Codex Alpha

I have tried that, making sure all ad blockers are off, and using a clean alternate browser, and I cannot see the contents to edit, and therefore must remove listings if I want to update a product. I also have the issue of old 'removed' listings still showing up in the "add related items' page on the 'edit product listing' page, which can be quite confusing. When do these old listings get removed? Thanks.

Perrie Juran wrote: Drake1 Nightfire wrote: Perrie Juran wrote: Drake1 Nightfire wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but dont you have to confirm purchases? The OP did say: "Its interesting that after you click a few to view what comes in the contents, that you find one that might be of interest for study, and before I could do anything, my mindless clicking did a nice purchase for $L99." Probably clicked "Pay" instead of "Cancel." I guess you could say this was just another case of an itchy clicky finger... And even long time users (points at myself) get it occasionally. New users may be more at risk of an "honest mistake" on this. I do understand what the OP is talking about with vendor walls. Whether you want to call the pratice "shady" is up for grabs. Only some of the items on the wall will be free so if you are not careful, ouch. It will only be an 'honest mistake' if the seller replies to me, and the mistake is corrected. Otherwise it is no longer an honest mistake. And it would be hard pressed to prove how or why a seller would include items in a "FREEBIE" section that are paid when side by side there are $0L priced items. These aren't stores with freebies littered inside. these are stores advertised as FREEBIE or $L 1 shopping outlets.

Drake1 Nightfire wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but dont you have to confirm purchases? Yes, but are you expecting a $99L purchase on a $0L wall?

Thanks Tari -- I had not read carefully enough to understand that the OP was well aware that the wall had a mix of free and non free items on it, before she ever bought the 99L item. Another example of what is to me a very bizarre outlook on life, wherein people are never responsible for their own mistakes. (And add to that the assumption that everyone in forums, etc., is like one's mother, and cares about every slight or injustice incurred, no matter how trivial.) You should try not to be so judgemental, and eager to jump down a forum poster's throat, when in the end it was a simple TYPO.

Really? The OP actually said the freebie wall had...well, let me c&p, it's easier... "Wall is advertised as a 'free script' wall, with most clicks being $L99. Its interesting that after you click a few to view what comes in the contents, that you find one that might be of interest for study, and before I could do anything, my mindless clicking did a nice purchase for $L99." Bold emphasis mine of course. The OP said this "$0l freebie wall was covered with mostly $99l items...... Is that not the first indication that the wall was CLEARLY mixed with $0l and $99l items, so one should be aware of where it is they are clicking? lol That was a typo. Clearly I was discussing a $0L wall. I did purchase several $L0 (that ended up being one line scripts I could find on LSL wiki anyway), and didnt expect one to be $99L... Not that the Op, or anyone, ought to be raked over the coals, but come on...It was not some deviant merchant here for cryng out loud. It was a mistake on the OP's part, and probably something many of us have done before...clicked something to buy it without necessarily paying the best attention. I know I've done it. I can't imagine blaming the merchant for my own carelessness, lol. That's just ridiculous. Regardless of the price, it wasn't the merchant's actions that caused anything. Nor would I consider it a scam if a "freebie" wall is litered with *some* $0l items, and mostly $99l items. That seems, to me, to be a very strange assumption. "Carelessness" happens when you purchase several items on an advertised FREEBIE wall and all are $OL, and one happens to be $99L. And who else do you blame for seller 'mistakes'? THough that really wasnt the point of the OP, that was how it was interpreted. Op...it happens, lol. It wasn't the merchant "nailing" or "tricking" you, nor is it something we all, including noobs" need "warned" about. That is a matter of opinion. Unless your warning is to pay closer attention to what *you are doing. In that case, yes, everyone ought to do tha, new and old alike. I thought that was my OP was about. Its only respondents who turned this into a kangaroo court. No need to rake a merchant over the coals anymore than you'd rake someone who made the mistake over the coals. I dont think I did. I didnt mention names, nor stores. However, at the end of the day, it is the MERCHANTS responsibilty for mistakes. In the meantime, yes, friendly reminders to 'mind your clicks' is fine.

Use a newbie, an alt with no money and you are safe from being a victim for this ruthless trick Doing this also makes it easy to keep a lot of garbage out of you main alt's inventory Thanks, like I said, after clicking on probably 100 boxes (as one can get in the habit of when shopping), you simply arent expecting something to be $99L when everything else on the wall was $0L. Respondents should be replying "Yeah, its a good thing to do, to double check prices on stuff sometimes", but the responses are more about blaming the OP.

Yes thank God someone has alerted us to this devious scheme by unscrupulous "merchants" to trick people into clicking on something! You're welcome.

Well with the amount of people who filter through freebie areas daily I'd assume it wouldn't be hard to accidently trick 100 people a day. So 100 x .4 = $40, thats not a bad daily gain for doing nothing Especially when the 'mistake' happens in many freebie stores, I just usually avoid them. I just happened to get nailed again, did a facepalm and said to myself "aww man, just got nailed $99 for a one line script" lol

So a larcenous store owner made this entire wall and put freebies all over it for the purpose of tricking someone into accidentally spending 40 cents? Right. (40 cents for crying out loud.) Shady or not, it's something to remember when clicking in a Freebie store. Because it happens.. I just needed a reminder obviously since it's been a while since I've done it, but I was looking for a specific script to study for a task of mine.

So, the merchant made a mistake with the pricing. You made a mistake with mindlessly buying it. I thought I communicated that fact in my OP. I neither see shady practises here nor one mistake being worse than the other. Let the merchant know about the pricing misshap, if it was a mistake they'll fix the pricing on the vendor and refund your purchase. If they don't do either then yeah, you can cry wolf. Until then? Be mad at yourself and the mistake you made. Good thing I wasn't asking for your judgement on the matter. I posted to remind people that mindlessly clicking at Freebie stores is dangerous. Note: this isnt the only store that this occurs - MANY large and well known FREEBIE outlets also have several "mistakes' as well.

Man, many of you regular posters are just downright nasty. Wall is advertised as a 'free script' wall, with most clicks being $L99. IS A TYPO. The correct statement IS Wall is advertised as a 'free script' wall with most clicks being $L0. Sheesh. Its absurd how quick some respondents are in hanging people on this forum. This is not a court of law. FACTS: 1) The script WAS embedded and surrounded by FREEBIE $0L Scripts. 2) The entire wall was advertised as FREE SCRIPTS 3) Whether the merchant intended this to be nefarious or not is unknown. It certainly can be interpreted as such, because I'm sure it's not the first time it's happened. Its also not very honest to leave such a mistake up on a wall for more people to hit. I did contact the creator of the product, and no response has been made on the matter. In my OP, I admitted that at that point, since I had been clicking on several products to view the contents and CANCELLING many of them, that this was a mindless click.. Unfortunately it was on a script that I was interested in, out of the entire wall, I DIDNT EXPECT THAT IT WAS $99L. In my mind, that's pretty dirty practice. Whether it is only $0.40 cents or not is irrelevant. So my statement stands Beware those $0L Freebie walls, you'll get nailed.

NOTE: Posted without prejudice and as a means to discuss issues in 2nd Life only. I am not responsible if you are somehow getting bent out of shape by a post I make. BEWARE, its like playing Minesweeper out there! My bad, I guess I need a reminder every so often as I mindlessly look through several freebie stores to see what I can pick up for cheap props to use in the background, or machinima, today I was in a free script shop. Wall is advertised as a 'free script' wall, with most clicks being $L99. TYPO THANKS FOR THE PATIENT RESPONSES! Wall is advertised as a 'free script' wall, (in a freebie store) with most clicks being $L0. Its interesting that after you click a few to view what comes in the contents, that you find one that might be of interest for study, and before I could do anything, my mindless clicking did a nice purchase for $L99. As if inworld stores don't have a challenge to get and keep people coming to their stores, tactics like this can be interpreted as pretty shady; it hasn't been the first time a paying item is embedded in a see of FREEBIE clicks. I'm sure in my noobie days in SL I've given away several hundred Lindens, not realizing that 'cash sound' actually took out cash that time. My bad. I got soft. Thanks for the reminder. Everyone else, beware those mindless clicks on in-world merchandise. Things like this keep people dealing on the marketplace, where it's safe and has almost too many 'really buy?" windows. UPDATE April 30, 2014: Seller has not responded to the issue, and the 'mistake' still remains in-world.

I thought I was connecting to the beta test server to test some stuff, but the server does not start me out in the sandbox as it has always done before. What happened?

10/10 non creators artists leave and never come back. They simply don't know where, why, how, who or what to do. They're expecting a 'game' with goals, achievements and victory conditions. Add to that unexpected lag, slow to load sims and areas, SL simply can't keep the majority of modern impatient achievement-seeking 'players' it requires to keep it at the top, and give content creators a reason to stay. I use SL mainly as another art media, in a variety of ways, but with no audience, traffic and regular visitors sometimes it seems like its a waste of time, and feels like a ghost town. SL needs updating, a 'fresh' overhaul, new ad campaign, and 'in-environment' training or encouragement for content creators to optimize their meshes and textures to help sims load fast. Land rentals should be made much more affordable then they are now, so that more users can utilize the millions of square kilometers that now stand empty or abandoned. Don't have all the answers, but when I'm the only one left out of a group of 20 users, something needs to get fixed.

This is still continuing in some capacity today. I found this nifty little fact out today as I was trying to position avatar poses in some furniture and wondering for the life of me what the hell was going on., Apparently I had used "Stop animating me" due to certain tools making me do that for some reason, and in the LL Viewer (even after full re-install and default preferences) continued to revoke animation permissions in the background with no notice. Dora Gustafson helped me work it out (or at least be a good sounding board) as we worked together to figure out why I was having the issues I was having. In the end it took a fresh install of Firestorm to find out that the issue was with some revoke setting in the LL Viewer. Until I can figure out how to reset it (already tried experimenting in debug settings), I have to use Firestorm when I want to work with posing and positioning tools in SL. This had been happening for months in some of my home regions for months, I just thought the tools were flawed. I consider myself a power user and a very good troubleshooter, and even this had me stumped for months.

LOL.

Come try some shops at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Olber/94/62/40 Let's help this landowner get going, see what happens, and you'll save in the long run as a new store owner. $60L / 50 prims.

I think SL users haven't gone far enough. I think they should replicate RL into SL as much as they can. We already have people concerned with privacy/intrusion, land rights, taxes, fees and market levies, lets regulate everything. Let's tax, fine, regulate, punish, and ban SL'ers when they break these replicated rules in SL. After all, who wouldn't want to replicate RL in SL? Cuz thats why we come to SL right? So we can live by RL statutes? That way everyone can be just as antisocial, detached and selfish as they are in RL. Man I do have fun from time to time 'trespassing' on people's 'property', doing nothing but stand there, or help myself to a virtual sandwich from their virtual fridge, and watch them rage or ban me, for absolutely no hostile act in what is supposed to be a SOCIAL environment.

1) $0 Listings only for $0 or "Free" items. Demos, land rental advertisements or other listings that are using/abusing this feature need their own category. 2) Keyword relevance more strict. Not sure how a house, Victorian lamp and a sportscar have to do with the keyword search "aquarium", but the results need to be a bit more accurate. Also how the keywords are used in the listings cannot be determined, sometimes unrelated products come up before more specific keyword searches. 3) Some way of offering alternate versions of the same product instead of separate listings for each For example, I may have a couch, it is one model, but want to sell in different textures/colors/etc. Currently I would have to upload 10 separate listings and spam the marketplace with repetitive ads. I don't want to do that ughh. I'd rather include the textures in the couch in question, and just sell for more $$ for the texture changing option. Not sure how to handle such a problem, perhaps providing an array of alternate colors, or interface to actually customize your purchase. 4) Eliminate reviews of products Reviews seem to be slanted towards positive only, and negative reviews quickly removed or 'bought off' by refunding the price. Silencing negative reviews defeats the purpose. Everyone knows that if the number of positive reviews outweights the negative reviews potential customers will take that into consideration. I never get thanked by the creator for a positive review, but they're sure to put me through IM hell if I offer anything less than a stellar review of their product; even if its all true. 5) Gender selection I know I don't need to see the 90% of listings that are female-centric. Would enhance search greatly only seeing products for men when required.

Looks like good prices (relatively), however this ad is very unclear is what is 'free land' you are offering. Doesn't make any sense to me how you have presented it.

Yep, and even at that low price, the next concern is if anyone even comes anyway. I found $60l/50 prims so will try that for a week or two. The owner can benefit from my presence especially if I get some traffic, and vice versa, its a win-win. Perhaps not a money making venture for the owner at that low price, but it all depends what the goal is; to pay for a presence in 2nd Life or to try to make a profit. At least the owner is willing to lower prices in the beginning at least to kickstart her sim rather than leave it empty, and the in-world visitor doesn't really care where my store is; they just want to check something out. My next concern is traffic. I had rented $6000L/mnth type sims in the past, built creative buildings and such, and had 0 traffic, not even curious travelers the entire time... I will be watching the traffic and or in-world purchases in the next week to a month and see if it's even worth it. The items I have for sale right now are selling fine without an in-world; we'll see if it helps at all. Hard to tell when I only have a few products and such a low prim limit, but I want to start small. 0 traffic on a mall sim vs 0 traffic on my own sim, still equals 0 traffic.

It's a Renter's Market, Yet I Still See SkyHigh Prices Yep, you know it. Huge parts of the mainland and full sims with empty store lots and buildings, sitting empty for copious amounts of time. Yet if you inquire as to the rental costs of these ghost towns, the prices are firmly fixed at 100%. I understand that keeping prices high keeps out the riff-raff, but what about 'supply and demand"? Shouldnt this dictate the price more than anything? For example, just use $250L/week for 50 prim store, or w/e amount you want. But the store has been empty for months, the land itself seems to be a dead zone. The owner of that land is losing money each month by leaving those stores/plots empty. Why not offer a discount price for a certain period? Do a 3 month lease or 6 month at a discounted price. Get store/landowners/builders in there. Sure you might be not gaining the income you want for the land to pay for itself, but certainly SOME INCOME is better than NO INCOME, right? Is the landowner hoping that if he/she holds out for another week/month that suddenly people will start popping in and paying the price they want? Someone needs to explain to me why people pay for land that is pretty much the equivalent of a dead market Detroit City, and yet remain firm on their prices? There are some of us newer entries into the market, from builders to creators to marketers who want to try out the in-world store thing, but want to maximize our money. Now that we have the marketplace, and for some of us is quite successful, there is even LESS need for in-world stores than ever before. So shouldnt the price come down? Or do you care? If I was doing 2nd Life sales as a true RL source of income, and writing off business expenses, then perhaps having land rentals that operate at a 'income loss' may be beneficial. And thats fine. But it still doesnt mean anyone or me is going to rent from you when it appears you NEED us and we dont NEED you. Give me your reasons why you want to leave your land and all its store plots empty for months on end, costing you $$ when if you offered discounts for people for maybe shorter lease times to get back some of your money?

Ok, now that I've been away from this topic for a month or so, it may be easier for me to clarify my position. Yes, I may have been wrong to come across as accusing marketers as being 'exploitative' or abusing the marketplace somehow. Its all how one looks at it. Some would say people are abusing while others would say they are just using the tools available to them. Both are valid, and both cases may be true. The end goal to my post was that a rehaul of the operation of the marketplace may be in order. I'm not saying I have all the answers. Some posters suggested that a 'demo option' is available on the 'full price' listings, and it appears as that is available. Still the $0 listings are there and listed as demo. Next is the $0 land listings that seem out of place. There are piles of those on there, I neither have the time to flag each one, and its hard to know which is a valid listing or not; safer to discuss it on forums then get banned oneself for flagging wrongly. Next is the 'multiple color' listings. For me, I hope I never have to do that. I prefer to give the user an option to change colors, or textures in the product itself (and perhaps charge a bit more for the option) rather than doing the least fun thing to do: Make a listing for each color ugh... no thanks. However, multiple colors, especially on $0L items in this discussion, is almost spam itself. It does a good job of getting attention for your store though, I can see why people do it. For those of us trying to find a product faster, its an awful lot of extra stuff to slug through. Perhaps the easiest way to handle this is to make the search engine options more advanced, because as the number of available items on the marketplace grows (and whether I consider them spam or not, prolly just my opinion), its going to get even more unruly.

Thank you, that's exactly what happened. Didn't realize I had used 'ad' in the image name. Probably made sense at the time, and came back to appear to me that the listing disappeared. LOL, changed the image names, and it appears fine now.

I was more trying to clarify exactly what spam is, and what the major intent is used in the TOS. LIke you said, its not up to anyone here then to worry how LL will interpret their own TOS. I just know the difference between what is truly spam, what is truly offensive, and what is truly trolling/griefing in SL, and perhaps people have overreacted to the OPs actions. I've seen truly bad behaviour in SL that goes unpunished from sandboxes to infohubs, so a little bit of patience and judgement from all parties, and a bit more freedom from draconian views and regulation would do SL a lot of good.