages tabs filled with rubbish from another listings, and all of that got copied to the fresh listing as well, in Other Languages tabs. Hopefully, the new items will not have this problem.

10 minutes ago, Dakota Linden said:

Merchants can use the Bulk Update feature to quickly clear all of that other information from their Product listings. 

 

 

OMG, just tested this on 2 listings in bulk (can't be too careful...) and it worked like a charm!!! Thanks so much Dakota, you saved my day!! 🥰💝

[Dana Enyo]

On 10/14/2021 at 9:37 AM, Dakota Linden said:

Greetings!

When Product Listings were originally  are created using a Quick Fill Template, the system fills out ALL language tabs with the information from the Quick Fill Template.  The Merchant is then required to edit each language option to update the information so that it pertained to the newly created product listing. 

Many merchants only update the default English Language Tab and do not update any of the other languages, resulting in listings that when viewed in English have the correct information for the item being sold in that listing, but when viewing the Marketplace in a localized language, would show the information from the Product Listing that was used as the Quick Fill Template. 

This should not be happening with new listings.  The current behavior is to copy the information from the English language tab only, and then  (Thank you for the updated testing, Elvina Ewing!)

If the item used for a Quick Fill Template does not have any information filled out in the Non English Localized languages, then the system will only fill in the English Language tab when the new listing is created.

If the Merchant does not enter any information in the other language localizations, the system will default to showing the information that is in the English language tab/localization. 

This means that older listings that the merchant didn't update correctly/manually may still be showing the information from whatever Listing was used as the Quick Fill Template when they created the listing. 

Merchants can use the Bulk Update feature to quickly clear all of that other information from their Product listings. 

*Visit your Merchant Home page

*Click on Marketplace Listings in the menu on the left

*Change the option to show up to 100 listings at a time

* Put a check in the box left of the word 'Date' in the column (this will select all listings on the page, up to 100 at a time)

*Scroll to the bottom of the page and change the 'Modify selected items:' option to Edit then click the Go button

The system will open a Blank Edit Listing page

*Click on Each Non English language tab (Click the Language word to open the tab)

*On each language tab but a checkmark in the boxes for Item Title, Product Features, Extended Description, and Keywords 

** DO NOT FILL OUT ANY INFORMATION IN THE FIELDS ** 

The actual fields for each of those 4 options MUST remain blank in order to clear the information. 

*Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Update button. 

The system may take a minute or 2 to process the update. Once done, the page will reload back to your Manage Listings page and you see a Green Highlighted Success message at the top of the list. 

If you have more than 100 listings, scroll to the bottom of the list, click the option to go to the next page and then rinse and repeat the above steps until all product listings have been cleared. 

 

THANK YOU for the complete explanation!  I just did that for the different versions of two dresses I made that inexplicably switched themselves to ADULT.  I hope it works!

[Dana Enyo]

I DID do the complete process that Dakota Linden described in his October 2021 post above, and I thought it worked.  But this morning those dresses are back to ADULT again.  I really don't know why; I sure don't think they violate any of the standards detailed in the SL Website page, and there is nothing sexual or violent in the descriptions.  You can take a look:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/En-YO-MIEL-Foil-Minidress-Maitreya-Gold/25001844

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/En-YO-Sindra-Sequin-Minidress-Maitreya-Lara-White/25007769

Am I missing something?

ADDED: I just noticed I do have the words "domme" and "dominant" in the KEYWORDS.  Are those triggers?  I've removed them from one color of each of the dresses and will report back on what happens.

ADDED SEVERAL HOURS LATER:  YES, that seems to have been the problem!  My dresses are still GENERAL after that change.  So we all must take the lesson--it is NOT just the words that appear on the page that are important!

Edited July 14, 2023 by Dana Enyo
Additional info

[Chic Aeon]

Well my thought was if the gold dress was A and the white not then it might be a visual test and the AI is picking it up as naked (that happens on Flickr a lot and might be in test mode for Marketplace (don't know).

BUT when I went to try and see which I could see as GENERAL I couldn't get the drop down box to take that choice. For ME it is stuck on G = M - A which is NOT my choice. I would just as soon not see the A stuff as I am not in the market for it :D. So something isn't working quite right on the Marketplace (no giant new news there).  Just thought I would let you know. 

 

[Dana Enyo]

I just had the same thing happen to me and filed a Support TIcket.  Had an excellent conversation with a support specialist and learned what I had to do to fix the problem (which was to get an offending word, not just out of the item name, but in the Description as well.

The word was "tequila."  Which is not mentioned as any of the offending categories in the document you can find in the Knowledge Base.  I realize tequila is an alcoholic beverage, but so are Brandy and Sherry, which are just fine. (And you'll find many GENERAL Marketplace items called "tequila" which slipped thru the filter, so you can't get any guidance there.

So I filed a JIRA. I'm suggesting a few things:

1. The fact that this filtering happens should be a lot easier to find out than it is now.
2. The guidance should be a lot clearer, and if the "banned word" categories go beyond sex and violence, it should say so.
3. Ideally, that word list should be made public somewhere, either as a document or a page where I can type a word in and see if it's classified Moderate or Adult.
4. MORE ideally, if MP changes my item (which happens within an hour, I think), I should get an Email that tells me. 
5. MOST ideally, a warning would come up IMMEDIATELY when I saved a Marketplace item with the wrong Maturity Level, and showing the banned word.

At least #1, 2 and 3 should be doable? 

[JUSTUS Palianta]

Most merchants have asked Linden for a list of banned or adult words and no linden don't want to tell us.  Instead, they let us sit there for hours like idiots pulling our hair out trying to work out what's wrong with our listing.

[Dana Enyo]

Given they don't want to share it, at least having the warning come up immediately would be a huge help!  I would have yanked the dress immediately and changed its name prior to putting links to it all over the place.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

On 12/7/2023 at 12:10 PM, Dana Enyo said:

Ideally, that word list should be made public somewhere, either as a document or a page where I can type a word in and see if it's classified Moderate or Adult

Yeah, that won't happen.

The list of filtered words, and banned words seems very strange and random. Guessing "Brandy" and "sherry" re exempt from Adult Filtering because they can technically be women's names, even if they are considered "Stripper" names.

 

Before you complain too much about the hidden list, it's worth remembering that at one time, apparently, SOMEBODY decided the word "legs" to the auto-delist word filter.

Perhaps they really disliked stockings, tights, and leg warmers. We will probably never know.

[PheebyKatz]

My Stakes of Impalement always automatically listed as A-rated, although I used no adult wording for anything in my listing. I figure I said something without realizing it, but then I realized that, indeed, some people might just think that being impaled on a wooden stake is an "adult" activity, and so it made sense to list it as A-rated.

Everyone knows, after all, that going around with a stick up your bottom is something that only grownups would want to do, anyway.

[Persephone Emerald]

4 hours ago, PheebyKatz said:

My Stakes of Impalement always automatically listed as A-rated, although I used no adult wording for anything in my listing. I figure I said something without realizing it, but then I realized that, indeed, some people might just think that being impaled on a wooden stake is an "adult" activity, and so it made sense to list it as A-rated.

Everyone knows, after all, that going around with a stick up your bottom is something that only grownups would want to do, anyway.

Content can be rated Adult for graphic violence as well as for sexual content. I think we in the US sometimes forget that other countries may consider violent content to be more disturbing than nudity or sex.