Phil Deakins

Solar Legion wrote: Group managers in Second Life exist to - GASP! - manage the group. They are not Public Relations officers, they are not the Owner. They are generally the Department Heads. Some groups set up specific manager roles for HR/PRGeneral use - these are the roles that "reflect on the group as a whole." To use a very loose example here: Many of the major ISPs and Mobile Phone providers outsource their technical support/customer service call lines to call centers across the US and the world. The quality of these calls (and the occasional manager escalation) is not a reflection of the outsourcing company. It is a reflection of the call center. When you have a large scale group in Second Life, you end up breaking it up into different departments that are the equivalent of that call center. The users in each department are often chosen by the department heads or managers, not the group as a whole. You expect the department manager to represent the entire group. In reality, said manager does not do such, nor can he/she speak for the entire group outside of notifying you of their procedures. I know one thing: if I held the same viewpoint as you do, I'd have long ago left Second Life as a whole. I'm sorry but that all nonsense. The actions of anyone who represents an organisation to outsiders, including those call centres you mentioned, and including any member of an SL group who interacts with outsiders, as the manager in question did, reflects on the company/group,organisation as a whole to the outsider, and to anyone the outsider cares to share the experience with. That's a fact, and not mere opinion. You seem to have a thing against Gadget. Perhaps it's historical, but whatever the reason, it's far better to deal only with the facts of the matter in hand instead of inventing objections, like the one I quoted, just for the sake of being negative. You lost that particular argument the moment it entered your head

Yes you can make decent RL money from SL But only very few people manage to make enough to be an actual livelihood, and such a livelihood is a bit precarious because things change and profits can dwindle. I only know of one field in which decent RL money can be made without the need of acquiring some good skills, and that's land. Everything else requires sufficient skills to compete with people who have been refining their own skills for years. Buying and selling land used to be quite profitable but the cost of land is so cheap now that I don't that's a particularly good market to be in any more. The way to make decent money from land is renting it out, either as just land, or as renting homes out on the land. The first of those only requires a bit of quickly acquired knowledge. The second needs more but it's acquired much quicker and easier than gaining the skills to create knockout clothes that can compete in the market, for instance. Even then, it would be necessary to own and rent out a large amount of land to make anything worthwhile out of it. A person could experiment with it to see how far it could go; e.g. buy a small piece of land, rent it out, with the rent, buy another small piece and rent that out too, and so on, to see how big it could become for only the small outlay at the start.

Trinity Yazimoto wrote: well instead of the piof or premium system, i would prefer the accredited creators thing.. pp would need to register as creator, so they would be on a list. then, maybe like the old age verification system, pp would need to verify their identity. why not ? maybe the fact to be on a list should discourage some copybotters.. but really i think that we wont never stop it bec its internet.. and as i said, less freedom in the name of stoping some nefarious pp is not acceptable for me.. but about the premium needed solution, imho it goes aggaisnt all that is SL... a world with contents made by his users.. Then it will be "a world with contents made by his premium members" and it does a huge difference in the SL's soul. No. I've only talked about PIOF and premium accounts for sellers on the marketplace. It has nothing to do with the ability to create stuff and sell stuff inworld.

Yes. Every time a user removes their PIOF or ends their premium account, LL could programmatically check if the user has a marketplace store, and remove it, or give the user a limited time to remove it. LL wouldn't need to continually check every store. It only needs a single user be checked when s/he removes their PIOF or premium account. That triggers the check, and it wouldn't happen very often. It's not a difficult thing to do. It would be more difficult to programmatically check that every seller in the marketplace has an inworld sales area. I'm not talking about stopping copybotting. I'm only talking about the ease of being able to sell stolen stuff in the marketplace, and LL's failure to do much about it. They even take a cut of the ill-gotten gains. It's LL's fault. They created the means to do it, and they profit from it. I've been dead against LL's marketplace from the beginning, and dead against the unscrupulous way that LL handled it. It shouldn't exist at all, so it's very easy for me to suggest limiting its seller use to 'preferred' users. And I seriously do think its use should be limited to 'preferred' users, just like other things in SL are limited to 'preferred' users. A few years ago, there was talk from LL about a system of accredited creators, if that's the right word, so limiting who can sell in the marketplace isn't a million miles away from thinking that's already been done inside LL.

You make a good point about the few who would be unable to have their PIOF or a premium account but, imo, it would be far better to restrict marketplace sellers to those who have their PIOF or a premium account. Yes, a few would be hurt but it would stop a lot of the theft that the marketplace allows. It's one of those things where you can't satisfy everyone and, of those choices, my view is that it's better to prevent the theft than to allow it so that a few people can continue selling in the marketplace.

Perrie Juran wrote: vexacion wrote: However, I still believe that by selling an item as "mod", and advertising it as such it is generally understood that you won't be able to mod any scripts in it, but the physical item itself No, I don't generally understand it means the item and not the scripts. When I came home and my kids told me we had a broken window in the house that was only half the story and they were not off the hook until they told me how the window got broke. If a Merchant is selling something with "mixed permissions" they need to tell me what is what. If the package says it is MOD, I expect the whole thing to be MOD inside and out. That is what I generally understand. To tell me anything less than the whole story is dishonest. I tell people that everything in my store is mod, and every item is. But the scripts inside are not mod. I'm sure that's perfectly standard, even though a lot of people don't realise it. I do get asked about it when people see no mod listed. They think that maybe they can't adjust the size, texture or colour.

Czari Zenovka wrote: [...] I ran across one or two instructors during the time I was taking a ton of SL classes that I reported to the school owner or head faculty. Both incidents were when an instruction was not clear & I asked for clarification. In one case the instructor said, "Maybe your skill level isn't high enough for this class." Ummmm...it was a level 1 class. I think the instructor's "skill level" in answering questions was suspect. Another time, another school, the instructor was using a reader to "instruct." If anyone asked a question she said, "It's in the instructions! Just scroll back and read it." Both times the school owner/faculty member contacted me to express appreciation for bringing these situations to their attention. That reminded me of a time when I was doing evening classes as a student. The teacher we started with went off to the middle east and we got another one, who didn't know much at all. His lessons comprised him dictating from a book, while we wrote what he read, and near the end he would take questions. To answer most of the questions, he referred to what he'd dictated that evening - he had to look it up. Not long after he started with us, one of the students asked a question about the internals of a memory chip. It wasn't in what he'd dictated, and he couldn't find it anywhere in the book, so he couldn't answer the question. I answered the question instead, and I never went back. It was your scrolling notes that reminded me of it

Gadget seems to having a bit of a rough time in this thread, so I'll jump in. If I believe that I have some skills that would be of use or benefit to a group that teaches those skills, and if I offer my free services to the group for that purpose, I would not expect to be ignored, which is what happened to Gadget. The very least the group manager could do is take me seriously. If they don't need me for whatever reason, that would be fine. All they need to do is treat me with some respect and say so in a respectful way. Judging by what I've gathered from Gadget's posts, he wasn't told that they didn't need any more teachers/instructoirs, and nobody said anything along the lines of, "I know who you are and I'd rather you weren't an instructor here". After the first one or two sentences, he was simply ignored. The person is free to do that, of course. After all, there are many nasty and rude people in the world, and SL is no different. And Gadget is quite right when he says that, because it was a group manager, it reflects on the group as a whole. I really can't see any reason to find fault with Gadget. If he's being truthful, then he was treated shabbily and it was worth posting about. If it's the group I have in mind, it's been known for its less-than-respectful internal ways in the past, so what happened to gadget doesn't surprise me at all.

You could test it by cashing out a few thousand L$. I cashed out most of mine a few days ago or I would test it myself.

Treasure Ballinger wrote: Yes, this is what I, also used Increase credit for; to manually make sure enough USD was there for LL to take my Premium payments, and also my tier for my mainland parcel. By the way, I believe (at least in the past) that you can only 'cash out' Lindens to USD if it's $100 or more; my needs didn't equal that, so this totally removes my ability to manually set it up for LL to get my tier and Premium payment. So, that is my cue to drop Premium, go to basic and get rid of my mainland, which I've had that parcel since 2007. Sad. But I don't want LL randomly dipping into my PIOF. They double dipped me once, well, they double dipped the hold they put on the $$, said it was my bank's fault, not theirs. Maybe. But I don't see why I should jump through hoops to accomodate it, when it's worked just fine for all these years. Things change, gotta be flexible, for me that means shutting it down, because, there is nothing I can do about it. That's not true. There may be a minimum amount of L$ you can put up for sale but I'm certain it's not as high as US$100 worth of L$.

Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: Jadeclaw Denfu wrote: But then one can say, if all of them listed, noone can say, that one service is preferred. I beleive you are correct. No of them is allowed per the Community Guidelines. And yet there they all are - equally and not in any way preferred. People are always posting links to other sites in these forums. The links in the OP's post are to sites that concern SL, and that LL links to in their pages., so stop whining.

ImaTest wrote: Phil Deakins wrote:. Your point is irrelevant though, because your own currency doesn't prevent you from seeing that buying L$ from Anshe will cost approximately half as much again as buying from the one at the top of the list. If you really want it listed in US$, you could always do your own research, and post a list of those that accept US$, together with cost comparisons I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you got that "half as much" part wrong. 4.79 EUR is not half of 3.33 EUR.. "Half as much again" means 1.5 times here in the UK. It's the original number plus half as much as the original number = 1.5 times the original number. And Anshe isn't far off being "half as much again" as the lowest priced one. Compared to the Lindex, Anshe's price is more than 'half as much again'. I'm with you in sympathising with those who have no choice but to buy from 3rd party exchanges, and I feel very sorry for those who buy from the pricier exchanges like Anshe's.

What currency the 3rd party exchanges need to buy from the Lindex in is totally irrelevant. The only thing that's relevant is how much it will cost you to buy from the 3rd party exchanges. The most common basis for the comparison of 3rd party exchanges is the Euro, according to the OP. Your point is irrelevant though, because your own currency doesn't prevent you from seeing that buying L$ from Anshe will cost approximately half as much again as buying from the one at the top of the list. If you really want it listed in US$, you could always do your own research, and post a list of those that accept US$, together with cost comparisons

It would definitely not be preferable to prevent anyone from building and uploading. What would be excellent, imo, is to restrict selling in the marketplace to either premium accounts or to those who have PIOF. The scam of this thread is allowed to happen because absolutely anyone can sell in the marketplace, and LL only learns about each scam after one or more users have lost money. Anyone can open an account today, and have a scam 'store' running in the marketplace minutes later. It's LL's fault.

The OP posted about 3rd party exchanges - not about the Lindex. And, since the most common currency for those 3rd party exchanges is the Euro, she listed the costs in Euros. Perfect sense

A normal PC will run bots 24/7 without any problems at all, and it's a whole lot cheaper than buying or renting a server, which is only a PC anyway.

Excellent job, Kika, And some astonishing differences in the costs of L$. Very well done!

I don't know what happens in the night while I'm asleep but she's usually not on my bed when I wake in the mornings. I'm not a still sleeper and my guess is that my feet move to where she is and she gets sort of pushed off. She's usually on the clothes I took off the night before. Every morning, when I'm sitting up in bed for a while, as I always do, she jumps up onto the head end of the bed right next to me, staring and meowing at me, as if to say, "I want you to get up but, if you're not going to get up straight away, I want to be stroked". She gets the stokes. @Dillon. Oh, she's got me sorted out alright. But she doesn't have everything all her own way. Her freedom around the house is restricted when I go or she'll set the alarm off. But, on the whole, I do as she tells me. @ImaTest. I really wouldn't like all the 'interference' you get with your cats. Fortunately for me, mine only gets on me when I'm laying back watching the TV, and I don't let her get on the computer desk.

Perrie Juran wrote: It is also one of the reasons why, and I know Merchants and others may not like my saying this, there shouldn't be Instant cash outs. No creator needs instant cash-outs. They (we) only need to plan a few days in advance if having the cash either in the account or in the bank is going to be necessary.

Lucky cat, yes, but I'd rather she didn't sleep on my bed. It's a single bed and she takes up quite bit of the bottom end where my feet want to roam. She has a whole bedroom of her own with plenty of comfy stuff in it where she spends a fair chunk of each day. I won't shut her out of my bedroom though. And I'd prefer she didn't sleep on me when I'm watching TV because it gets quite hot under her. Also, when I'm concentrating on doing things on the computer, I'd rather she didn't sit on the table next to me and stare and meow at me, looking for strokes and petting - which she always gets. Apart from that, she's fine lol.

Yes, anyone can do that. But it's theft/fraud (stealing from buyers), and I really don't think that LL will allow people to sell empty boxes in that way. But their hands are a bit tied because they made something of a pig's ear when they created the marketplace. They made it so that anyone can set up a 'store' without any verification of what they are selling. They decided to leave the policing/reporting of wrongdoers to the users. Unfortunately, users lose their money with frauds like this one, before they realise that it's a fraud and report it, and I really don't think that LL will refund the money, even though LL took a cut of it. The whole thing is just another of LL's many incompetences

I haven't seen it. Vista Barnes posted that the thief is calling himself Vista Barns - with a space between the names. That's what I'm going by.

I took the cat in because it needed a home. I didn't actually want a cat but she's here, she sleeps on my bed, watches TV with me and wants a lot of stroking lol.

Trinity Yazimoto wrote: and it seems to be a direct attack against you since they used a name closed to yours. and they have only your items.. Not necessarily. The thief can't have created an account with Vista Barns as its name, because it can't get a last name. So it's just using the Vista Barns name in the marketplace to sell empty boxes that pretend to have Vista's animations in them. The thief may also use other names to sell empty boxes purporting to be other people's stuff, so it may not be specifically against Vista. As long as the only things being sold are empty boxes, then the thief is only stealing from buyers, and Vista's only problem is when replying to people who contact him saying that the box was empty.

As a direct result of this thread, I decided to do something with my profile. What I've done isn't much but it's much more than it's been since I started.