Phil Deakins

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: The perfect category is not available. Earlier in the thread grey areas were mentioned and I asked for an example of one. None were forthcoming but it sounds like you have one. Would you share that particular problem with us, please?

Yes, I've always made the proviso that it can't be abused provided that the Flag system actually works as we are told it works, and not as the AR people sometimes do it. I haven't included that proviso in every post but I have included it in this thread. In this thread, Dakota said, "[...] yet in 99.9999999% of the cases, their product is in violation of the Listing Guidelines", and I'm inclined to believe her. It doesn't mean that all of them are examined individually and, knowing the practises at LL, it's unlikely that they are, but they may be. Dakota certainly sounds straight to me. And if each one is checked, as it's supposed to be, then it isn't possible for a user to abuse the Flag system to the unfair detriment of sellers. Ciaran Laval wrote: There is something wrong with the system and how it's managed, that's clear from the amount of threads we've had on this subject. It certainly sounds like there's something wrong, but I'm not convinced. I am sure that many people place some of their items in the wrong categories, whether intentionally or not, and many of the unintentional ones can be dumbfounded when an item gets delisted, especially when other like items haven't been delisted from the same category, and post about it here. There is certainly a good reason why these threads and posts keep cropping up that doesn't involve the marketplace people failing to check each flagged item. Don't forget that, imo, the marketplace is a complete joke, technically, and I find that what LL have done with it is too unscrupulous for words. I'm dead against it, so if my thinking were being biased in this thread, I'd certainly be posting differently.

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: I had a pretty good hunch who it was, by the way. Confirmed. I know nothing about your problem and I haven't been addressing it in any way. I talked about the system - that's all.

I'm a bit bored so I thought I'd do a bit of rambling here. If I am bored, I don't see why other people shouldn't be bored too! :) Camping still exists in SL but very little of it, and the active population continually turns over, so it's likely that many current users don't know what camping is - so first I'll explain it. It's a system where residents can sit or dance or even walk around within a fixed range, and they are paid according to the number of minutes they stay. 2L per 10 minutes used to be the most common amount. It's an excellent way for people to make a bit of money, but it only existed because the owners of the parcels where the camping was got something in return - not from the campers, but from the system. Every minute that an avatar is on a parcel of land, counts for 1 traffic point (it's measured in seconds these days). Traffic is the metric by which places are ranked in the Places search tab so, the more traffic a parcel gets, the higher up those rankings it would be. That's still true for V1 viewers. It was a two-way thing - both campers and place owners benefited. That's what camping is. But some people seriuously disliked it, because rankings that were aided by campers (not genuine place visitors/customers) was unfair on those places that didn't employ camping. After all, place rankings ought to be on merit - genuine place traffic - and not on "false" traffic. So LL came up with the rule that, artificially inflating traffic numbers is against the ToS and would be dealt with accordingly, and they specifically included camping. Camping wasn't disallowed but it was no longer allowed on land that is listed in search. That put paid to all camping except when set up by generous people, and when the rule is being broken. So... Earlier this year, I decided to be a little generous, and I created a camping system. I cut a non-search parcel for it within my store, and I placed 8 camping chairs there. They got used - often full. When a person sat in one, they were told the only 2 rules - (1) an av must not be left unattended and (2) only one av per person. This is what I found... I found one person with avs on 5 of the chairs simultaneously (the other chairs were occupied or I'm sure he would have used those too). I found people camping for the full period of time in one session and immediately coming back with another av to carry on. I found other people occupying more than one chair at a time, and I missed a lot, of course. I found that I need to watch it and, in the end, I found that I simply couldn't trust people to be straight. I've no doubt that most were perfectly honest and straight, but I found that I couldn't trust people not to take advantage. After several months, I turned the chairs off. It's a shame because there may be much more helpful camping around if people wouldn't abuse it in those ways. Apart from "illegal" camping, which I'm sure that most of what's left is, place owners get nothing in return - they just try to be a bit helpful. The only way I know of, to prevent people abusing the generosity, is to get the IP address of each camper. I believe there is a system that does that, where campers have to register on a website, but I chose not to go to those lengths with mine. So... are you all suitably bored now? :)

Good thinking, Wildcat. We haven't had a good "discussion" on that for ages and it could spark some "life" into this place On the other hand, I'm in favour of a no-build band for that purpose, so, unless someone posts that structures and objects outside of a narrow band should be disallowed, or that security devices should not be allowed in the sky, then I don't see many sparks here.

Mickey. You know me. Before you asked, you knew that I've never used the marketplace and that I never will, and you know why. You know my views of LL and its employees - that, although there are some excellent Lindens, Linden Lab, as a company, is so bad that I wouldn't lift a finger on its behalf. So you'll know that this has nothing whatsoever to do with me favouring LL. You keep on about users abusing the flagging system, but the flagging system cannot be abused by users. I, as a user, can flag every item in sight, and I can be nasty and target an individual's items for flagging, just for the hell of it, or to mess the competition about, but nothing will happen to the items because the flags weren't merited. For anything to happen to an item because someone flagged it, the item's listing must break some rule or other. That's how the system is designed and that's how we are told it works. Whether or not any Lindens don't do it right, and just "rubber stamp" flaggings without checking them, as people in the AR team sometimes do, is speculation. If they do, they deserve to be fired. So, assuming that the flagging sytem actually does work the way that we are told it works, it cannot be abused by users to the unjust detriment of sellers. ETA: I read the word "slick" as describing an action and not as a description of anyone. It's quite a good word for the way it was used.

Hi Dakota, I wasn't thinking about the search function. I was only thinking about drilling down the levels but, even then, the way it's designed doesn't make much sense to me, simply because the higher level categories will often have far too many listings to be useful. E.g. in your example, the Home & Garden category will list absolutely everything that's listed for both homes and gardens - every item of furniture, etc. etc. etc. Wow! So it seems that the marketplace is a directory, with a category tree, but one that's designed to be used primarily via its search function, rather than by the more usual drilling down. Thank you for the clarification. ETA: Incidentally, by "more visible", I meant that buyers will come to the tiem before they come to items in lower level categories, when they are drilling down the catagories. It's like search results - the ones that are nearer the top are more visible, not because they are listed more times than others, but because they are seen before the others. If the items in the higher level categories are listed before the items in the lower level categories - i.e. the higher the level, the nearer the front of the listings - then that meaning of "more visible" still holds when drilling down the categories.

I've never used the marketplace and I never will, but you aready knew that, Mickey. It doesn't make any difference though. My brain functions the same whether or not I use the thing. Actually, it makes it better because I can see it without any personal bias at all. No, the marketplace isn't a forum, Mickey, but forums were only one of the examples I gave where users can post/list things without pre-moderation. The other example I gave was directories, and the marketplace is a directory - a directory with added functions, but still a directory. They are examples of systems where people can 'publish' stuff without any intermediate checking. With directories, people want their stuff as high up the tree as possible, because the higher up they are, the more visible they are. I know that from experience. Because of that, people often place things higher than they should be, and they often know they are doing it. With the marketplace, they often say that they did it because items the same as theirs were listed in the higher level one. That hinders the functioning of the marketplace for buyers and for sellers who list their things in the right categories. You said that you won't flag other merchants' items when they are listed in the wrong category. That's your choice, of course, but you can't use the excuse or reason that other items, just like yours, are listed in the category where yours was delisted from, and you can't complain if your item is delisted because it's in the wrong category if you knowingly placed it at too high a level. The marketplace is not eBay - it's the marketplace. It has rules (ToS) and it has systems. If you won't abide by the rules concerning categories, you can expect items to be delisted, and you cannot justifiably complain when it happens. If you won't use the excellent Flag system (excellent as long as it works as described) to help tidy up the marketplace, you can't use it's untidiness as an excuse or reason for placing items in wrong categories. If sellers would take it seriously and adopt the attitude that it really matters to place their things exactly right because, if they don't, they may have to do it all over again and the time would have been wasted, then we'd see much less of this type of thread.

Yes, it's fraud. Gibralter is as english-speaking as England is but the author of the message isn't a native english speaker - or is uneducated. The suggestion to copy and paste the url into a browser is merely a confidence booster, so that people will trust it and click on the url instead. ETA; I posted before I read that James had confirmed that it's not fraud. I'm astonished that LL is associated with an email that's written exactly like non-english speaking fischers write. If I'd received it (and I may have), it would have gone the way of all the spam that I get, without giving it a second thought. If I do receive it, it will still go that way, even though I now know that it's genuine.

I agree with Polenth. Skyboxes at 300m or 400m are perfectly fine. They've always been placed that low - above the clouds. They are also not usually "junk", as someone suggested they were. I don't see any problem here.

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: I WILL NOT FLAG a merchant's items. That is NOT acceptable. And it's BAD BUSINESS. I mentioned "why" in the last post. The fact that you keep encourage that type of abuse....is very disheartening, and I had little faith left in your company. Systems that rely on users to show when something is wrong are very common on the web - all forums and systems where users can post/list without pre-moderation, for instance. This forum and the marketplace are two examples. Such systems need users to let the controllers know of 'wrong' posts/listings, so your insistance that you will not participate in it is out of step with the norm, Mickey. Not only that, but in not doing it, you are intentionally not helping to alleviate the problem that you are complaining about - when you could help to alleviate it. The flagging system can't be abused by users as long as someone at the other end actually confirms that each flag is correct before taking any action on it, as is supposed to happen. Where abuse can occur is intentionally listing items in higher level categories than they belong, and that is one reason why user participation is needed, regardless of whose items are listed in the wrong categories. ETA: Unless I am mistaken, a great many items were placed in the wrong categories (too high levels) by the auto-transfer from the old system. They do need to be sorted out, both by Lindens sitting down to do it and by users flagging. Imo, it's a mistake not to flag wrong listings because it helps nobody and hinders many. I don't understand the thinking that knows exactly where to place an item but places it in the higher level category because other items are wrongly listed there. The item should be placed in the correct category and the other items should be flagged. If people did that when they saw it, then, over time, the whole lot should get sorted out. Reluctance to do it only perpetuates the problem.

No, he didn't fire anything. He simply told me that I'd really regret ejecting him, and then he built some toy canons etc. Strange person

I like the stories in this thread. I could picture the griefer going flying (above) - great story Here area a couple of lesser ones:- (1) I used to rent skyboxes out. They were made so that, from the inside, the walls were see-through windows (no doors), but the walls were opaque from the outside. I was in one, one day, when I saw an av hovering nearby and facing the skybox. A few seconds later he was inside it even though he must have seen it was occupied when he cammed in. A few seconds after that, he'd been ejected. He IMed me to say something to the effect that I'd regret the day I did that. He owned a very nearby parcel so he created a platform opposite my skybox and I and a friend watched as he built a small row of canons pointing at my skybox. We shouted stuff at him as he busied himself building them and had a good laugh at his expense. Then for a week or so he would spend short times of standing with his canons, facing the skybox. The idiot made us laugh a few times. He reminded me of the evil character in "The Great Race" (Jack Lemon) - busying himself with evil schemes to get ahead of the good guy (Tony Curtis), but his schemes always went wrong and he never got anywhere. (2) In my skybox business, I sometimes modified the boxes for tenants. More than once, I've accidentally sent tenants plumetting to the ground when making a modification. One poor girl plumetted 3 times in succession before I got it right :-(

Pussycat Catnap wrote: Well the rotating sign is gone. Now its a giant sign that changes every few seconds and is half on the linden land (but a lot of people do that when near roads). Didn't yet measure it to see if its under 8m, but I've been told by a linden once that these changing signs count as more than one advert. Not sure myself if its in or out of ToS this time. But you can see the owner has also adopted the 'extortion price and advert' tactic to get out of this lot he's stuck on. Signs can be no more than 8m in any dimension and they must be grounded. I'd estimate that that one is within the rules.

You asked 2 different question - one in the title, and one in the post. The answer to the title question is, no - "should" doesn't come into it. The answer to your post question is up to each individual, of course.

I must admit that I'm not familiar with the marketplace categories, or any grey areas that there may be, but there was a short discussion here not long ago, in which category levels were discussed. I know from experience that many people *want* their listings to be as high up the category tree as possible. After all, if there's a high level category for "houses", it's suitable for every house that's for sale. But if there is a lower level category for, say, "bungalows", then, even though a bungalow is a house, and would fit in the "houses" higher level category, it actually belongs is the lower level "bungalows" category and the "houses" category is the wrong place for it. That's one type of thing that I was meaning. In such cases, I really wouldn't tell the item's owner where to list it if it were me on the other end because the item was intentionally placed in the wrong category. If there are grey areas, then the owner of an item that's in the wrong category *should* be given some specific information, AND the categories would need to be clearer. Could you give me an example of a grey area, please?

Making the item temporary is an idea that didn't occur to me when I had the problem recently (my items weren't important). I ended up doing what someone else did - I moved onto someone else's parcel and it was returned to me soon afterwards.

I don't think that anyone at LL has ever come across the word "usability" or, if they have, they don't know what it means - or, if they know what it means, they can't be bothered with it.

Sonya Bigboots wrote: The wrong catergory thing has happended to me too, But some form of policing the categories is required as otherwise things could be listed here there and everywhere. What would be useful though is a brief note telling you what the correct category is, as sometimes if you do not know a category exists it can be hard to find. I wonder if there is a list of all the available categories somewhere? The idea of the system owner just placing an item in the correct category, or writing to the person telling them which is the correct category, and other such things, sounds good but it isn't. In one of your posts you mentioned the seller's time constraints. The system workers also have time constraints, so why should they be bothered to spend time sorting out the correct category, and/or writing to the person individually, when the person hasn't been bothered to spend the minutes it takes to find the correct category for him/herself? I used to be an editor in the world's largest online human-edited directory, and I can say that many people are very good at not bothering to find the correct category for their listings so, if they can't bothered, why should the system workers be bothered? I can understand being a bit miffed if an item is delisted for use of a word that wouldn't be considered to be 'wrong' but, even then, it's better to delist the item and inform the seller than to simply change the word - imo. Making the seller relist the item with an alternative word is a much better way for the seller to learn than to change the word and send an email, imo. It's similar to writing and reading. The learning is much better when the subject details have to be written down than when it is merely read. I'm not suggesting that LL do it that way so that people learn better - I don't believe they do. I believe they do it that way to simply use as little time on it as possible.

Well, it *was* personal. I simply don't believe that anyone who was starting up a "low prim furniture" business in SL could do it without having a look at what already existed - by at least doing a search on "low prim furniture" or just "furniture". And, if a search was done, my Prim Savers name couldn't have been missed since it was always at and around the very top of the results in both the Places tab and in the All (GSA) tab long before he started up. In spite of what he claimed, I can't believe that his choice of name was not intended to mislead people into thinking that his business was the long-established Prim Savers. But, as you said, we'll let it go at that

I'm surprised if that's all you meant, Void - you made it sound much worse It really wasn't about "so much more" as you put it, and the only thing that could possibly be described as "dirty" on my part was something you didn't know about until I posted it here - keeping his search rankings below the fold, which is something that I don't feel was immoral or unethical, considering the fact that my business name should never have been listed in search as his business name and in the identical field of commerce. I didn't imply that he did anything illegal (although he did), or against the "rules of the moment". I have always said that he stole the name, which he did. Stealing can be perfectly legal, but knowingly using an existing businesses name, so that the business can be mistaken for an already existing business, is against the law. That's why, if you start trading as "CocaCola" or "Coca Cola", you will be taken to court by "Coca-Cola", found guilty under the law, and made to pay. It's civil law, but it's law just the same. A registered trademark isn't necessary - it merely makes it easier to prove the case. Camping has never come up in the discussions concerning this matter. I've no idea whether or not he used camping but I never did until earlier this year for a while, when it was perfectly in accordance with the rules - it was on its own parcel which was not listed in search. The use of bots never came into it either. I've no idea if he used bots or not. I used to use them when they were allowed, as you know, but the rules changed and I stopped using them before he started his business. So this matter is not about "so much more" at all. It's only about someone knowingly using my long-established business name to trade in the same field of commerce, so that his business could easily be mistaken for mine, and nothing more.

ditto The problem with going public is that the other side can enlist friends to lie, and there is absolutely no way that readers can know who is telling the truth, so the victim can end up smelling of as much s**t as the thief. For that reason, a blog is perhaps the best option if going public is felt to be a necessity.

You interest me, Void. What was dirty on my part? I'm not aware of anything that I've done that could be remotely considered as "dirty pool", unless you mean that starting a thread about it was dirty pool? If that's what you mean, I disagree. You say that it's about "so much more". Apart from the guy using my long-established business name to compete in the same field of commerce, what more is there? I've nothing to hide so please post the answer to these questions. ETA: I already posted that for a while I controlled the top search results so that his place stayed below the fold. Whenever he made a ranking move upwards, I caused him to make a move back down again, by pushing other people's places up above him. I suppose that that could be considered dirty but it was nothing that I feel morally ashamed of - and it was fun :-) Only two people knew II was doing it so I don't think you meant that.

Yes, it was discussed at length in the old forum and again in the Concierge group. The only couple of people who sided with him were friends of his (in the old forum but weren't forum users). Everyone else told him that he was doing wrong.

I'm not happy about it, but I'm not angry. He didn't steal my idea though - low prim furniture was made and sold by quite a number of people. he stole my business name which annoyed me at the time, but it hasn't bothered me for quite some time now. When I discovered it, I ARed it, but the AR ws ignored. As we know, they don't get involved in such things, which is to the detriment of SL, albeit only slightly because it's rare for people to stoop so low.