Josh Susanto

>Not everyone can make mesh, or sclupts, or certain types of textures. Practically any idiot can make the kind of sculpts I make and the kind of money I make with them, provided that they have a tiny bit of patience to have me explain to them how I do it - which I have many times offered to do for free. And I use all free, fully-portable resources. Not directly on-topic? OK. But I think there is a mythology behind certain production processes that might be worth somewhat dispelling in order to make better sense of the larger discussion.

>2000 words of total nonsense and absolutely off topic... If it can be boiled down to a tweet without making it seem any less pointless, maybe there's a job for someone at LL.

http://www.google.com.co/search?hl=es&rlz=1C1SNNT_enCO408CO408&q=google+turd+polish&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1092&bih=514&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=mHMAUNHAG-m56AGbmvX3Bg#um=1&hl=es&rlz=1C1SNNT_enCO408CO408&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=turd+polish&oq=turd+polish&gs_l=img.12..0i19l2.1639.1639.0.7981.1.1.0.0.0.0.142.142.0j1.1.0...0.0...1c.yzznW6kcm0k&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=c652da4f037c376e&biw=1092&bih=514

If it were one of my items, I would most likely just give you the refund AND the item. Your lost time is probably worth more than that, and regardless of whether it's my fault or LL's, it's probably not yours, so why get you involved?

Checking other viewers was a good idea. I had considered it to be something I might have to do for good measure after discussing the problem here with people using other viewers. I checked with LL's own viewer and got the same problem. I didn't like using LL's viewer because I always get ruthied and can't just get back to my previous appearance the way I'm supposed to. The ruthying is a separate problem. I assume that's just a way to punish people for using 3rd party viewers, so it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the permissions issue. About the permissions issue... If it were the only mistake I think they'd be able to attribute to that person, I'd agree that they might as well just fix it and forget about it. But I think we know that once they open the can of worms that is the choice to hold that person accountable for anything (at all) there will be no can large enough to contain everything else that inevitably wriggles out. And that's probably the main reason they'll never go there to begin with. If even one person experienced a newly corrupted 14xxxxx listing between CTL's last message in April and CTL's next message in June, I'd be delighted to hear about it. The reason being that I'm eager, at any time, to be disabused of my worst suspicions about the perceived correlation between absence of any new problems and absence of any communication from CTL.

That's also an interesting point, at least to me, thanks. I occasionally see people ordering more than one of the same item for no reason, but I have never been proactive about correcting such a decision merely on the basis I probably wouldn't decide the same thing, myself. Certainly anyone who contacts me about anything like this as an error will quickly get a refund and as large a pile of freebies as anyone could probably want. LL's failures are also opportunities for me of a kind, at least to further establish myself as a person who is a lot more serious than they are about customer service. But I also know that a lot of people will prefer to buy something they can get elsewhere for free, just to be supportive of merchants, and may buy two of something that has copy perms, just as an expression of their person idea of fairness. So I usually just let the data scroll off without taking any special action in response to it. But now I'm going to start contacting anyone I see ordering more than one of the same thing to assure that they're not responding to either a real or perceived permissions problem. I would be curious to hear from more merchants as to whether or not they've noticed any recent uptick in the number of redundant orders for copy perms items. As always, I assume someone will file something with LL, but it won't be me and you probably know why. But if there's something we can do as merchants to mitigate the utility loss to customers, I think we should probably at least try to figure out what that is and try to do that. Even with the periodic downturns in revenue due to Lindens continuing to tamper unnecessarily with a system we have learned to accomodate, I'm really making enough money here that I'm not ready to just walk away. Not yet, anyway.

Checking it some more, I can see that it's not specific either to one viewer or to any specific set of contents.

>Perms are so confusing. If you have something no mod in the box or item (like a script) then it will show up in inventory as no mod. Sometimes on rez it is still mod, tho not always. That's an excellent point, and I already thought of that, thanks.

I'm on Imprudence, and I will try other viewers. But object permissions are something that exist on the LL server independent of what viewer is used, no? The reasons for which I didn't report this earlier is that it doesn't always happen, and I wanted to be sure it was an ongoing thing before getting more people involved. In fact, it seems never to happen with any object that contains only data of Linden origin, such a default box, and it only started recently. That it is not a reliable phenomenon suggests to me that whoever produced it intended for us to waste time deliberating over whether it is really even happening, rather than to start taking any action in regard to it. Well it IS happening and the expected (intended"?") result is explained thusly: Newer items loaded to SLM will soon need to be loaded to DD, which will not support items of limited permissions. And, so... Many (more) newer items will be loaded to SLM unsupported by the only delivery system the SLM will use, and if they appear at all, will be flagged as "not as advertised", and removed, permanently, from the opportunity to be listed. I think it's fair for me to ask DD users how easy it is to identify and fix a permissions error on an item that is already in DD. But not even having tried it myself yet, I'm pretty confident in the answer you're going to give me. Of course, you can all see where I'm going with this anyway, so I'll just cut to the chase... The money launderers on whom LL has become dependent (after putting their needs ahead of the needs of regular users) do not want a functional marketplace website because it wouldn't be very useful to them in terms of hiding their tracks, and because it competes with in-world activity they need to help keep busy and robust in order to make their own activity inconspicuous. Probably, they are also tied up in the land market, putting LL, itself, in a position that enourages at least tacit complicity - which only puts further pressure on Lindens to somehow drag both SLM merchants and their customers back to the grid. This unannounced system update, instituted as effectively concurrent with the latest extension of the 14xxxxx cluster of listing corruptions is just one more notch on the dial that elevates the temperature of the water in which we, as frogs, stand soon to be boiled. The functionality of the SLM is being slowly, methodically dismantled. If this is not true, LL should signify such by immediately identifying the person who has produced the permissions errors, and by taking conclusive steps to assure that that person is removed not just from his/her current position, and not just from the company, but from the whole industry.

I have been testing this, and I'm seeing it repeatedly. Setting the mod permission before moving the object to inventory has no effect. So far, only one customer has complained. The earliest Item for which this was a problem was produced on 17 July, almost immediately after the mysterious reappearance of CTL.

>Does that sound good or what? I think you should do it regardless of whether or not anyone whines more or less than they did before. In fact, if something is ripped, I wouldn't necessarily mind someone at least pointing it out somewhere.

>The fact is that content creators are at a big disadvantage compared to content uploaders. That's why I don't create anything I expect anyone else to be able to simply upload. Of course, since my stuff is full perms, the buyers are in almost the same positions as uploaders, so I suppose I'm still competing with almost the same kind of thing in terms of people reselling my stuff (as, yes, I have wilfully enabled them to do). I certainly object to people doing a bunch of things in Second Life and on the Second Life Marketplace website, but I also recognize that I agreed to a set of rules when I came here that ultimately really only disallows some of these things. If I believe that I'm unable to compete with something that someone does, but which the system ultimately allows, I figure my choices are either to put up with the situation, work around it in some way, or simply stoop to an even lower moral level than my competitors. So far, I'm preferring the work-around angle. Maybe it doesn't pay as much as what someone else is doing. But it's also a continuing creative challenge, and it does at least pay something. You may be morally entitled to make more money than your lazy competitors who will rip anything for a fast buck, but the system just isn't set up to assure that you will do that in any particular way, and it's not really clear to me how it could be set up differently to provide you with such assurance without also entailing so many other costs that it might not ultimately just mean less money both for your competition and for yourself. I'm not a perfectionist. Mostly, I figure we can start to worry more about LL policing or not policing users when we have finally got LL to police its own people any more diligently than it already polices users. Users gaming the rules may be costing you some sales, sure. But I still think it's a drop in the bucket compared to what we are all not earning due to misconduct by Lindens, themselves. Why shouldn't we prefer to help keep them focused on the larger problem?

I understand that it's almost certain that the models we're talking about are illegal. But "almost certain" also means there's at least some remote possibility that they are actually authorized; in fact, you effectively have to assume that they are authorized, at least in terms of how you may compete with them until you've conclusively determined that they can be shown to violate IP rights, and by you. Telling anyone that any specific item is an IP violation is a bit of a risky thing to do, because, even if you're right 99% of the time, that other 1% can really come back at you in some very unpleasant ways. I support your right to complain to IP holder and wait for that entity to do something about it. But in the meantime, this whole system is legally configured such that you need to understand when you participate in it, your best recourse against such competition is simply to provide something either of greater value to customers, to provide something at a lower price, or both.

>In any case, it is back online now as far as I can tell. Yes, apparently after finding some other way to assure that no one will order anything, or that, if they order, nothing happens. Zero new orders is a suspicious number to my own shop by this time.

BTW, this is perfect timing other ways, as well. I've been waiting years to list this texture for free. Waiting, specifically for today.

Shutting off the website seems like a pretty desperate way to compensate for the fact that yesterday's sales slump couldn't simply be continued by the same means. OTOH, I was making a little too much money before this incident occurred, at least for someone who has neither converted to DD nor opened an in-world shop.

Let me boil it down just a bit. Fact #1) Today has been my slowest sales day all year (so far). Fact #2) Today is the firs day I have seen "Sorry to keep you waiting" more than once, and I have now seen it 3 times. Why would boxes or DD even matter if people can't even see the front page of the site?

True. I get more movement from badly reviewed products than from products that are not reviewed at all.

>Unlikely since Direct Delivery delivered products deliver just fine so on that basis, the opportunity for products to deliver more reliably happened 3 months ago for those merchants who can and choose to make their deliveries more reliable to their paying customer. Odd you should mention that, since I'm not having any delivery problems, and my regular customers all know that I'm still not using DD. If there were a marketplace problem, it could presumably ultimately interfere in one way or another with delivery from both boxes and DD, such as the order just not being properly processed by SLM in the first place. In such a case, we might not even see the missing orders, and when they start being processes again, we might se a disproportionate number of freebie orders submitted as tests, regardless of whether we use boxes or DD. That's what I was getting at before, and I'm sorry that it was not more clear.

I have no problem believing it. In fact, if you told me in August 2011 that it would still be unresolved today, I would have had no problem believing it then. I believe that my record on this forum supports this statement.

>Josh, Direct Delivery only fixes delivery issues. Yes. That's one reason why I thought it was a peculiar crutch for CTL to lean on for so long in order to avoid fixing other stuff.

Don't worry. When Direct Delivery is finally deployed, it's going to fix all this.

>Then you can see my sales collapse in early June that I was talking about. Seems this week its crawling back. Yes, and the same thing happened with available work hours on both my RL jobs in Colombia. Not to completely dismiss what you say, but I think it may be a weak point of focus when added to the larger picture. I think we all know that someone was away from LL for about 60 days, and now that that person has returned, we can all smell it like a fart in a car. Not everything improved while that person was away, but nothing that I know of got worse that couldn't be just as easily explained as seasonal market dynamics. If LL isn't going to premanently remove that person, maybe we could at least be told when that person will be away for a week or more so that we know it's safe to buy listing enhancements. Maybe?

>cynic comments helps exactly whom? Please don't let's so easily conflate cynicism with sarcasm. LL's conduct warrants cynicism.

There is no industry precedent for what you describe. What I describe is appreciably equivalent to what is documented to have occurred at MANY other companies. That is the essential difference between a theory like yours and a theory like mine.