Mickey Vandeverre

No reason this needs to stay up as a sticky - just delete it. The forum is in control of those who post most frequently and back-up cronies to flag posts. Simply a matter of getting flagged often enough, if a circle of people don't want you posting. That's all.

I hear ya. That technical aspect always a hold up to brilliant ideas! I wish you the best - very best - be careful - sounds like you had great working relationship - and that is rare when you mesh a creative with a tech - well, except for that finishing part. That's pretty important.

aha! you still have a sense of humor! cool. I like your style. You have exuberance! Too bad you can't just do it all yourself. Can you? Any way? Having a partner in this type of venue is tricky business, particularly if you have not met them or worked with them in the physical world.

OMG! Having the same exact problems! It started about a year and a half ago. The momentum was full force and the sky was the limit. Everything was in place. Groundwork laid. Then....well, you summed it up perfectly. I buy it every time too. Optimist! But often foolishly, perhaps. so....are you going to give Linden Lab the boot?

Josh Susanto wrote: >I guess that means that there is not a process yet. It means that, until there is a process, there is no process. Well, my apologies for failing to accept that statement at the simple core. For a minute there, was channeling my Inner-Geek and making it way more complicated. Pardon for the 10 pages of complications. Please relay that in Geek-Speak to the others.

hmmm that's interesting. I pulled it out of this thread from page 7. But where it got confusing is that some customers were saying IT IS GOING TO WORK THIS WAY or THAT WAY and IT IS NOT GOING TO BE AN ISSUE - EASY AS PIE - GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR STUPID AZZ.....more or less, kinda like that..... ....and that's not what the official LL answer said. I interpret that as saying "we do not know yet"....

Marcus - I'm going to attempt the support ticket one more time on the creator name thing. If I get help on that, will relay it here. I'm not sure if Snickers ever got help or not in that Jira. The disappearing thing goes deeper I think - had read once that it might have to do with cache and running two different versions of programs - but will work on that next month. I went back and reread this thread. Trying to figure out how it became so difficult. I think it boils down to this: Q: What’s the migration process for moving my items from Magic Boxes to Direct Delivery listings? A: The process is not completed yet. Once a process is working in test, we will communicate the details. We are working on a method that will not require each listing to be edited to replace the Magic Box inventory item with a Direct Delivery inventory item. I guess that means that there is not a process yet.

This thread is not for me to work out glitches. I supplied that example merely as an explanation to those who are poking at people who need help. That's all.

Sassy, I'm just trying to explain why someone without technology background might not want to risk further testing. That's all. It's not worth the risk to jumble up your inventory problems further. Plus, I do not have to do beta testing on other retail web sites. You have time and knowledge to play around with it. We are paying for a service that is already in place - and I am not going to pay for it any further - involving inventory glitches or in time. Doesn't really have to do with not doing a civic duty to other merchants or with being lazy and uncooperative. (as seems to be implied by some) on the hierarchy - thanks for explanation - must not apply to my type of product - so will skip that.

Marcus - hang in there - you've got a lot on your plate with 500 items. Feel for ya. I'm having some glitches with inventory too, another reason I'm not up for "testing" It's not in the marketplace inventory, but in personal inventory. When I put a new product in the magic box, it seems to disappear from my personal inventory (about half - not all) - so I have to store all products up in the attic, out on the floor, for safe keeping, so as not to lose them. They are safe in the magic box. This is why I'm a wee bit concerned. Also having problems with my name not being shown as creator on many items. Both of these pretty major glitches that I do not have the resources or know-how to solve....no way am I going to a beta region to amplify possibility of screwing things up even farther. Their comments that some of us are unwilling to help everyone is bullshiz. They can fix their own glitches - some of us can't. There are some people here who will reduce the geek speak to layman's terms pretty well - Darrius and Toy do pretty good at that. Have found that if you ask basic questions here, you have to put up with some stuff to get back to the basic part. I would like to know what the need for a hierarchy of products in that folder is for. Don't grasp that at all. You have product A and product B to sell - you slide them into the folder, Not sure where a hierarchy of listing comes into play. This is what happens when a non-geek tries to get help in a Jira http://bit.ly/q0mpYw That was back in July, I believe. Currently trying to get help via a support ticket - but they've closed it twice. They asked for more information - then closed it. So mad.

You don't have to have an inworld store, Nams. But you do need to have a place to rez a magic box to put your product into. There are relatively inexpensive and perhaps maybe even free places to do so, but I don't have a list in my pocket. Perhaps someone else does. You might want to read up on the direct delivery system as well. Am assuming that when that system is put into place, that you won't have to worry about a place to rez a magic box either.

You have 12 listings. It is not a concern for you. You have the luxury of not counting on daily income to keep your store in place. Others have land investment, time investment, listing enhancement investment, outside advertising investment, and more. Moving a few listings a day is not an option to stay in business. I sell more than a few different offerings a day. We are paying for a service, for land, for enhancements, and a commission on sales, and other things, It is titled a "Market" place. This forum is titled a "Commerce" forum. They push to sell us advertising and enhancements. What part of that are you completely incapable of understanding?

You have less than 100 listings. It's not a concern for you.

well at least you can still send messages!

Good Lord - I wouldn't go through these constant upheavals and poor customer service if I did not like Second Life. Can go to a number of other venues and have a perfectly enjoyable and pleasant and productive experience that flows flawlessly and profitable with more tools than you know what to do with, and excellent customer service in a heartbeat, and happy, friendly, merchants who collaborate and support each other - and the same for the customers. There is HUGE potential here. Frustrating to watch it dwindle to a snail's pace.

If you have that many items (the example was 500) - and you don't have 10 hours a day to work SL (anyone that does that should get a job at Mickey D's btw)....and if you rely on the income daily..... ....then you MUST plan ahead. Took a few disasters to learn that. I went so far as to start another business until they get this working. I wanted questions answered way back as to how we could plan ahead and be ready. I would assume that is why some are asking in this thread. Any adjustments that you have to make - even if it is as simples as a click - we are talking big numbers here. Planning ahead would involve boxing correctly, not boxing at all, moving to a temporary folder, adjusting # of products in a box. It takes me over an hour to box one offering. Another hour to produce package pic and another hour to count prims, list prims on listing, do listing, add pics, then blog to two different blogs, then tweet, then count hits. I wanted to know months ago - if there was any kind of way to prepare in advance - or to re-do the offerings - or whatever - as did others. You are counseling on how to be good business people - (you can save it on me - I've probably run a dozen more retail businesses than you have) - - and to not prepare with the above, someone would be an idiot. You are telling us to wait. The above cannot be adjusted overnight. For some it might take weeks and months. I remember back when we went to new marketplace - and people were still adjusting listings six months later, trying to make it through a long inventory list. They were minor adjustments - as might be the case this time - but you have to consider the numbers involved. You are telling us that we are wasting energy. I don't think so. Sounds to me like people just want information in order to get organized. so that they don't get thrown off course pretty rapidly. You're wasting far more energy by poking at people who have an entirely different set up than you do. You simply do not have the investment in time and product. Of course you don't have to plan ahead.

Dang, Josh. And you were being so good.

They came in and answered Sassy's question. They generally do for Sassy. The rest of the questions were not attempted until after the "hystrionics" As I explained to you earlier, which you must have missed.....it seems as though that's the only way to get answers now, and it seems as though that is the mode now. Not a fan of it, but if that's the only way, it is what it is. I don't believe that mode evolved because of "us" - - I believe that it evolved because of poor communication from the service provider. We were pretty much conditioned to accept that mode, but at the beginning of the year, they made strong statements that communication would improve. When you make strong statements like that to your customers - you should probably back it up. After all - you were probably making those statements to keep them. They kept some - so deliver. If asking questions bothers you - there is a log off button. If you understand everything entirely, and are totally confident that you won't have to rework your entire listing process, then not really sure what you have to gain by poking at those who have far more inventory than you do. Wazzup with that?

And that is exactly why I refuse to be their lab rat. Even more so than usual.

Well it's very clear in this thread who was involved in Beta and who is getting special assistance. Not to mention seeming somewhat brainwashed. Feel for you on that - that won't last forever. Wait until they click a button that destroys your business for a few months. Or longer. I'm getting really tired of the those people who are getting special assistance coming in here to the forum and speaking for ME or others as to how we should be approaching this as if you are a representative from the Lindens. I want the instructions and explanations to come from the Lindens. I don't know jack about IT - but I've run retail on many web sites - and I've used similar web sites to sell million dollar items....and the "developers" of those web sites never had to cover their azzes on a daily basis. I don't even recall any glitches. If they did have some - they handled it properly. If you're a software developer - and you can't see what the problem is here - and you cannot see how poorly this whole system is run - - that's just scary. The marketplace is not a toy. It's not an experiment. Full blown business is going on there. They have people with livelihoods here counting on things to work everyday. We are not lab rats. If we are - - then they need to add some disclaimers to that effect and they need to pull the pay-off system entirely. When you supply a system to get paid for merchandise - then people are going to bust it out and dang sure do it to the max. They've never taken responsibility for those people. Unless of course they are the handful of people who continually get tagged for special services and perks and inside information and beta tests. Personally - - I think they are choosing the wrong people. I've looked at those people's stores - and they don't have much going on. eta: you've got 15 or 16 items listed. Sorry to be blunt, but that ain't a store. Do not speak for me or tell me how I should feel.

Good grief. Just send them another one, It takes 2 seconds. How long did it take you to question and analyze and be paranoid?

ok, well I object to an anonymous person deciding who is "stable" and who gets to ask questions without becoming someone's whipping post for the day. Everyone needs to ask every single question because some are just reading and that's the only way they can get a grip. These questions have been asked for months on end. Generally, the only time we get a response is when someone becomes "hysterical" - - if that's become the method to get answers for the non-tech oriented or the outside-of-the-LL-circle-getting-personalized-service merchants, than it is what it is. We did not make it that way - it became that way due to lack of assistance. I don't have a clue what Aditi is. Step One. The information starts off with assuming that everyone knows what Aditi is. Never heard of it. Sounded like an app that I would have to buy. Even after reading - don't particularly care to mess with any settings on the program in order to use it. If I mess up on that - it will be a week before a support ticket is answered. When it is answered - it generally is so aggravating that I want to kill off Mickey and leave. So, on that simple Step One - have concluded that one will have to be a tech geek in order to even experiment with the thing. Yeah - skimmed the rest, but it doesn't do much good if you can't get past step one. Sounds to me like they can't answer a ton of questions because they are not sure yet. After a year? Pretty basic questions here - - if the basic process has not been nailed - - that is worrisome. But.....NOT A TECH GEEK.....just an assumption. That's all I've got. Maybe you've got ample hours in your day to study all this and to start from square one, once it is employed. Most don't. Those inventories were built over the years. Excessive time. To rebuild and re-list and re-categorize within your inventory - to unbox - to start counting items in a box - to think that you might have to re-work your whole packaging concept - to think that you might have to re-list each product..... yeah....that might cause a wee bit of hysteria. That took years. You don't have that much inventory - so no, it's not a concern for you. Josh has an excellent business model, btw.

There are quite a few rather long threads on that issue here, Tommy - but they're buried a bit and I don't think the search works very well. Yes, some of us have experienced petty flagging. It's not an issue for me currently, but could crop up again any day. Did you have some instances? or are you just thinking out loud? This seems to help: Stay out of forum and stay away from other merchants inworld. Lay low. Do not ever represent your business as having success. Do not ever piss anyone off, particularly a merchant. Check your store several times a day - try to pinpoint when the flagging occurs - and if it's often - track it - keep a chart. Send in a ticket to support and ask why an item was flagged. At first, I did not want to bother them with this - but they have stated over and over again, that is acceptable procedure. What you might see - is that your item is flagged for being in a wrong category, while there are dozens of other products similar to yours that get to remain in the same category. We were told that if that is the case, then it is our "civic duty" to flag them as well. Not to me. Unless it's just blaring abuse (and sometimes it is) - I'm not going to spread the petty stuff on down the line. Somehow, you probably messed up, pissed someone off, or made your store appear as if it was doing very well, and someone got peeved. Or you introduced an amazing product that is threatening to someone who has good control of the market. (I personally do not have this problem - I keep my stuff average - it's best that way Or your price has undercut someone's product line. Once that happens, they will watch what you list every single day. If you make an item that doesn't fit well into any of the categories - you tough it out - or you make product that fits cleanly into a category, so that you don't have to be aggravated every time you list something. I no longer list anything that doesn't fit cleanly into a category. When you send in your support tickets - be super nice. Do not challenge. Just do what they say. Keep a record. If it's abusive - then the record will be clear to the support center. There are tricks you can use to catch them - but you will have to figure those out yourself. If someone holds a grudge against you in this anonymous world - you're going to encounter more threatening issues than product flagging. Always lay low.

Not everyone here is a Tech Geek. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to create things and market them properly and conduct business here, without having to have a Computer Programming degree, or a real life job in Tech. In other businesses, we use different phrases, different styles, different approaches. That does not equate to being stupid by asking questions. I've got a degree in Psychology. We could talk about agendas all day long. The explanations are written by tech geeks. End of story.

Speaking of Tweet buttons..... Did someone tweet this to The Man? Great reading here. Great Insight. Toy - are ya'll still tweet buddies? I've got no pull. But I'll use my once a month tweet anyway.