[Support the Japan Earthquake & Pacific Tsunami Relief with Linden Dollars]

Great idea!

Can I also suggest that LL consider doing similar for major chairty events in the future. Perhaps you could even pick a preferred charity, or do a different charity each year. I know there are many great people raising money for charities inworld for which we should be hugely grateful, but I think that if LL were to do something more formal people might feel more secure in the knowledge that their donations would get to the charity.

Offering a script that people could use to set up donation boxes etc in their own locations that made sure all payments went direct to a defined account such as "Donations Linden" might also help

There's always a slight uncertainty when donating inworld to an anonymous avatar, so being able to make donations via LL might ultimately help raise more money. Just a though.

Anyway - my thoughts go out to the people of Japan and anyone affected by the earthquake \ tsunami.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

I'm not sure that makes sense. If anyone can attaend and anyone that shows up is considered a User Group Member - then what exactly is the changes that 'User Groups' have created?

In terms of how you attend, not an awful lot. The ability to attend a scheduled User Group is exactly the same as the ability to attend an old Office Hours session. What has changed is the more organised structure around them - specific, structured groups, dedicated wiki pages, organsised places to post agendas and transcripts, participation guidelines, a fixed calendar (if you have Gmail btw - its a great idea to import that calandar to your own gmail account like I have done - great for keeping track of upcoming hours). Plus potentially adiitional supporting channels such as a Twitter feed, forum etc that are there if you want to use them.

I think it's more about the structure, the ability to get the right feedback to the right people and trying to make them more useful and constructive compared to the complicated, hard to find and sometimes argumentative nature of the old Office Hours.

This was a major announcement - and it focused on 'User Groups'. For there now to be these exclusive 'focus goups' (that were never discussed at any time) seems odd. I am wondering why each Linden User Group Leader can develop  their own way of recruiting and screening people that want to attend 'focus groups' and whythese exclusive meetings with hand-picked residents is now going to be the allowed.

Again - the focus groups idea Brooke is running with is in addition to the normal User Groups. I suspect this one may run on and on but I see no major problem with these focus groups in addition to the normal User Group. It will help get more focus and achieve more meaningful results and I'm happy, given everything Brooke has said, that it will give everyone a fair chance to be involved if they have constructive things to offer on a particular topic. It's probably causing more confusion at them moment becuase Brooke hasn't had time to formalise it yet, but I'm happy she's going to formalise it soon so that people can express an interest in taking part.

It's existence, I imagine, is covered under this comment from the blog post here: "It’s up to the User Group leader and the core Resident team to determine how they best communicate with one another". I guess It's possible other group leads may decide to run similar additional focus groups, and some may not.

I'm sure it's going to perpetuate ideas of FIC and favourtism but hey ho ... those sorts of ideas are around anyway. I never believed a FIC existed, but if it did then what we are getting now is much better than some secret organisation. It's not secret because Brooke is being open and transparent about it and giving everyone the opportunity to be involved. Not only that, but it will give many more people the potential opportunity to be more involved in very specific topics, while at the same time ensuring that something meaningful can be achieved which is difficult to achieve at larger meetings.

Well, it is not impossible if you know how to run an open meeting. What these private chats do is allow Brooke to ignore people at the open 'user group' meetings and allows her to steer the conversations and conclusions at here hand-picked 'focus group' meeting.

I see the glass half full I see a chance for Brooke to get both broad feedback at a busy User Group and a chance to then translate this broad feedback into more focussed feedback at a smaller focus group from a range of different people that will be rotated - it won't be the same people at every focus group, and it should help achieve actual results as opposed to everyone wanting to say their piece all at the same time.

But actually, the communty meetings (aka User Groups) is going to be taking a back seat to these focus groups that will be exclusive to a few selected individuals. Brooke now says that User Group meetings are monthly (no longer weekly). This means that meetings that were open to everyone will no longer be weekly but monthly. Then the rest of her time interfacing with the community will be private 'focus group' meetings. So LL has gone from predominantly weekly open meetings to private meetings that have no set criteria for participation and no set timetable.

Which is still more than you'd get from most companies. The commerce team hardly ever had Office Hours prior to this anyway, although commerce stuff was kind of rolled loosely into Jack's Office Hours I believe. Different groups have different schedules. Brooke has decided monthy works best for the commerce team (with periodic focus groups inbetween). Other groups are still weekly. The new User Groups are also in themselves more focussed on specific areas rather than having, for example, 'Jack's Office Hours' that covered a number of things and left people wondering - do I need to go to 'Jack's Office Hours? Does it cover what i'm interested in?'

Again, being a glass half full sort of person, I would say LL has gone from a few confusing weekly meetings that covered muddled topics, had a tendency to get derailed and left people feeling frustrated to a number of more structured meetings that have a supporting system around them and should help to achieve better results (plus the potential for some additional focus groups to allow even more specific issues to be targetted).

Ok - that's me done for the day! I'm starting to feel like I'm speaking for LL which I'm obviously not in a position to do (nor would I really want to be! ) I also hope Amanda does come back to clarify some of these things to reassure people. It's perfectly possible I'm looking at it wrong but, to me, all I have stated here seems to be exactly what LL are working towards.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Obviously not everyone can just show up at any meeting and attend - because Brooke has set the precedent that any Linden can choose whomever they want to attend the meetings. The calendar does not indicate which meetings are closed focus groups and which are open to the public. And there is no published way for any resident to apply to become a member of a User Group (a simple google form could be used for this purpose).

Everything on that calandar is an open User Group that anyone can attend, including the monthly Marketplace User Groups you will see on that calandar (that is run by Brooke). In that respect no-one needs to sign up or apply for any User Group. You just go along and attend.

The only precendent Brooke has set is periodic focus groups in addition to the fully public User Group she runs for the Marketplace. These focus groups are on very specific topics and, as is clearly shown on the links I provided, Brooke fully intends to make them as inclusive as possible, rotating the participants. She has clearly stated that she intends to have a process where people can express an interest in attending a focus group soon.  Brooke has also clearly stated that all transcripts of these focus groups will be posted, as they already have been for one that she ran.

The distinction between User Groups and these additional focus groups Brooke is running with are important. User Groups are open access and cover all the main SL areas (including commerce / marketplace). The focus groups are a smaller bunch of people selected to disucss a specific topic in order to make some direct progress on a particular topic. Those selected will be based on a range of applicable factors and people will also have the opportunity to express an interest and Brooke will rotate those who participate.

Brooke's focus groups are no different to focus groups companies hold day-in, day-out. The select a group of their customers to discuss, evaluate and give thoughts on specific products and services becuase it is completely impractical for them to get focussed discussion from every single one of their customers. It should be something that is welcomed because it will help to get some actual customer feedback into very specific areas that it is clearly impractical to debate (at least initially) at a huge public level.

If anything, the public User Groups that LL are running are something way above what most other companies would do. Most companies might hold select focus groups, may have areas (like forums etc) where customers can give feedback, but how many companies do you know who offer completely open, public sessions for their customers on at least a monthly basis (and in some cases more frequently).

I genuinely find it a little bizaree how some people see what we are being presented with here as a bad thing. If you want to contribute you can do just that. Go along to any of the User Groups shown on the calandar and contribute. Just stick within the participation guidelines, which are perfectly acceptable and equate to nothing more than good manners and common sense.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

I understand how to access the transcripst of these User group meetings. I would like to know how one becomes a member of these user groups - before you said that anyone can just show up at any open meeting and be considered a member of the user group.

BUT Brooke Linden the User Group Leader of the Maturity User Group hand-picked the residents for her User Group and then the meeting was not open to everyone that wanted to attend. Brooke also told some residents that she will be putting some volunteer mechanism in place 'soon'.

It looks as though the overall master plan does not dictate to the Linden in charge of the User Groups how to allow residents to become user group members and the Linden can choose anyone they want to populate their user groups and there is not process in place for this to happen.

 

All User Groups are open to the public, including Markeptlace ones. If you look at the calandar on the Wiki page you will see Marketplace User Groups listed too. Anyone can attend those. There is nothng to 'join' here - simply go along and attend.

However, as is stated in the Wiki, and group lead can have alternate arrangements too if they work best for them. What Brooke has decided to do (rightly in my opinion) is to hold periodic 'focus groups' in addition to the open User Groups. She discusses that here:

http://blogs.secondlife.com/message/611589#611589

The targetted discussions are designed to get some serious, focussed discussion going which is easier to do in smaller groups. The transcripts of these groups will always be posted, as the one's for Brooke's initial focus group have been.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Brooke_Linden/Maturity_User_Group_2_10_2011

Brooke has stated that participants in these focus groups will be chosen based on a variety of metrics to ensure that people with a storng interest in a particular topic are involved, but that people will also be chosen at random and rotated to ensure that as many people as possible can be involved in these focus groups. More on that here: http://blogs.secondlife.com/message/613040#613040

I can assure you that, as far as I can tell, Brooke is very keen to make sure people are rotated in these focus groups to ensure that as many as possible can participate. I say that based on my personal experience. Brooke invited me to her initial focus group on Marketplace maturity ratings. I got back to her and said I'd be happy to attend but that I may have more to say about future focus group topics as the maturity ratings didn't hugely affect me. I didn't want to take up a place at that User Group if someone else would have more constructive input on the topic than me (I'd like to hope everyone considers Brooke's focus groups this way. Show an interst if you have lots of constructive input on the topic, but don't take up a space just because you can.)

Anyway, based on that, Brooke and I amicably agreed that I should sit this one out. Brooke told me that she wants to rotate people as much as possible and it would be unfair for me to attend this one and also be very keen to attend, say, the next one where I may have a stronger interest. I was perfectly fine with that and agree with the process entirely.

The only thing I would imagine may prevent someone from being involved in any User Group would be repeated none compliance with the Participation Guidelines. Some people seem to think this is some sort of censorship, but I don't see that in the slightest. What I see is a strong desire to make communications with the lab meaningful and constructive. As long as participants are not rude, insulting, harassing etc I believe we will be able to communicate with the Lab better than ever before. I really hope LL are serious about this desire and that they will take action against the few who do not want to adhere to the guidelines. More to the point, I hope we all as customers recognise this opportunity for constructive dialogue and abide by the guidelines so that they essentially become a non issue. Criticise and even have heated debate on a topic, but keep it civil and respectable and we might actually achieve results. Saying "I think LL policy abc is flawed and doing it way xyz is better because ' has more chance of achieving results than saying "Policy abc is just stuipd! LL don't know what they are doing and are just f'ing mad!" The latter is the type of thing that is going to be against the guidelines, and really doesn't achieve anything anyway.

Bear in mind though that both LL and other attendees may have a differing point of view even when you give constructive criticism. That, I think, is the whole point of this communication strategy. Recognising that not everyone has the same opinion about things in SL and that it's a fine balancing act between taking into account all opinions but coming to a solution that broadly meets the needs of a wide user base (and also still mets company policy - bear in mind that LL always has to take into account a whole host of legal impications and has a board of directors to consider in most things they do too!)

As for the reference to 'core resident team' - I was wondering where that came from but now I see where it was reference (below). I think there are some wording issues that are causing confusion here, but I don't think 'core resident team' refers to any particular defined group that is chosen or has particular tasks. I believe in this context 'core resident team' merely means anyone who is involved in the User Groups. In other words, what that statement below is saying is this:

"It's up to the LL staff member responsible for the group (i.e. the User Group leader) and the residents who attend (i.e. the core resident team) to agree amongst themselves how best to run the user group"

That would, I imaigine, includes things such as whether they have a formal agenda, whether they do it on a more ad hoc basis and just fire out questions etc.

 

Most User Groups are public and may include any or all of the following:  inworld meetings, JIRA sections, a Twitter feed, an SL Forum, and/or an  SL email list. It’s up to the User Group leader and the core Resident  team to determine how they best communicate with one another. The  discussions should be open, direct, and be more forward-looking and  focus more on how we can improve your user experience.

 

So, to summarise, there is no requirement to 'join' any User Group - just go along to one of the inworld meetings There may be cases, such as with Commerce, where additional focus groups are held and Brooke is working to ensure that they are as inclusive as possible while at the same time ensuring that they achieve constructive results.

At least, that's how I interpret it all. If I've got anything wrong I'm sure Amanda or someone will correct me

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Mercury--Love the idea of a Social User  Group--including inworld and web social connections. Just added it to  my list of User Groups to investigate creating. Thanks!

- Amanda

Just a thought, but there is a my.secondlife.com User Group which, to me, seems to have a close tie in with the social aspects of SL. I assume this group is going to be largely focussed on our profiles and similar? Perhaps social aspects could be included in that? (Profiles are, after all, a big enabler of social interaction and there is the whole contentious issue of Fb / Twitter links on profiles etc).

I guess it's a little bit chicken and egg though. I see benefit to having lots of very specific groups to keep topics focussed but, at the same time, I think it might be dangerous to have too many groups that may overlap and cause confusion and/or conflicting information.

I'll leave you to mull that one over ... it's cheesy snack time for me! (With apologies to Dustee! Although I actually 100% agree on the whole 'points for posts' thing. If I had my way I'd remove points, post counts, rankings and all and just let posts be judged on the quality of their content rather than some random rankings ... Which means the quality of some of my posts would be of very cheesy quality, but I can live with that! )

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

A reply to Oz:

You say:  "Who said that product decisions about Second Life should be democratic?".

I find this chilling, offensive, and at a minimum hugely insensitive to the current mood of your paying customers.

 

It's been par for the course since at least 2007, at least that's when the "new grid smell" wore off for me.  I've been watching the Lindens move further and further away from what their residents want, forsaking us for the Facebook crowd, doing everything they can to lure in the masses.  It is infuriating, insulting, and just plain ignorant.

It seems like once a year, someone at Linden Research, Inc. decides to post a blog about "listening to residents" or some such nonsense.  What it basically boils down to is this...

"We are listening... we just don't care."

In context, I don't find what Oz said chilling, offensive or insesitive at all. I actually find it very logical and a refreshing acknowledgement of how SL really works rather than some idealistic rhetoric.

Just to put it back in context again rather than taking one line, what Oz said was this:

In any event, who said that product decisions about Second Life should be democratic?  Democrocy is finein its place - I'm a huge fan of New England Town Meeting style government for small civic groups, for example, but that doesn't mean that it's the only way to make decisions, or that it's the best way in every circumstance.  Linden Lab has many stakeholders to consider in each of its product decisions, emphatically including our customers; but even our customers don't all have the same interests, and there are other stakeholders and many considerations in any product decision.  We have to listen to as many perspectives as we can (which is what this entire initiative is about), gather the wisest heads we can find, and make the best decision we can think of.  Being human, we will on occasion not make a perfect decision the first time, so we'll have to keep on listening and sometimes revise our thinking. It helps that process if those giving us feedback can be more nuanced than a yes/abstain bit.

I very much welcome the clear and open acknowledgement that this is the true nature of how SL works. Traditionally I have seen two opposing views of how LL to customer interaction works / should work:

1. It is controlled by an inner circle of secret 'Linden favourites' who are the only people LL really listen to.

2. It should be a complete democracy. Some sort of utopia where LL respond immediately to every single concern every single person has.

Both are doomed to fail and both are doomed to never achieve a balanced set of results that please and benefit the bulk of users as a whole.

I believe the part I highlighted in Oz's response is the key point. There are many different stakeholders in SL with many different interests, needs and goals. All of us will never agree on everything. That's just a fact of human nature. The important thing, as Oz states, is to take into consideration as many perspectives as possible and to come to informed decisions that as carefully as possible balance the needs of all stakeholders.

That's naturally going to mean that sometimes some people are dissapointed and that sometimes LL have to go with the persective that best works for them as a profit making company. I think we all need to remember that LL is a profit making company and profits are always going to come first when it comes to the crunch. Having said that though, I personally belive that, depsite some failings over the years, LL is one of the few profit making companies that allows it's customers to be so heavily involved in some of it's decision making processes, and that this new communication strategy is the right approach to get the balance between customer involvement and the needs of the company right.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

NEW COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION GUIDELINES SET THE STAGE FOR CONSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUE

We've  updated our guidelines about community participation and they're  largely the same, just clarified and streamlined for easy reference. The  purpose of these new guidelines is to keep the conversations   constructive, courteous, respectful, and in the spirit of collaboration  so that we can have more thoughtful and effective discussions. The new Community Participation Guidelines outline the ground rules, in addition to our Terms of Service,   for all Resident and Linden communications on the blogs, forums, bug   tracker (JIRA), SL Answers, User Groups, and the Knowledge Base.

I want to know if forum and blog posts that are critical of Linden Lab and Linden Lab policies are now going to begin to earn in-world bans.

It's a good question that wasn't answered and I don't think will be answered, which is the answer?

 

On this question, the silence is as telling as it is deafening.

I'm sure Amanda has answered it somewhere in this thread, and I know she answered it at yesterday's Community Tools User Group. https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Community_Tools_User_Group/10-Feb-2011

The answer is essentially this:

Of course critical posts won't result in a ban either in-world or on the forums. Criticism and constructive debate is welcomed. However, the moment it becomes trollish, rude, insulting, harassing etc it could result in warnings/susensions/bans.

Amanda also confirmed at the User Group that a warning/suspension/ban on the forums would not normally result in an in-world ban too.

Which just seems obvious to me. It's never once crossed my mind that anyone would get a ban simply for criticism. This very thread shows that critcism is welcomed - just not downright rudeness!

Criticism and even heated debate is good, but the moment it becomes trolling, rude, insulting or harassment it should be dealt with and I really hope they do enforce the new participation guidelines effectively.

I also find it a little odd how this suddenly seems to have become a major concern as the new participation guidelines don't differ that much from the old guidelines (If anything I think the new guidelines are much better because they are direct and to the point about what won't be tolerated - and not once does it say criticism won't be tolerated!)

The only difference I hope we are going to see is more effective enforcement so that we can all get our points across (be they supportive or critical) without the fear of it becoming an argument filled with profanity and insults and without fear of being harassed for sharing our opinion.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Improved comunication would be to STOP sending e mail notifications from this forum when I have very clearly turned that option off! I do not want to be communicated with when people post to this thread and yet my e mail in box is going mad! i do hope the new forum stops this one

In addition to what Nany said above, take a look at this answer I gave in SL Answers a while ago regarding email notifications here. This seems to be the best way to manage email notifications from the forums / blogs and I've not had a problem with excessive emails since adopting this approach:

http://blogs.secondlife.com/message/407448#407448

Although, of course, bear in mind that if these blogs / forums are being replaced that process might change (although I'm sure the new system will have manageable email notification system too).

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

One thing I've been meaning to ask / suggest regarding User Groups:

It would be great if we had an easy way to submit agenda suggestions for particular User Groups. I know that this can often be achieved at the meeting itself (i.e. suggesting an agenda at the end for the next meeting). However, why waste time putting together an agenda at the meeting itself if agenda items could be pulled together in advance?

Perhaps a simple form could be designed where people could submit agenda suggestions. Obviously this might mean there is a whole host of suggestions that couldn't possibly be discussed at one meating, but they could be rolled over a number of future meetings. It would also give you a way to identify potential 'hot topics' prior to the meeting if you saw, for example, that 10 people had suggested topic abc but only 1 person had suggested topic xyz.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

There is a flaw in the logic of what you have been doing and what you propose to continue doing.

You are assuming that a 'Watch' is a vote in favour.
What about the people who hate the idea, and are watching to keep an eye out for arguments in favour that they would come in an speak against?

 

That's not quite right... we'll use "Watching" as a guage of interest, not of support.  That's one of the flaws in the Jira voting system that makes it hard to really use to make our choices: you can only vote for something, but not against it.

In order to understand why people are interested, we'll read the comments in the issue, and everyone watching will get them too.  It's no accident that this will put a premium on thoughtful commentary and will, we hope, provide some disincentive to just flame.

Actually, that's a very good point and one I hadn't considered.

It makes a whole lot of sense looking at it that way. While JIRA votes may give some indication of the appeal of a particular JIRA, it is the comments within it (both for and against) that are the most important factor.

The only one downside I can see if that it could turn the JIRA into more of a forum debate and I worry it may actually have the opposite effect than what you anticipate. It could become an incentive to flame! Then again - that's nothing new I suppose and it's somthing you just have to manage as best you can.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Really looking forward to how the User Groups play out in practice. I'm optimistic that they could be a great way for actual results and action if everyone takes them in the spirit of constructive dialogue intended, and I hope, where necessary, the new participation guidelines are enfoced to keep the spirit alive.

I also hope that transcripts (or at least a detailed summary) of all User Groups are posted on the blogs / forums for people to comment on if they were not able to attend (and again I hope that this 'after the event' discussion is within the spirit of constructive dialogue).

The new community platform for forums could be promising too. If anyone happened to have beta tested some of that under NDA, would your announcement here mean that the NDA has been lifted by any chance? Or do they have to keep schtum for a while longer?

[Feel the Love on Valentine’s Day]

I was going to volunteer, but something in RL has come up. So no snogging for me anymore I'm afraid! (stop cheering! )

[Feel the Love on Valentine’s Day]

I try and teach you the ways of the force young padawan and you repay me with this!

I'm waiting for you to volunteer. There's a distinct lack of male volunteers and I'm sure you have lots to teach about kissing Obi Wan!

Don't make me make chicken noises!

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Medhue Simoni wrote:

Can some1 invite me to this inworld Merchants User Group, cause i have no idea what it is or why we need to be part of it, but obviously I'm missing stuff.

The group is called "Second Life Commerce Merchants" and you should just be able to look it up and join as I think it's open enrolment.

I'm not sure you are missing a huge amount - it's basically everyone chatting (arguing?! ) about commerce stuff in group chat as with most groups. So you are only going to catch things if you happen to be in group chat at the time of a particular discussion. For some reason, group notices don't seem to be sent out that often though - so I'd like to suggest to Brooke that perhaps notices of important changes / user groups etc are also sent as group notices. I get most of my info from the blogs / forums or Twitter, but it makes sense to use all communication channels

Medhue Simoni wrote:

Does it make any1 else cringe when LL says they consulted with merchants, yet you, yourself, nor any1 you know, is part of the consulting?

Yes and no. I've been thinking about this in relation to the new concept of "user groups" Brooke is running with actually. I've been in two minds about it because I can totally see the logic in more focussed smaller discussion groups rather than larger office hours which can have a tendency to go around in circles with everyone wanting to say their piece. However, the danger with smaller discussion groups is that it may not get all viewpoints.

I think Brooke has recognised this dilemma though which is why she has been talking about these select user groups in which participants will be rotated from the pool of merchants who want to be involved. On balance, it could be a good way to get some useful discussion going without it being a huge bun fight.

What I'd personally like to see though is that when these groups are held, the chat logs and / or summary are posted here in the forums on which we can all comment and add our own feedback that the commerce team can study.

[Marketplace User Group: 2/3 9am PST]

A couple of quick suggestions for the agenda:

1. Regarding the list of flagged keywords. Can you please discuss the reasoning behind not publishing these keywords. I'm very much in two minds about whether it is better for them to be published or not. If they were published (in a restricted area somewhere) at least that would give merchants an opportunity to identify and understand why their item might be rated a certain way. However, the downside is that it would give unscrupulous people a means to try and circumvent the rating system to get an obviously adult item listed as general or moderate. I suspect the latter may be your reasoning behind not publishing the keywords, which I think is probably sensible. I'd appreciate your thoughts on it though.

1. Once the maturity ratings settle down the next thing I can envision is a rush of "my item was flagged and I don't know why!" forum posts. Please can you discuss and confirm the process that happens when an item is flagged. I understand that it goes to a review team who make a decision and it is not automatically delisted, but there still seems to be some bits of confusion over this. Also, can you discuss the process someone should use if they are unsure what to do about their flagged item or if they believe it was wrongly flagged. I know Dakota has said before that people can contact her via support ticket for further advice if required, It would be ideal though if merchants got some more advice on the flagging message. For example, if someone's item was unlisted for being rated general when it was in fact adult, it would be nice if the message said words to the effect of "Your item has been delisted as it was rated General when the item contains Adult content. To fix this issue please either rate the item correctly as Adult or fix the item to be in-line with the guidelines for General content."

Thanks!

ETA: Actually, one other thing if there is time on the agenda. Re this discussion: http://blogs.secondlife.com/message/596510#596510 It would be handy if you could confirm whether this is correct or not. I'm unsure about it. I'd always assumed that all the magic box has to worry about is delivering the individual 'delivery boxes' (up to a max of 10 in the cart) and that the asset server only came into play for the contents once the box was received and opened. If i'm wrong though and the contents of delivery boxes comes into play for the marketplace delivery, perhaps there is some merit in investigating whether failed deliveries occur more on boxes with a large amount of content?

I've never actually encountered a failed delivery on the marketplace (and have regularly used the cart to purchase up to 10 items, some of which have a lot of content). It's always intrigued me why some people seem to have more issue with failed deliveries than others. There must be a reason. Maybe I have just been lucky but part of me also wonders whether it is more to do with the sim performance on the sending and receiving end?

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Thank you heaps for that feedback Brooke.

It will go a long way to helping people understand that you are listening and working your socks off to make things better. We all make mistakes (because we are human) - the important thing is to acknowledge them and then make them right

If you get chance I would love to hear your reasoning behind not providing a copy of the filtered words somewhere. I understand (and agree with) those words not being published here on the forums and that they will be removed. However, is there not some logic to having them somewhere which is restricted to only age verified accounts maybe? Although I do also appreciate that you may have concerns about doing this because it gives unscrupulous people the means to try to get around the filters. I can see both sides of the argument for publishing the keywords and keeping them private. I imagine the Lab could probably convince me why its a bad idea to publish them if you do think its a bad idea. I'd still be grateful if you can give me your reasoning to convince me though.

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Ciaran Laval wrote:

What?! I'm just saying! He did tell me that! (Although he was also drunk and trying to chat me up ... which was a big fail. Using the C word isn't the best chat-up line)

Anyway, stop making me digress. Where was I? Oh yes - keyword filters = headache. So I'm just going to procrastinate until tomorrow.

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Ciaran Laval wrote:

This is the problem with any automated word filters, it's why the Scunthorpe problem came into being.

Yeah, but to be fair, I went to university with someone from Scunthorpe and he assured me everyone from there is a c...................

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Darrius Gothly wrote:

Gavin.Hird wrote:

The logical thing to do would be to send the list to the email address of all registered merchants, in addition to post it in the wiki.

It is not like 16 yos have never seen such words before if they stumbled over the wiki page...

Pardon my interruption here but .. can you imagine the outcry that would occur if only ONE email got sent to a minor? "Yup, good old Linden Lab. Sending email laced with rude, offensive and disgusting language .. to MINORS .. via email."

Can we say "Witch Hunt"? Maybe "Rioting Villagers with Torches and Pitchforks"?

I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Darrius ... which is novel!

If they send a list of rude words out by email you can guarantee someone would take offence a kick up a real fuss!

It just needs to be a page somewhere that has some sort of restricted access. Ideally tied into age verified accounts but, at the very least, a page on the Wiki with a warning and a requirement to confirm you are over 18 or something would suffice. That way no-one can claim offence if they were pre-warned.

LL do need to do something to sort this mess out though, or it's only going to cause us and them a ton of grief (yes, yes that me almost being critical. See how easy it is without blowing your top! )

Thankfully I only have a couple of items that seem to be stuck at 'adult' rating. I'll have a play with them tomorrow and see if I can find the offending words (I thought it was 'sexy' but removing that doesn't seem to have worked). Not gonna blow a gasket over it though (unless they have blocked the word 'cheese' - then it's all out war!)

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

TatianaDokuchic Varriale wrote:

Mickey Vandeverre wrote:

Can't find the keyword list that people were working on at all.  Would like to know where that went - was helping some people out there.

I think the keyword list discussion "Censorship Keyword List" has been removed.  I replied to it and it no longer shows in my Recent Activity.  Go figure.

As I said in that thread shortly before it got removed, It might be an idea for someone to start such a list on their own external blog if they have the time and inclination. Such a list is always going to get removed from here due to the content which is by very nature going to breech the PG / General content requirement of these forums.

Having said that, it would be handy if LL could somehow find a way to publish the list in a location that can only be accessed by age verified accounts or something. I guess its a bit of a Catch 22 for them - they probably don't want to publish it to give the cheaters a way to figure out how to still get their clearly adult content as PG by cleverly avoiding the keywords, but then again unless we know the keywords its hard for the sensible majority to use keywords correctly.

[Getting Immersed in Second Life]

I like to stop these emails..... I do not want them anymore. how must i do that please can someone help me

greetings

See here for an answer I recently gave on how to manage email notifications for these blogs and forums: http://blogs.secondlife.com/message/407448#407448

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Thanks for the update. Makes sense to have the maturity levels matching those inworld and surprised it wasn't done long ago actually

Just out of interest, how does this actually work for teens using the marketplace? Is there some logic behind the scenes that recognises they have a teen account and will therefore only let them view 'general' content and not mature or adult?

[Getting Immersed in Second Life]

Welcome to the mad house Rod (and I mean that in the nicest possible way!)

I'm really looking forward to the direction you take SL in. You seem very keen. I really hope that last.

You are probably going to hear lots of varied comments, complaints (and even some occasional praise from cheery, positive souls such as myself!) about SL. I'm personally really excited with what I've seen going on with SL over the last couple of months and am looking forward to a great 2011, so don't let me down!

I'm just going to sound off one word of caution. As a man who's had lots of experience in business, I'm sure you know this already, but I'm gonna say it anyway. You'll also probably get lots of people saying "Listen to us! Communicate with us!" which is entirely right. Do listen to us and communicate with us. However - and here is my note of caution - be cautious of assuming that those who shout the loudest are the majority view. There can be a tendency with SL residents to be split between those who shout loudly here on places like the forums, and those who happily get on with life inworld. Try to get as varied an opinion as you can from all types of SL users, not just those who shout loudly here!

With that said - have a fantastic time getting to know SL and I really look forward to hearing more from you soon. Already followed you on Twitter so hopefully see you tweeting too (side note - some SL residents also dislike the idea of SL staff / users being involved in external sites like Twitter / Facebook etc, but I disagree. There is nothing wrong with making social networking work alongside SL and I love Twitter, although I'm less keen on Facebook for a variety of reasons).

Anyway - I'll stop waffling now and offer you a welcoming slice of cheddar (I have a random cheese obsession and always talk about cheese in the forums - you'll get used to it! )

ETA: You'll also probably see some shouts of "Scrap Viewer 2!" Don't. Just make it even better and do all you can to make it meet the varying needs of diverse SL users. You'll never make the perfect viewer for everyone of course, but making it flexible enough to meet most needs and most will be happy. I'm personally liking Viewer 2 more and more with each new iteration. I'm aware that, sadly, one of the key devs on the viewer development (Esbee) is about to leave, so I hope you are able to find someone as good as she was to help continue the work on Viewer 2 improvement.

[Technology Improvements for Q1 Including Raising Group Limit to 42]

I still don't get why some people get so uptight about being able to connect SL to Facebook. I have no issues about others finding out who I am....its not like I have anything to hide or have anyone to catch me cheating on them with an SL pixel. The way I see it, the only ones who feel the need to hide in SL are either RL cheaters, criminals, crazy people or sex offenders.

So yeah, great feature, the whole Social Network thing. Kudos.

That's an unfair generalisation. There are a lot of legitimate reasons for not wanting to use Facebook.

I personally never intend to have a Facebook account although I'm a happy Twitter user.

I do agree with you that it's nothing to get uptight about as ... and this is the important point ... it's all about choice! Want to link with FB - you can. Don't want to - that's fine too!

A lot of what LL are doing lately is all about choice, and that is great!

[Technology Improvements for Q1 Including Raising Group Limit to 42]

FJ, you are still one of the best communicators at the lab. Thank you for this post.

In addition to facebook (ugh), Twitter, and LinkedIn, please consider Plurk and Flickr links. Heck, I'd also love a Snapzilla link, but I'm likely dreaming there!

Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to add a group or two...

Flickr link would be great. As would a link to popular blog sites such as Blogger \ Wordpress etc. Youtube too for that matter - I'm sure machinimists with their own Youtube channel would love that