A question for Dakota

[Josh Susanto]

I'm ready to be educated.

So educate me, LL.

 

In what category does the seamless box sculpt item belong?

In what category did it belong when it was flagged the first time by someone else?

In what category did it belong when it was flagged the second time by my alt?

In what category will it belong when it is again flagged for exactly the same thing by someone else?

 

If LL wants it in the chosen category, why do they keep delisting it when it gets flagged?

If the don't want it in the chosen category, why do they keep allowing it to be relisted there?

 

So far, LL seems to be educating me to the fact that neither this kind of repeated flagging nor this kind of repeated relisting is abusive, since they continue to do nothing to interrupt either part of the process, and, in fact, actually participate in it by (allegedly) reviewing the flaggings and putting them through without taking any action in regard to the relisting.

Indeed, if (according to the defacto standard being set here by LL) an item both belongs and does not belong in a specific category (!), a possible ramification of that is that nothing about flagging or relisting is ever actually abusive.

But I don't actually believe that such a conclusion will remain sustainable in follow-up by LL. I'm just putting forth such a statement in order to invite them to try to knock it down... which they will inevitably try to do because they assume (naievely) that to try to do so can't be any worse a choice than not trying to do so at this point.

That is: in keeping with the policy of assuming a handful of Lindens are somehow smarter than over a million users and talking to us (each) like an alcoholic father talks to a retarded child, I'm fully expecting either the flagging or delisting to be soon articulated as abusive, specifically as a way of dispelling the above tentative claim about nothing being abusive.

This is getting to be an unfair game, though, so I'm going to throw them a bone. I'm going to ask them to imagine, before they tell me I've been doing something abusive, what I will do with that "information", what will be their response to my action, and how I will respond to that response. (I'll be well within my rights, and you will NOT like it, if that helps narrow it down).

At some point, they need to realize that they have again painted themselves into a corner on this issue. Until they just plain suck it up and accept the simple, obvious remedy we've already rubbed in their noses at some length, they can at least save some face and avoid pushing me to make them look like total a-holes in other parts of cyberspace; they can begin with Step One in their corporate dysfunction recovery program; they can admit that they have a problem.

 

 

[Darrius Gothly]

Thanks for the nod .. but it was Ciaran that restated your intent.

(I think I need to stop wearing this yellow helmet with the red blinking light on top ....)

[Josh Susanto]

I did not mean to misattribute, sorry.

"Educate me" is specifically an open challenge to LL, not to other merchants.

BTW... why have none of you flagged my item yet?

LL has already decided TWICE that it's OK to flag, so just go ahead.... really.

[Darrius Gothly]

Josh,

Well .. it wasn't you that misattributed .. it was Anaiya. (TAG!! Phil's it! LOL)

I have this .. I dunno .. mental block about flagging items. I can't bring myself to do it unless it truly deserves it. But I'm sure someone out there can do it for you. Have you tried spreading vicious rumors about some of your competitors?

[Josh Susanto]

Well... there IS the fact that the item listing, itself, now actually asks very directly for viewers to please flag it.

AND the alt-posted item which my alt explains, in the post, he/she has flagged as a Josh Susanto item the very same item, in the same category, for allegedly being in the wrong category, following with "what are you gonna' do about it?".

I suppose LL might be waiting for you to flag my item just so they can pounce on you. 

But more likely, they know they can't possibly do that without seeming to miraculously produce some third foot, specifically to stick into the same pile of poop into which they have already stuck the other two.

What if I PAY YOU to flag it?

[Darrius Gothly]

Awww gawrsh Josh. I'll take money for sex, but not for illicit things. (Well .. the sex thing has certain stipulations too. Got any whipped cream?)

[Kampu Oyen]

And what's funny is that I just checked on the alt situation.

Someone apparently flagged the alt's item (by mistake?) instead of Josh Susanto's item.

AND my alt's punishment for his/her behavior on SLM (which has so far been nothing but 100% BAD) shows in the included screen shot, here...

[Josh Susanto]

Darn it, Kampu.... either log off next time or at least stop speaking of yourself in 3rd person.

[Anaiya Arnold]

Darrius meant me (and I meant Ciaran...).:smileyvery-happy:

I apologize for triggering this chain of misattribution.

[Darrius Gothly]

Everybody! Let's CONGA!!! cha-cha-cha ...

[Josh Susanto]

Meanwhile, LL is silent on this thread's challenges to them, and I expect that to continue, although I'm making sure that a bunch of people around cyberspace are seeing links to this disussion, and I will continue to do this at least until there's some kind of response from LL.

They've probably just decided it's better to ignore all related criticism henceforth, and they're possibly right to do that, in spite of the consequences.

OTOH, if they're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting to see what action I predict from them in order to do the opposite or try to do some 3rd thing, I'm again willing to help them out.

The relisting is incompatible with the reflagging, so one or the other "has to" be "abusive".

But the relisting is something that LL has passively allowed, whereas the reflagging is something they have repeatedly stated that they must actively approve (yarite). Thus, assuming (for the sake of making my point here, anyway) that they will eventually defend either the relisting or the reflagging of the specific item, it would be more consistent with their established pattern of behavior to defend the reflagging.

To defend the repeated flagging, though, obliquely reiterates their tacit assertion that the item was not in the correct category. I guess that's no problem for LL, though, since, as I have more or less already said, items delisted from the correct category are items that LL is happy to be rid of from the SLM; otherwise they would seem to have no reason to approve the flags (... right?).

Moreover, it rather makes me wonder who is doing the flagging in the first place, if no one has a clearer motive than the Lindens themselves. The item is only specifically competing with my alt's listing of exactly the same item, so competition - at least any kind of competition in the normal sense - doesn't really explain the initial flagging any better than does the practically impossible perception that it is somehow in the wrong category.

So, I guess if LL still does not care to respond to this public challenge, I might as well up the challenge a little bit...

A) If the item was not initially flagged by a Linden, then what really happened?

B) Other than the ability to delist items for no clear reason and leave the decision implicitly attributed to normal users, what purpose is served by continuing to provide a flag function for category error which does not allow a more correct category to be suggested?

[Catwise Yoshikawa]

Guess they don't like to reply to some topics, as the one I posted in merchant rountable about reports in Marketplace

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Catwise Yoshikawa wrote:

Guess they don't like to reply to some topics, as the one I posted in merchant rountable about reports in Marketplace

---

I think part of the problem is that the only Linden that really interacts here is Dakota ... and with all due respect, Dakota is a front-line grunt. She's responsible for doing, using whatever they give her and isn't allowed much else. I'm quite sure she feeds our comments and gripes back to the actual developers/planners, but I'm also just as sure they ignore her as readily as they ignore us.

To me it just proves the "disconnect" in communications isn't based on "Linden Lab vs. The Customers" ... it's based on "Linden Lab vs. Linden Lab"; we paying customers just happen to be collateral damage in the battle being fought within their own borders.

[Catwise Yoshikawa]

Sure. And guess even Dakota need some vacations ^^, so probably nobody is going to take her place while she's not here

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

---

Catwise Yoshikawa wrote:

Guess they don't like to reply to some topics, as the one I posted in merchant rountable about reports in Marketplace

---

I think part of the problem is that the only Linden that really interacts here is Dakota ... and with all due respect, Dakota is a front-line grunt. She's responsible for doing, using whatever they give her and isn't allowed much else. I'm quite sure she feeds our comments and gripes back to the actual developers/planners, but I'm also just as sure they ignore her as readily as they ignore us.

To me it just proves the "disconnect" in communications isn't based on "Linden Lab vs. The Customers" ... it's based on "Linden Lab vs. Linden Lab"; we paying customers just happen to be collateral damage in the battle being fought within their own borders.

---

I could agree and believe in this theory.  This is actually common in many large organizations.   Dakota is basically part of the helpdesk, front line customer support ranks and most of the recieved complaints/concerns received by this frontline are often either not formally sent back to the company's product/services team to take notice of/address OR they are formally received but placed into BACKBRUNER buckets of work by the development teams since these teams are actively working on the next cool thing.

LL development staff is so small that they cannot solve all the existing problems with their current service AND actively engage is development of new cool features in SL (which will be tomorrow's things to ignore as support by these teams).

LL's priorities is to keep trying to deploy new shiny features to SL that they can market and PR and brag about.  As such, keeping existing services and features running properly and fixing glitches from past developments is not a priority (you cant really brag to the customer base that "we fixed a long standing bug you all hated").

Perfect examples to prove this policy exists in LL are abundant....

Look at the deployment of SLM that replaced Xstreet last fall.  Brooke's team is working on shiny new features like Direct Delivery and deployment of Visitor Maturity Filtering (i.e. LL's Teenification Filters) that have caused nothing but grief for Merchants and Shoppers alike.  Yet, basic functions that were in xstreet and have never been addressed in SLM - still sit in the queue of things for LL to "get to in the future"... i.e. never.

Even the new features like LL's SLM Teenification Filters that Brooke's team rammed into SLM in February - it still causes lots of grief for merchants - but these complaints have now just become White Noise complaints to Brooke's team.

Look even at the bigger issue related to this.  Look how many JIRA's sit unresolved for YEARS!!  A Jira that has been dear to my heart (VWR-4018) to get resolved and that causes me grief almost weekly in trying to make SL more beautiful - has been opened as a known bug in SL since 2008!  This Jira affects almost all SL Builders (even though most dont realize its a bug) and affects all SL residents as it limits the beauty of many builds. 

LL (Oz Linden) actually was forced to at least post to the JIRA over a month ago - ONLY BECAUSE I GOT THE PHOENIX TEAM TO STATE THEY WOULD INVESTIGATE IT and I made it public on Twitter and blogs to Rodvik that Jiras now have to be addressed and resolved by 3rd party organizations since LL is clearly ignoring JIRAs.

Sadly there has been nothing from LL on this Jira since one post from LL about reolving it.

Again... why are tons of LL JIRAs opened and untouched?  Because LL's dev team is small and their rationed efforts are focused on SHINY NEW FEATURES...

So...   Dakota is sadly as Darrius described it... a frontline Customer interacting grunt that LL typically ignores.

What we should all take notice of is how quickly Brooke Linden has evolved her commitment to communicate with the Merchant community to the same levels as her past members of the role did.  You rarely hear from her about her team's activities and no responses from her or her team on even these critical SHINY NEW FEATURES like DD.  Not a surprise.

[Josh Susanto]

Maybe they just need to start using this word:

黙殺