The Future of SL Business

[Arielle Popstar]

2 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

Pfft, oh please. Don't, just don't. "safe place". Rolling my eyes so far back in my head that i make direct eye contact with the goblin that operates me like a marionette.

When people roll their eyes in the back of their head like that, I assume it is because they are looking for a brain!

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So, breaking the rules, then whining about it equals SL isn't a safe place? You're kidding, right? Please tell me you're kidding.

 

You probably didn't read my previous post that linked the best practices wiki written by Lindens for managing multiple account stores https://wiki.secondlife.com/w/index.php?title=Managing_business_projects_in_Second_Life Howerver using these suggested methods is now cause for frozen accounts and stores. If representatives of the Lab put out a wiki for how to handle larger stores then the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and begs the question whether anything coming out of the Labs mouth is trustworthy.

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I've said it many times. You are a guest in LL's house, they make the rules, not you. They can make decisions, enforce one rule while being more tolerant on another and they don't have to explain to you a single thing. Why is that such a difficult concept to grasp?

It isn't really hard to grasp but it is when it is so blatant and so often.

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Sure i also not always agree with what LL does, but i know what i clicked "I agree" to. Do y'all?

It is in the forums and other media sites where I get to see how often the Lindens create the drama and try to pull the sky down on their own heads. I don't invest much here but I do log in on occasion to watch the ongoing train wreck.

[CaithLynnSayes]

Just now, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It's totally cool that this is your attitude.

Had it been everyone else's, SL would have dwindled into nothing 15 or more years ago.

I think you misunderstood me. I take it you think i don't take SL all that serious. That's not necessarily the case and i'm not saying that people shouldn't build businesses in SL. I'm saying you should have a safety net in place in cases like these where LL might take action that is perceived as "unfair".

For the record. I do sympathize with OP, the video and the second thread linked to this issue and it absolutely might benefit LL and it's users to maybe here and there tweak some rules, or in this case, be more clear on how business accounts can be shared within the business it operates. My concern is just that doing it through videos and forum threads might not be the best way to go about it.

Maybe i'm wrong and if so, you can all shoot me. We'll meet up on a damage enabled sim somewhere. It'll be a blast, i'm sure.

[Rolig Loon]

I'm not sure that I would put it in the same terms CaithLynn has, but I share the sentiment.  There are many reasons why an account may be suspended temporarily. The account holder may understand what's going on, but may only see part of the picture (and may be part of the problem). A business like LL freezes customer accounts to protect itself and the customer from further damage and to buy time to get to the bottom of whatever caught their attention. I can understand that it's a shock to find yourself locked out of your own business, but I also think it's a tad irresponsible to turn around and sow seeds of panic by posting about it on a public forum. Further than that, I think it's irresponsible for anyone reading the post to accept it at face value and expand the panic.  We simply do not know enough.

Having said that, I agree with Scylla and others that the rules about account sharing are due for a careful update. I have studiously avoided sharing my own account with anyone ever, but I've been able to do that because I am a small-time merchant and a small-time landowner. I do sympathize deeply with people who have put time and resources into building larger businesses and who depend on them for RL income. If I were in their shoes, I would be straining to find ways to share the work load.  I would be worried about what happens to the business while I'm on vacation or laid up in the hospital. In RL, I would find ways to give trusted allies limited access to cover for me. There ought to be ways to do that in SL too.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

29 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

My concern is just that doing it through videos and forum threads might not be the best way to go about it.

There is probably some truth to this, although I think the reaction to this story here, and on Twitter where I first ran across it, has at least alerted LL to the importance of the issue. The attention it's now getting on the Feedback page should solidify that, and in the final analysis be more effective at producing change.

I'll also agree in general with your sentiment, repeated above by Rolig, that speculation about what happened in this particular case is unwarranted and uninformed. We need to focus on the issue that this affair has highlighted, rather than on the specifics of a particular case about which we know very little.

29 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

I'm saying you should have a safety net in place in cases like these where LL might take action that is perceived as "unfair".

Makes sense to me!

29 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

Maybe i'm wrong and if so, you can all shoot me. We'll meet up on a damage enabled sim somewhere. It'll be a blast, i'm sure.

Let's not! I bruise easily!

Edited June 17 by Scylla Rhiadra
Arrrghh

[CaithLynnSayes]

12 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

You probably didn't read my previous post that linked the best practices wiki written by Lindens for managing multiple account stores

Sorry, i didn't. I will in a minute. I saw OP, the linked thread and video and i just had to compulsively react.  

[CaithLynnSayes]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

14 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

Maybe i'm wrong and if so, you can all shoot me. We'll meet up on a damage enabled sim somewhere. It'll be a blast, i'm sure.

Let's not! I bruise easily!

I won't shoot back, i promise.  

[MBeatrix]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

Nah.  Most customer service is asynchronous anyway. Someone in France who posts a question while I'm asleep can wait till I wake up.  We can't reasonably expect merchants to run real time phone banks for instant service. There's hardly any question that's so life-threatening that it can't wait a few hours.

That is not the point at all. It's not about timings, it's about work load. Have you ever been at DRD's mainstore (not to mention Salem's sim setup next door). I'm sorry to say that you don't have much of a clue about it all.

[Rolig Loon]

Just now, MBeatrix said:

That is not the point at all. It's not about timings, it's about work load. Have you ever been at DRD's mainstore (not to mention Salem's sim setup next door). I'm sorry to say that you don't have much of a clue about it all.

And my comment was only a direct reply to the post that Arielle made earlier, so you have taken it out of context.   Arielle's comment was about timing and the inconvenience that people in other time zones may encounter when a business doesn't have 24/7 customer service.  I suggest taking a look at the more recent note I posted a bout 20 minutes ago.  Scroll up.  You can't miss it.

[xDancingStarx]

1 hour ago, rasterscan said:

Could start with just a tick box. Somewhere. 'Will this account be used for business by more than one user ?"  If it's ticked, do stuff the coders have to figure out, or a different TOS for businesses as declared.

Sounds like creating a safe way for account sellers. Just declare the account as used by multiple people and sell it, and no alarms raised if someone else suddenly starts using it. (Account selling is against TOS. I think you should be able to transfer any account, be it SL, or Steam, or whatever, to someone else, but it is what it is.)

[Arielle Popstar]

7 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'll also agree in general with your sentiment, repeated above by Rolig, that speculation about what happened in this particular case is unwarranted and uninformed. We need to focus on the issue that this affair has highlighted, rather than on the specifics of a particular case about which we know very little.

You say this regularly whenever the Lab is caught doing something questionable that on the surface doesn't look good on them and then you pooh pooh the victim(s) of the lab and insinuate they must have done something questionable to deserve the treatment. You and a few others take "fangirl" to a whole new level.

Maybe it is just at it appears, a bad decision made by a corporate entity just because they can. Heaven knows the corporate world is full of that and it shouldn't be surprising the Lab is no better in that regard.

And yes we should be entitled to the specifics of the case because there is undoubtedly many other stores and creators who are in a similar position and will need to change their operation drastically if they wish to continue without that sword hanging over their heads.

[MBeatrix]

8 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

And my comment was only a direct reply to the post that Arielle made earlier, so you have taken it out of context.   Arielle's comment was about timing and the inconvenience that people in other time zones may encounter when a business doesn't have 24/7 customer service.  I suggest taking a look at the more recent note I posted a bout 20 minutes ago.  Scroll up.  You can't miss it.

Oops! Sorry, you are right there, I hadn't reached the last page of this thread yet. My sincere apologies.

Since I'm here, let me tell you that I wouldn't share an account with anyone. And because of it last April I closed the club I had running for 11 years. But of course I could never compare to DRD or to even running a small store.

Edited June 17 by MBeatrix
typo correction

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Arielle Popstar said:

You say this regularly whenever the Lab is caught doing something questionable that on the surface doesn't look good on them and then you pooh pooh the victim(s) of the lab and insinuate they must have done something questionable to deserve the treatment.

I have not "pooh poohed" anyone, nor have I "insinuated" anything. I have said we don't have enough information to judge what happened here.

Do you actually know more than you're saying?

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

And yes we should be entitled to the specifics of the case because there is undoubtedly many other stores and creators who are in a similar position and will need to change their operation drastically if they wish to continue without that sword hanging over their heads.

There's that whole annoying "privacy" issue here. Would you want the details of any run in you might have with LL published for everyone to see?

3 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

You and a few others take "fangirl" to a whole new level.

Of course. I've never ever criticized LL.

[Rolig Loon]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Maybe it is just at it appears, a bad decision made by a corporate entity just because they can. Heaven knows the corporate world is full of that and it shouldn't be surprising the Lab is no better in that regard.

Maybe, indeed.  That is a possibility.  In the absence of any real information, however, I think it would be just as irresponsible to leap to that conclusion and sow panic as it would be to accept an individual report on a public forum. I refuse to do either one. 

[Persephone Emerald]

The owner of DRD/ the OP of that other thread did not start this thread.    I did.

I thought the YouTube video I posted explained how this conflict is not just about one creator. It's a problem that affects many creators, charities and other groups. In one place the TOS says we may not share accounts or let others use our accounts. In other places it says we may sometimes let multiple people use the same account. Creators and others have been letting others use shared accounts for years. The biggest businesses in SL would be unable to function as they do (24/7) if they didn't do this. Thus LL has given tacit approval for some people to share accounts, while it punishes others for doing so. This behavior reeks of favoritism and is bad business for LL.

This problem isn't about 1 company. It's about all those who run businesses or operate large organizations in SL. 

Linden Lab needs to clarify the rules about letting multiple uses access accounts and produce a clear, legal route for businesses and others to do so. For instance, maybe in order to hold a multiple user business account, the primary owner should have to have it as a Premium or Premium Plus account.

1 hour ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

I'm not saying i would necessarily agree with LL's decision to disallow others to access your business account that need to access it. According to you, it is hurting your business, and sure i can sympathize with that. LL may not realize the importance this has to you, or they see your case in a different way then for example the Chungs. But the thing is, it is LL's decision not to allow others to access it. You (OP from the other thread) ignored that ruling. So this thread, and the other are just a tad whiny.

 

I think OP should perhaps try another way to try and allow access to that account for multiple people. I'm however not sure that strong-arming/shaming LL through these forums is the best solution.

[Arielle Popstar]

8 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Maybe, indeed.  That is a possibility.  In the absence of any real information, however, I think it would be just as irresponsible to leap to that conclusion and sow panic as it would be to accept an individual report on a public forum. I refuse to do either one. 

So you don't think any stores and creators that have a similar set up to DRD's should change anything and continue as is and just cross their fingers that the Lab doesn't freeze their store and/or ban the owner(s)?

Edited June 17 by Arielle Popstar

[Luna Bliss]

14 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

You and a few others take "fangirl" to a whole new level.

Tsk Tsk -- psychoanalyzing ~~~ bad bad

[CaithLynnSayes]

11 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

You and a few others take "fangirl" to a whole new level.

Somehow i feel spoken to.  You of all people should know that i don't always talk nicely about LL. You are in the same group i'm in that tolerates that kind of talk.

This entire thread I've been saying LL has rules, that have been broken and that that has consequences.

Also, i now immediately plead the fifth. I'm not American, but that's besides the point.

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Luna Bliss said:

Tsk Tsk -- psychoanalyzing ~~~ bad bad

No, I am not suggesting why they do it, but that they do.

[Arielle Popstar]

2 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

Somehow i feel spoken to.  You of all people should know that i don't always talk nicely about LL. You are in the same group i'm in that tolerates that kind of talk.

This entire thread I've been saying LL has rules, that have been broken and that that has consequences.

Also, i now immediately plead the fifth. I'm not American, but that's besides the point.

No, sorry, I didn't include you. Do you wish me to be more inclusive? 😏

Edited June 17 by Arielle Popstar

[Luna Bliss]

Just now, Arielle Popstar said:

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Tsk Tsk -- psychoanalyzing ~~~ bad bad

No, I am not suggesting why they do it, but that they do.

No...you are assuming motivation...instead of entertaining the idea that they're basing their opinion on a rational decision you're saying they're basing their opinion on their excessive love for something (that's at the core of being a 'fangirl'....someone/something you like so much can do no harm and so one's judgement is impaired).

[Rolig Loon]

15 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

So you don't think any stores and creators that have a similar set up to DRD's should change anything and continue as is and just cross their fingers that the Lan doesn't freeze their store and/or ban the owner(s)?

Where did I say that, or even suggest it?  

I think we have two parallel and interlocked conversations going here. One has to do with the challenges that merchants and landowners have to face because they are not allowed to share accounts.  I have said in my previous posts that I agree something has to be done.  The current rules put large-scale business owners who depend on their SL income in a very difficult spot. It is very hard to run a fulltime business in SL or RL without having someone else to share the burden. It's especially hard because you constantly have to worry about what might happen when you are personally out of action for some reason. The rules really do need to be rethought.  That's what we need to talk about here in this thread.

The other conversation has to do with how we deal with specific actions on our accounts when LL finds something wrong. We cannot expect LL to share the details about the actions, because that would involve privacy violations at several levels. We also should not blindly accept what anyone posts about the actions in the forums. People do not have the full story.  They may purposely or inadvertently omit mentioning information that is embarrassing or would put them in a bad light. They may simply be leaping to conclusions, imagining details to fill holes in their understanding.  In any case, we should not fall into the trap of continuing those sorts of conversations here or elsewhere.

Edited June 17 by Rolig Loon
typos

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Where did I say that, or even suggest it?  

Maybe you THOUGHT it! 

* beaming proudly *

 

[Persephone Emerald]

5 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I think we have two parallel and interlocked conversations going here. One has to do with the challenges that merchants and landowners have to face because they are not allowed to share accounts.  I have said in my previous posts that I agree something has to be done.  The current rules put large-scale business owners who depend on their SL income in a very difficult spot. It is very hard to run a fulltime business in SL or RL without having someone else to share the burden. It's especially hard because you constantly have to worry about what might happen when you are personally out of action for some reason. The rules really do need to be rethought.  That's what we need to talk about here in this thread.

^ This is the conversation that this thread is about. The title should be a clue. It's "The Future of SL Business" not the future of one SL business. ^

 

6 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

The other conversation has to do with how we deal with specific actions on our accounts when LL finds something wrong. We cannot expect LL to share the details about the action, because that would involve privacy violations at several levels. We also should not blindly accept what anyone posts about the action in the forums. People do not have the full story.  They may purposely or inadvertently omit mentioning information that is embarrassing or would put them in a bad light. They may simply be leaping to conclusions, imagining details to fill holes in their understanding.  In any case, we should not fall into the trap of continuing those sorts of conversations here or elsewhere.

^ This would be a good conversation to have too, perhaps on another thread of it's own. ^

[Arielle Popstar]

26 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I have not "pooh poohed" anyone, nor have I "insinuated" anything. I have said we don't have enough information to judge what happened here.

Do you actually know more than you're saying?

I would say we do have all the information we need to discern what went on. We heard from DRD, we heard from Governance, a few people shared links to relevant wiki's and one party backtracked and reinstated the account though as one poster pointed out, all the product reviews are no longer there. Says right there the store account wasn't just frozen but deleted and had to be reinstated from a backup.

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There's that whole annoying "privacy" issue here. Would you want the details of any run in you might have with LL published for everyone to see?

You really should read @Gwyneth Llewelyn post over on the feedback thread, it is long but very insightful pointing out how easy it is to anonymize issues so they are not directed at any particular entity but still getting the message across what the problem is/was.

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Of course. I've never ever criticized LL.

You do but you're very quick to pat them on the head right after?

[CaithLynnSayes]

3 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

17 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I think we have two parallel and interlocked conversations going here. One has to do with the challenges that merchants and landowners have to face because they are not allowed to share accounts.  I have said in my previous posts that I agree something has to be done.  The current rules put large-scale business owners who depend on their SL income in a very difficult spot. It is very hard to run a fulltime business in SL or RL without having someone else to share the burden. It's especially hard because you constantly have to worry about what might happen when you are personally out of action for some reason. The rules really do need to be rethought.  That's what we need to talk about here in this thread.

^ This is the conversation that this thread is about. The title should be a clue. It's "The Future of SL Business" not the future of one SL business. ^

 

17 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

The other conversation has to do with how we deal with specific actions on our accounts when LL finds something wrong. We cannot expect LL to share the details about the action, because that would involve privacy violations at several levels. We also should not blindly accept what anyone posts about the action in the forums. People do not have the full story.  They may purposely or inadvertently omit mentioning information that is embarrassing or would put them in a bad light. They may simply be leaping to conclusions, imagining details to fill holes in their understanding.  In any case, we should not fall into the trap of continuing those sorts of conversations here or elsewhere.

^ This would be a good conversation to have too, perhaps on another thread of it's own. ^

I may have slightly derailed this thread in that direction. I used the linked thread as an example and for the past hour or so we've been talking in that direction.

My bad.