What Justification Is There For No Mod Permissions?

[Stephanie Misfit]

I can't help but wonder how much more demand for customer service selling no mod products creates, and how good at customer service these no mod sellers are to be dealing with it. I know some of my customers do stuff with my products that I would not have expected, but they generally don't need to bother me with it before doing it because my stuff is mod. 

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

2 hours ago, Stephanie Misfit said:

I can't help but wonder how much more demand for customer service selling no mod products creates.

This.

I suspect a LOT.

People are not as knowledgeable as they used to be because there's no incentive to figure anything out anymore for so many who have no-mod goods. Just use the HUD, click the buttons, and if it doesn't work whine in groups and contact a CSR while leaving a 1 star review.

If it's Mod, you can push a LOT of work off back onto your customer:

"Hey, this not just an online dollhouse, it's also a sandbox. Edit the thing and enjoy figuring it out. Want bigger hair - edit it. Want smaller chairs - edit them. Want a different color - edit it.

Furry makers go a step more: want a different color / fur / etc? Here's a texture you can buy from me, apply it yourself. And if you want, go sell your own textures too - then people have to buy my item to use your texture so it's win-win.

 

Shops often want no-mod so they can force us to buy a fatpack with all the options. But they could just as easily put a mod copy out for near the price of the fatpack. That's more or less what the fullperm shops are doing. But if you could sell me a copy/mod/NO-TRANS item that included a pile of textures I'd pay MORE for that - especially if I could download something and make my own textures as well. In other words a 'MOD' fatpack. Where you could save on dev costs by not having to put together a fancy configuration HUD.
- My furry alt has a pile of things like this.

 

 

 

Edited April 17 by UnilWay SpiritWeaver

[Qie Niangao]

10 hours ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

I understand it with scripts or configuration notecards,

I hate no-mod, but no-mod configuration notecards are hilarious. Unless they're also no-copy and contained in a no-mod object, all notecards that can be read by script are one easy script away from full perm.

What I find especially annoying are scripts like AVsitter distributed no-mod. If merchants want people to respect their IP, they should really stop violating the terms of their open licensed components.

Furries may have a special reason for valuing mod perm, specifically for fitted attachments: the more stuff you need to attach, the more valuable the ability to link stuff together as fewer attachments.

One precaution though about linking attachments: scripts might misbehave if they're not robust to changing link numbers.

Speaking of scripts, one of the best things about mod perm attachments is the ability to fully remove all scripts—often unlike "delete scripts" options—and reducing script count really does improve the odds of arriving intact in a new region. (Please, creator, if you're going to make it no-mod, for the love of god, offer a way to get rid of that auto-alpha script; those aren't for grown-ups.)

Finally, I've noticed a little trend of giving mod perm to fatpacks only. I feel a little weird about buying those because it indirectly rewards those merchants for distributing no-mod single packs, but on the other hand it rewards them more for the mod fatpack I actually bought, so I tend to do it. And I usually soon regret it if I buy the no-mod single-pack.

[Marianne Little]

I read many years ago, that creators had this argument: "If I sell modify, people are going to buy only the white shirt and tint it in any color."

Personally, I think it is silly. Especially with dark colors, going from white to dark colors like maroon, dark green, ash, navy. And especially when tinting a white garment black. Shading and highlight disappear, the textile (like knit pattern) is impossible to see, it is like wearing a black garbage sack.

But they had a point, there would be stringy persons doing this, and not care about how it looks.

I would like mod permissions so I can tweak the colors. That is something totally different. It does not matter that a fatpack has 40 colors when 38 of them are awful. Creators seem to think they are so clever by offering all those colors, but I do not think so... It would be so much better if I could add a little drop of grey, so the colors could be less harsh. My idea of medium blue is probably not what the creator think is medium blue. I would rather start with light blue and add a small amount of blue, until it was enough.

I can see no reason to sell modify, now when creators sell per body and not per color. Now they sell all colors/patterns included, but only for one body. Before, they sold single colors, but with all the bodies for that color with it.

Edited April 17 by Marianne Little
added more about tinting

[Luna Bliss]

13 hours ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

What is the purpose for making items no mod?

You could message the creator of the no-mod item to find out.

And I think I'll take my advice and message the creator of the items I can't rename due to being no-mod, and find out why myself. Who knows, maybe she'll send me versions I can rename.

[InnerCity Elf]

11 hours ago, Shining Sun said:

Good point ^^^

Indeed! I'll make sure to remember to add an unmodifiable T&Cs notecard that specifically lists that none of my modifiable creations may be recoloured neon green. Should I ever sell modifiable creations. Or creations, at that.

Jokes aside, my guess is also not wanting to be bothered/spend more time. I'm self-employed, RL, and while some customers are absolute sweethearts, for some, usually, type micro-manager, or imagined-semi-knowledgeable in what they pay me to do, I do such a lot of not really billable additional work, explaining, that it can be a real pain and inspires 80:20 thoughts. Maybe similar for SL creators.

[Conifer Dada]

If a creator makes cars, aircraft or maybe yachts, I can understand why they'd make them no-mod. As with the red box mentioned earlier, a customer could modify your creation clumsily and you'd still be named as the creator when other people click on it for details. 

[xDancingStarx]

I don't even pay attention to the "mod" sign when I buy something because usually everything is mod. I do very rarely run into no-mod items where the no-mod is completely unexpected. I will drop the creator a message to give them the opportunity for an explanation, and it's rare enough that I'm keeping these very few stores in my mind and make sure I don't go there again and never mention them to anyone. Few months ago I bought a mesh garden deco object and I couldn't even resize it because it was no-mod (and no resize menu either), sure it was mentioned on the ad I found out later, but believe me, I will remember you for a long time.

Edited April 17 by xDancingStarx

[Phil Deakins]

I've sold many thousands of pieces of furniture, all of which were mod, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I was called out to to help when a customer made a mess of an item by modifying it - and I'd have finger or two to spare.

[AmeliaJ08]

5 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

What I find especially annoying are scripts like AVsitter distributed no-mod. If merchants want people to respect their IP, they should really stop violating the terms of their open licensed components.

THANK YOU! Seeing this more and more now. It's so mean spirited, AVSitter is a fantastic project and one we should be very appreciative of - both as users and creators - and yet I'm seeing this more and more now.

As you say it is a direct violation of the terms and arguably the products that are doing this should be removed from SL.

[Ceka Cianci]

I can see it for some thing,but for others like clothing. It just seems silly.

We're getting hit for every body they rig for and every color.

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

THANK YOU! Seeing this more and more now. It's so mean spirited, AVSitter is a fantastic project and one we should be very appreciative of - both as users and creators - and yet I'm seeing this more and more now.

As you say it is a direct violation of the terms and arguably the products that are doing this should be removed from SL.

I suppose many of the creators just don't know any better, and have overgeneralized a rule that things they embed need to have permissions stripped (especially animations, for AVsitter users). But I'm at a loss for re-educating them that respecting intellectual property doesn't mean locking everything down. Sometimes I try to explain, but I'm not sure I've ever succeeded.

[Carolyn Zapedzki]

13 hours ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

People put some crazy stuff in those 'Terms'.

If I ever become a full-perms seller I'm going to have to put a Term in there that you must own a cat named 'George' and all products have to be set to have 'RuPaul' in the description.

Why? Why not.

But yeah. I buy a lot of full perms stuff and while rare, I have seen the 'no mod' callout in the terms at least once, if not twice.

 

Yep, lots put no modify in their terms. I have seen some F P clothes sellers say an anti rezzing script has to be used as well.

[Love Zhaoying]

Doesn't preventing "mod" also "help" the buyer keep from for instance, destroying their rez-faux (old school reference!) home by unlinking everything?

 

[Sid Nagy]

The main reason for using no mod is the same as with banning rights of land owners.
People use it because they can. These rights are there and it is allowed to use them. No fair reasons needed.
Most use them wisely, others don't. It is both allowed by Second Life and their overlords.

Edited April 17 by Sid Nagy

[Rick Nightingale]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Doesn't preventing "mod" also "help" the buyer keep from for instance, destroying their rez-faux (old school reference!) home by unlinking everything?

 

Locking the build (it can be locked before packing - the lock survives) would alleviate that. At least the owner would be warned before they could do anything to it.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

3 hours ago, Carolyn Zapedzki said:

Yep, lots put no modify in their terms. I have seen some F P clothes sellers say an anti rezzing script has to be used as well.

That's one I would ignore.

As a consumer if I want to mess with something I rez it.

3 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

The main reason for using no mod is the same as with banning rights of land owners.
People use it because they can. 
Most use them wisely, others don't. It is both allowed by Second Life and their overlords.

Yeah.

But there is not 'wise' use of them.

Like a lot of things in life:

One can be a [censored] jerk all they want, doesn't mean I should be. "Being" a "Karen" isn't illegal, but it is ill-advised.

There's a huge difference between what one can get away with doing and what is acceptable. Folks are more and more often questioning the acceptability of using no-mod, and rightly so.

 

[Sid Nagy]

2 minutes ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

Yeah.

But there is not 'wise' use of them.

Like a lot of things in life:

One can be a [censored] jerk all they want, doesn't mean I should be. "Being" a "Karen" isn't illegal, but it is ill-advised.

There's a huge difference between what one can get away with doing and what is acceptable. Folks are more and more often questioning the acceptability of using no-mod, and rightly so.

 

All true, but there is nothing that we can do about it.
 

Edited April 17 by Sid Nagy

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

4 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

All true, but there is nothing that we can do about it.

Mostly yeah. We can pester shops, and "vote with our wallets."

However at the moment the number of people annoyed at no-Mod is a minority. Or rather the vast majority don't understand the issue as they've never really experienced a mod-able SL.

I feel if this issue is to change, it's going to be like how SL shapes have been getting better proportions over the last ten years. Meaning it will be very slow, take time, and be hardly noticed until one day we're just there. Assuming SL even lasts another 10 years given how technology is changing.

 

Edited April 17 by UnilWay SpiritWeaver

[Rick Nightingale]

33 minutes ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

Or rather the vast majority don't understand the issue as they've never really experienced a mod-able SL.

It's worse than that. The matter was brought up by someone once, very politely and not even being critical, in the Blueberry group. We watched it all unfold.

The amount of vehemence against the few people who were pro-mod perms from so many others was shocking. It was along the lines of a group stoning, against heretics who dared suggest that something made by their favourite creator could ever need to be changed in any way. The attitude was that no-one should ever need to, or be able to, modify a product. The gentle suggestion that those who don't want to should still allow those who do, to do so, was equally shot down by the majority of idiots. And I use the word idiots very deliberately here.

It's one of the many experiences that's made me realise over the years why I don't like most people.

I wasn't even involved, by the way. I probably would have been a lot more direct than those unfortunates who were in the firing line for daring to suggest mod perms in the group, and got myself (or rather, and worse, my wife's account) banned. As it was I managed to stay out because I could quickly see it was going nowhere good.

Edited April 17 by Rick Nightingale

[Marianne Little]

4 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Doesn't preventing "mod" also "help" the buyer keep from for instance, destroying their rez-faux (old school reference!) home by unlinking everything?

 

Well, true. But it is so many other things in SL that can go wrong. There is simply no way people can be prevented from it.

3 hours ago, Rick Nightingale said:

Locking the build (it can be locked before packing - the lock survives) would alleviate that. At least the owner would be warned before they could do anything to it.

And still, I have deleted things over and over again in SL, and use some colorful words wen I do it.

Because I have to mod the house a tiny bit more... change the wall color, find a new floor texture, tint the wood shutters darker, and so on. And I forget to lock the house, or terrace, or swimming pool again...

I have finally learnt to write down the exact coordinates of my house in a notecard. When I delete the house again, as I am wont to do, I pull it out from trash and type in the coordinates, and it snap in place.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

15 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

It's worse than that. The matter was brought up by someone once, very politely and not even being critical, in the Blueberry group. We watched it all unfold.

The amount of vehemence against the few people who were pro-mod perms from so many others was shocking. It was along the lines of a group stoning, against heretics who dared suggest that something made by their favourite creator could ever need to be changed in any way. The attitude was that no-one should ever need to or be able to modify a product. The gentle suggestion that those who don't want to should still allow those who do, to do so, was equally shot down by the majority of idiots. And I use the word idiots very deliberately here.

That's not unlike the reaction one would get about a decade ago if they mentioned having good proportions or being closer to 1:1 scale for avatar height. People would pile on to attack whoever suggested the idea and start claiming they were being "persecuted" by the person for that person daring to have a different style of shape. It was comedic tragedy in how wild the reactions could get.

But now - SL is about evenly split between people making proportioned shapes and people not.

But that's also why I think the issue will take a lot of time to get across. Despite the fact that 'copy/mod' was actually the norm for SL for it's first decade when the vast majority of 'creators' were furries.

 

[Rick Nightingale]

15 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

I have finally learnt to write down the exact coordinates of my house in a notecard.

Yeah... done it myself once or twice. I once had a build that was linked, in several pieces, all to the maximum 255 links. Yep, one day I unlocked it and accidentally hit delete. My most often made boo-boo though is to click 'select face' in the edit tool after selecting a big linkset, then forget to actually select the face when I apply the new texture. Suddenly my house all goes pink like the flower petals in the vase I was trying to change.

These days I put the coordinates and rotation in every linkset's description field; just make sure to update it if the root changes. Then I take a copy and keep it in my Archive folder. It's come in handy several times., including when SL itself somehow deleted half my build during a restart. By the time the ticket to do a rollback had been processed, it was too late.

Edited April 17 by Rick Nightingale

[Theresa Tennyson]

10 minutes ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

That's not unlike the reaction one would get about a decade ago if they mentioned having good proportions or being closer to 1:1 scale for avatar height. People would pile on to attack whoever suggested the idea and start claiming they were being "persecuted" by the person for that person daring to have a different style of shape. It was comedic tragedy in how wild the reactions could get.

But now - SL is about evenly split between people making proportioned shapes and people not.

But that's also why I think the issue will take a lot of time to get across. Despite the fact that 'copy/mod' was actually the norm for SL for it's first decade when the vast majority of 'creators' were furries.

 

It seems to be changing though - this thread has been around almost a day and we haven't gotten the usual suspects who defend no-mod yet. Also, I've been noticing that modifiable vehicles are becoming a lot more common, especially from "big names." The Lusch/Szym/GEMC family of makers are mostly -mod now and there's actually a cottage industry of making add-ons for their vehicles.

[Rick Nightingale]

2 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

this thread has been around almost a day and we haven't gotten the usual suspects who defend no-mod yet

I noticed that too