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Rachel Darling

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Everything posted by Rachel Darling

  1. Personable but frequently absent sim owner seeking roommate to share costs of full-prim sim. Easy to get along with and respectful of your privacy. You get: -- entire ground floor of sim + skybox space, up to 12,000 prims, including estate rights, parcel capabilities, parcel description rights, full terraforming, etc. You can use the ground floor for residental, sandbox, commercial, whatever -- I'm easy. All I need is to maintain a 3000 prim personal skybox/worshop at 600m for my occasional visits into SL. You can do whatever you want with the rest as long as you abide by LL's TOS and are on-the-level. Rent: $15,000L / week, paid 4 weeks at a time. PM me here, IM me in-world, or respond to thread to meet up if you're interested in lots of prims for a great price.
  2. Need a flexible, full private island with lots of prims for a fraction of the cost of renting a full-prim sim? Ideal for shop/business owners or those needing an inexpensive personal residence/sandbox with LOTS of prims! I am offering a long-term rental of the ground floor of my full private island (with up to 12,000 prims) for only $15,000L per week. For that price you receive estate management rights and the use of the entire island (including the "ground floor"), minus a 3000 prim skybox at 600m that I will maintain for my personal workshop/residence. The island is surrounded by water, having no adjoining land masses, and the ground level will be completely cleared for your use. The terms are as follows: 12,000 prims maximum, with reasonable script load (please, no bunny breeding farms! :smileywink: )Full access including terraforming and estate management rights: you can set the parcel name/description and land management group, searchability, the maturity of the island, design/build it to suit your own purposes, and use it for either commercial, residental, RP, or workshop space. Only my 3000 prim skybox/workshop will remain private, for my personal / occasional use.Land purchase price is $15,000L, plus $15,000L rental per weekIsland rename permitted for a one-time additional $100US fee, if you require itLaid-back landlord who rarely logs into SL; I am very easy to work with and not interested in invading your privacy!Long-term rental preferredRestrictions: You must remain a resident in good standing with LL, and abide by LL's TOSNo CDS or Redzone permitted (sorry, philosophically I am against them as they invade privacy)No "selling" of parcels (you CAN rent parcels for shop space, however - as long as tenants know it's a sub-let)Minimum rental period 4 weeks at a time, paid in advanceI must maintain access to and be able to log in directly to my skybox/workshop, and be able to bring the occasional guest to my skyboxIf you're looking for a lot of prims and full estate rights for a very reasonable price, this is a great opportunity. The island is available within 24 hours (I will clear the ground floor as soon as I have a rental commitment). If interested, please respond here or send me a private IM in-world (I receive offlines)
  3. Porky Gorky wrote: Pamela Galli wrote: It makes sense for the Answers forums I guess. But still don't know what the point of credits would be. I thought the benefit would be obvious.....it will make Proks life a lot easier when she compiles her FIC list every year. /me gives Porky a good-natured but very wet raspberry
  4. Argus Collingwood wrote: It has been fixed, Rachel.. now I need to get the hubby to give a good review on those glasses I sent him. It was almost easier to leave the review myself... since I was the one who had the link to the product in my order history. Yup, yup. On XStreet there was a Quicklink sort of reminder to people to rate their purchases when they signed in, at least...even as a customer I am really missing that link, as I used to like to rate purchases. It's so hard to click through to my order history now and go back and forth to rate items, that I either forget or just don't bother. I have been wracking my brain ever since SLM was released, to think of ways to encourage/remind customers to come back and rate their purchases. I was even willing to download my entire purchaser list from the trans logs and send them out a follow-up note, but the problem is that there's no easy way to direct them to a) a Quicklink to "rate your purchases" or b) the product they purchased (which would be ideal...an html link to the product they purchased). Since "relevance" search returns now seem to prioritize by number of reviews, this is really a critical thing for merchants to see resolved in some way. I hope it gets some attention soon.
  5. This is good news, Brooke, thanks. Question: has SLM been fixed now so that the recipient can rate an item on the site, rather than the purchaser? This has been a problem in the past, and since many use SLM to "gift" items that are no transfer in-world, I suspect it adds to the reduction in ratings we've seen with the new site.
  6. Toysoldier.Thor wrote: Exactly my point Rachel regarding the Clutter Tax. You were very much for it - I was very much against it. So using the example I posted, you are in Focus Group #1 and when asked by LL you promote it, I get invited to Focus Group #2 and I express to LL how stupid an idea it was. LL has 2 Merchant Focus Groups, two opposite messages. So... how much guidance do they get from these two groups? Reaction - "Merchants are not commited to either dirction so we will make up out own minds. There is some presumption that just because LL or the Commerce Team are listening to a group of merchants' ideas, they have some obligation to follow one or the others' recommendations. This is not the case. There are always going to be opposing views...and LL are always going to take decisions based on 1) their own needs as a company and what they feel best serves those needs and 2) feedback from customers -- with #1 being the priority. Restructuring the ways in which they get that feedback is simply an effort to make the process as effective and efficient as possible. My point in bringing up the Listing Fees was only to show that the process would be no more effective via some sort of "self-governed" merchant group -- in fact, unless you're cherry-picking the participants who agree with your POV, it's far more likely a self-created group would be less efficient or effective. In that case, the only POVs that would "roll up" to the Lindens would be the majority opinion, OR the opinions of those who shouted the loudest. I have more faith in LL's ability to hear both sides of the input via multiple channels, and then weigh it accordingly. And to be frank, there are also people who I would definitely NOT like to have LL perceive as "representative" of the Merchant Community, via some sort of self-styled authority on merchant issues. Just to be clear, I am not pointing fingers at you specifically -- only pointing out why I think the idea of user groups (along with a monthly open house) is a better idea than trying to circumvent their own proposed process.
  7. Yes, but pretty much what Dart said. As for the "Freebie & Clutter tax," as I'm sure you'll remember I'd have been on the opposite side of that issue, so I doubt that a group comprised of those who opposed it would have been willing to let me have my say...which speaks to some of Dart's points. I'm not too worried what they name it...that part is pretty much semantics, and therefore a low-priority in the grand scheme of things. The point is that some interaction will happen. I just hope that part of the plan is not to completely abandon the open-to-everyone meetings without replacing that communication with something else that is equally public and accessible, in addition to any other discussions they have planned. As I stated, if all meetings become "invite only" then there will be a backlash, both against LL (for perceived favoritism) and against those who participate (for being cheerleading FIC scumbags). Been there, done that...brought back the scorch marks.
  8. Ciaran Laval wrote: I'm of the understanding this is a general initiative by LL to replace OH's with user group, a blog post is rumoured to be in the pipeline. Yes, I'd heard that as well somewhere. While I'm in support of the user group concept, it seems as if it'd be a wiser idea to create them in addition to, rather that in place of, the OH. While user groups will be more productive in terms of two-way dialogue, ulimately if you eliminate the opportunity for participation in an open forum it will result in claims of favoritism, as well as a perception of non-communication by the rest of the customer base/community. One OH hour a month doesn't seem a huge sacrifice to make in order to ensure those perceptions don't run amok. In addition, a regular OH may help identify candidates for future inclusion in the various User Groups...otherwise the UG's also run the risk of becoming stale over time, without new voices added now and again.
  9. Loving Clarity wrote: ah! I misunderstood. I thought that was to be in addition to they standard style open invitation meetings. I didn't realize it was a replacement. I also thought it was meant to be "in addition to." That's a shame, if it's the case...after a couple weeks the trolls would have found better things to do and the OH meetings would have begun to be productive. As annoyed as I was with the "problem children," I would like to think that LL realized the first few meetings would be overrun with pent-up frustration, and given it a few weeks to settle itself down.
  10. Toysoldier.Thor wrote: ... You know yourself that these meetings take on 1 of 2 scenarios: Because of the severe damage the executed LL change has done so so many merchants, the meeting will become a forum of venting frustrated merchants that are still suffering from the slow response LL has done to repair the damage to their sales. ... Toy, what I would like to avoid is exactly what you've outlined above in the extract...which is why I responded and suggested we give her the benefit of the doubt -- if for no other reason, than because Brooke has bent over backwards to make discussion with the merchants possible, and that hasn't happened in a very long time. More importantly, though, I can guarantee that assuming the worst and putting her on the defensive will make discussion much less productive for everyone; that's human nature and would be my natural response as well. As Darrius said, at the worst, if everything turns out the "same as it ever was" we won't have lost a thing -- but let's avoid creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, because then no one "wins."
  11. I read the Transcripts as well, Toy, and did not get the same thing out of it. I believe I saw an inference that they are looking at other ways to identify Maturity besides the present filter. Darrius and I have both suggested an idea for a more robust and accurate filtering system, and the group meetings (whatever they're called, I really don't care) are the place to weigh in on that issue, as well as the current decision to keep the Blacklist unpublished. @Loving -- my input wasn't meant to chastise others for suggesting additional topics for this or other meetings, and I apologize if it was read that way. Frankly, my list is so long it would take me an hour to do a brain-dump, and thinking about it makes me dispirited all over again. At this time, though, the implementation of the Maturity ratings is such a huge and immediate issue, that I am concerned that it will not get the time and attention it deserves if we move on to a slew of other topics for the "second half" of the meeting.
  12. While there are a great many issues that I and others would like to see addressed, my personal preference is to focus on depth rather than breadth, and spend the time discussing issues and potential solutions for Maturity ratings. I know I personally will not be directing any efforts into modifying or adding any listings until this has settled into something more manageable, which also delays any plans I had to purchase banner advertising. If there is time, I am also still interested in getting a better understanding of how items will be set for sale and managed when Magic Boxes go away. I didn't get a lot of clarity on that in the last meeting. Also, is there an ETA for this?
  13. It seems to me that, given Brooke's extensive and on-going efforts to "reach out" to the merchant community, we can and should give them a bit of slack here. While I'm not happy with the way this change was implemented, what I'm currently seeing is a) an admission that this could have been done better, b) a willingness to think about ways to fix it and do it better in future, and c) opportunities for us to offer additional insight and ideas via the blogs/forums, additional in-world group meetings, and polling various merchants in smaller groups. She's reading and responding in the blogorum, she's listening to the group chat, and she's got people at LL thinking about potential changes and fixes. From my perspective this is massive improvement, and worth the benefit of the doubt while we see how this plays out...I would not like to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
  14. Thanks for the update, Brooke. The communication and transparency is very encouraging. My thoughts/input: 1. Interim decision to default to Moderate settings for logged in, over-18 users: Good. 2. Longer term plans to enable persistent Maturity settings, with defaults set to in-world Search defaults: Even better. 3. More communication via User Groups and rotating in-world Group Meeting times: Not sure I understand the full plan for this, but it sounds good at the moment, and would be welcome. I am absolutely delighted and encouraged by the increased engagement with merchants overall, and any plans for it to continue. 4. Not publishing the bad-word blacklist: I still feel strongly that it is a red herring to refuse to publish this list because some people might "game" their listings to try to get around it. My reasoning is as follows: a) their goal is to be found by potential customers -- if they purposely edit their listings to get around the words despite the items being M or A, they're just shooting themselves in the foot...their customers use those words as Search terms, after all. Most of those circulating that "alternate" search term list are doing it in protest of the current flawed implementation, and as something of a joke because they're upset. b) it does not make sense to force the majority of the merchant population to jump through hoops in order to outsmart the bad guys before the fact. c) it's ineffective; they bad guys will get around the the list anyway if they really want to, whether you publish it or not. d) if you publish the list so we can edit our listings more knowledgeably and efficiently, then trust me -- the rule-abiding merchants will be only TOO happy to help you police the yahoos by reporting listings that are obviously gaming the list. It's in our best interests to do so. Look forward to the next in-world meeting. Thank you again for your update and efforts to keep us in the loop and to take our input into consideration, and please keep it up; it is the most positive and encouraging thing I have seen from LL in a long time.
  15. To your point, Loving - and I suggested this in the Commerce Group Chat -- it would be far more effective to employ a filter that acts more like a spam rating filter, responding to multiple occurrances of words flagged in the Adult and Moderate blacklists. For instance, a single instance of the word "cock" or "slave" (both of which have perfectly valid, non-sexual definitions in the dictionary) should not result in a Moderate or Adult rating. However, some number of flagged words would result in the listing receiving a more mature "ranking;" for instance, a ranking of 3-5 might result in a Moderate rating, a ranking of 6-8 Adult, 9-10 might be banned content (think "lolita" "child" and "sex" in the same listing). Certain words might trigger a Moderate or Adult rating all by themselves, but that should be reserved for words which have only one potential interpretation or definition. Anyway, just an example there. The points are: 1. Except in rare instances, a single word in and of itself should not trigger an Adult or Moderate rating -- and definitely not when the word has perfectly valid non-sexual definitions. If you want to use a computer program to make those kinds of judgements, some intelligence MUST be built into it, otherwise ridiculousnous prevails...and ridiculousness is not conducive to business. 2. Personal responsibility for our own content MUST be part of the equation. If someone with Moderate content -- or more importantly Adult content -- is purposely trying to avoid an accurate rating that reflects that content's nature, then punish the offenders, rather than making 100,000 users jump through hoops to comply with a system that's vague, inaccurate, and open to various interpretations across the globe. 3. Publish the flagged word list. It is ridiculous in the extreme to make us waste our time guessing what might be in that list, for reasons I've stated previously.
  16. What Ciarran said. Dart, I know you want to find the logic in what was done and how it was executed...we would all like to. My constant question in SL is something along the lines of "Did they really mean to do that? There MUST be a logical explanation...somewhere...ah, here's one, maybe." Even so, abandoning or alienating the existing, paying customers in the hand for the potential ones in the bush, is something LL have been doing for ages. All it's accomplished so far is to narrow or even erode the growth of the user base. Now, if they currently have a sure-fire way of bringing in a larger group of "family oriented" players than they'll lose by upsetting the existing paying customers, I'm all for it and I'll adjust my own business and products accordingly. The problem is, I don't see it...and lest we forget, the PG-oriented TSO is just a memory now. The other problem is that a product with a bird "cocking his head" is STILL not adult content, and will never be...and neither is a medieval gown that might appeal to Goreans. So please, lets at least admit that the filter and its implementation is flawed as it currently stands. Then maybe we can all work with LL to try to come up with a better solution that won't continue to erode both our and LL's bottom line earnings.
  17. InWorldz and Roleplay Worldz. IW is by far the greatest potential of the two, I'd say, as they have currency and cashout, while RPW only has a Paypal interface that's a bit kludgy at best. But the reality is that neither has even 100th of the user population or concurrency of SL. From a merchant perspective it's a non-starter for now...unless the intent is to purposely push adults to other grids, in which case the growth could escalate substantially.
  18. Given that the new Listing and rating policies outright bans rp of non-consensual situations (sexual or otherwise), and in-world skins with nipples are now classified as Moderate content, it would appear that way. I was hoping it was a phrasing mistake that just hadn't been thought through properly. The fact of the matter is that the Adult population and rpers spend a great deal of money in SL. Turning SL into TSO would be a serious mistake -- we all know what happened to that platform. If, however, that is what the new content policy is trying to do, it would be good to know up-front.
  19. Brooke -- First, thank you for the big yellow flag on the front of the marketplace, suggesting 18+ residents may want to enable Mature Content. That, at least, was well done. Now for the concerns. I am trying to understand why you would want us to spend the hours, days and weeks it requires "edit our listings" to get them to accurately reflect the maturity rating they should have, without knowing which words are flagged as Adult and which as Moderate. Perhaps it doesn't seem clear to the Commerce Team, but essentially you're asking us to devote days of our time to guessing what's considered Adult and what's considered Moderate. How is this productive for any of us, and how will it generate anything other than frustration on our part, and reduce our ability to focus on our core business and tasks? Please help us understand why it is necessary to keep the Blacklisted/Flagged words some sort of secret. If you're concerned the list might be used to inappropriately "get around" the Flagged Word List, consider that those selling actual Adult or Moderate content will want and need to keep those Flagged keywords, because their target audience uses them regularly to search for their products. To avoid them would simply guarantee that they lose potential sales, because they won't be reaching their target market. Another issue: your new Listing Guidelines and definitions of moderate, adult and banned content enforce a system where a perfectly "G" product cannot also be successfully marketed to minors, simply because it might also appeal to those engaged in "M" roleplay. Example: I have several dozen listings for gowns which can be used for medieval / gorean freewoman / fantasy rp wear. There is nothing whatsoever 18+ about the content itself or even the listing text -- the gowns do not meet the published criteria for Adult or Moderate content -- and yet the listing has been flagged Moderate. I am presuming it's because the gown is also suitable to be sold to Gorean RPers, and that Gorean has been blacklisted as being, in and of itself, sexual (not true, btw - but you'd have to know the Community to understand that) -- but I don't actually know that "Gor" and "Gorean" is on the list, because you won't tell us. Be that as it may, Gorean RPers are a large target market in SL, as are medieval and fantasy RPers. By blacklisting "Gorean," I can now only reach half my target demographic when marketing my product, unless I list the product twice with two separate ratings (which I assume is still against the SLM listing rules). I would like to ask that please help us address both of these issues. The first can be addressed by publishing the list of Flagged/Blacklisted words. The second is more difficult -- at this time it seems you've painted both the residents and yourselves into a corner by trying to apply a black & white filter to a situation that is many shades of grey, at best. If LL insists on defining certain content as Adult or Moderate, despite it being legally available to minors in RL, then the only solution I can think of at present is to allow multiple listings for the same item, so that it can be marketed to the applicable audiences separately. Alternatively, you might reconsider your definitions of Adult and Moderate to more accurately reflect the legal and commonly accepted standards we live by outside of SL. Or you could get rid of the Teens -- which would be unfortunate.
  20. Share Your Own Story and Support the Film Over the years, many of you have shared your own stories about making meaningful connections with others in Second Life – and now, the filmmakers would love to hear them as well. If you have a story about meeting someone in Second Life that deeply affected you (it doesn’t need to be a romantic connection), add it to the film’s Facebook page – and while you’re there, click ‘Like’ to show your support! Can you say, "new Reality show?"
  21. Welcome, Rod. Glad to see you're having a look around -- though I was really hoping you were going to opt for "Humble Linden." ;-) Among your explorations in SL, I'd like to suggest an excursion into the world of SL Commerce when you get some time, as it is such a vital piece of the SL puzzle, and a piece that I don't believe was quite so relevant in TSO. Likely you won't have the time to enjoy the experience of setting up an in-world store and a Marketplace storefront, and trying to market your digital content and brand successfully, as that's pretty much a 40-60 hour per week job all by itself. However, it might be helpful to join the in-world Second Life Commerce Merchants group and browse the Commerce forums when you have some time. Though the merchants can be a contentious group (likely because they work so hard and seldom take vacations), there are nuggets of insight and knowledge to be gained. I'd also like to cordially invite you or your alt (maybe the alt would be best, actually, so you could listen in undisturbed) to join us in the next Commerce Open Office Hour on January 26th. As it will be the first publicly announced Commerce OH in some time, it would likely give you a great deal of insight into some of the questions and concerns that have been prevalent amongst the merchant community for the last six to nine months. Again, welcome...very pleased to see your interest in exploring SL from the user perspective, and delighted to be identified as a "customer" rather than a "resident."
  22. You mean "every 30 days' worth." Unfortunately some months have more than 30 days.... :-p
  23. Per the Dashboard page on Processing Credits: How long does it take to process credits? LindeX processing can take 0-5 business days* if they're through Paypal. We strive for quick turnaround; however, holidays and the volume of transactions can affect processing times. The Lindex process doesn't use Masspay to process credits to Paypal, as XStreet did. Masspay makes credit processing automatic. LL have not committed to converting to Masspay since shutting down the XStreet Exchange. They have said they will try to improve the turnaround time, however. The long reason for "why" is that LL feels it necessary to manually review EVERY cashout transaction that goes through Lindex. Apparently XStreet's cashout process was not considered secure enough for them, which is possibly one of the reasons they closed it down.
  24. A promising background. As long as we're not going to a "token" system and Commerce/cashouts will remain intact, I'm very hopeful...welcome aboard. My first hope is that you'll prioritize the reconstruction of the LL Commerce Team, including a strong leader with very good customer relationship skills.
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