Czari Zenovka

Hey, Deja I think one of the reasons many people are outraged is because this decision cuts off an avenue of communication from resident to Lindens. From reading most of the posts on this decision, both here, on the SLU forums and various blogs, it appears that the Lindens, or more likely Rod, are saying, "Go away, you're bothering us." Then there's the whole technical side where many bugs/issues within SL were noticed first by residents, a jira was submitted, others perhaps contributed to the issue, and a resolution was found either sooner than it would have been if a Linden just happened on the issue or at all. In Toy's VLM thread he lists the URL for the most recent UG meeting he attended and, from reading that, one can see even some Lindens are clueless about why this happened and they also concur that a lot of great "group think" in debugging came from the jiras.

Yeeaaaaaaa!!! It's great to hear you're getting a prompt response and assistance as well. As for the forums, since I began SL I have found the forums to be an invaluable source of help and information. Welcome aboard!

You're most welcome, Ducky. Hopefully you'll get the same rep. I did. She was awesome. (Still embarrassed I didn't catch that.)

I have not heard of the October date being revised...yet. But the last communication from CTL indicated MB would not be shut off until the issue with no copy items changing permissions in DD was fixed and afaik, it is not.

Just another echo of what everyone else has said. I was fortunate when I began SL to know someone who teleported me from Help Island (or wherever I began years ago) right to his sim. The only times I've been in "Welcome" hubs is when I've logged in, my home location is unavailable, and I'm dumped into one of them. I immediately tp out to someplace else...anyplace else. The one time I purposely went to one of the hubs was when a group I was in did a one-week experiment. Each of us changed our avatar from our "norm" to something we wouldn't necessarily choose to see (a) how others interacted with that avatar look and (b) how we felt within the avatar. I chose to be a furry for a week. (Others chose being in a wheelchair, being a child AV, a female chose male, white AV chose to be African-American, etc.) One night we went on a "field trip" as a group and one of the places selected was one of the notoriously worst hubs. As soon as my feet hit the ground there I was being called a "Fur F#g." Nice. I agree I would find a wonderful sim and explain that most of SL is not like the welcome hubs. As a sidenote, except for said hubs, I haven't experienced griefing in years. Back in the day, many sims were hit with griefers - one of the most popular forms being spammed with monkey heads or flying pen1s textures, so imo, there is less griefing in SL now. Or maybe it's just where I hang out...or don't.

During my 5+ years in SL I have been both Premium and Basic. What I enjoyed about Premium: *Having the tier-free 512 sqm land to call home. *The weekly stipend - I *think* it is still 300L/week. Why I am no longer Premium: *I am renting a mainland parcel where I live and my small shop is located. It is a prime location (corner parcel bordered on two sides by protected Linden ocean). I have known this landlord from my beginning days in SL and have rented from him approximately 3+ years so I know the land will not *poof*. I am paying less renting this size parcel than if I went Premium, had to pay the Premium fee, buy the land (which is a minimal cost these days), plus pay tier. The tier for this size parcel is more than what I pay in rent. *The sales from my business provide the income (and more) I used to get from the Premium weekly stipend. *I have not been Premium since the private sandboxes were introduced but when I have had need to go to a sandbox, there are many excellent ones, many operated by SL schools such as Builder's Brewery, that are safe and any griefers dealt with quickly. *I have no need for a Dunebuggy Each person has to decide for herself which she prefers. If you've never been premium you might want to sign up for say a quarter (if the special promotion price is still available, even better) and see if you enjoy the benefits.

Ok, now I have to eat crow...lol. I got an immediate response from a support rep. at LL and my particular problem was due to me not having selected a product category. /facepalms I was writing the listings late last night and apparently selected product category for one of the two items, but overlooked it on the other. As annoyed as I have sometimes been with LL, I have to give kudos to this particular rep. for her quick and kind response.

Ducky Fingerpin wrote: I haven't listed a new product in absolutely ages, everything was available in my marketplace store via magic box delivery and I have only experienced this issue since trying to convert to direct delivery. It's been going on for about 5 days now and I am unable to activate products either while editing or in the inventory list. If I could work out how to file a support ticket I might do that too ..... Here's the location to file a support ticket: https://support.secondlife.com/create-case/ From the drop down box choose Marketplace -> General Marketplace Issues.

I'm not at all happy about this transition to DD either, Fiona. Some people think it is the best thing since sliced bread and others, like us, are not happy campers. I am currently not able to list using DD because my PC is too old to run the necessary viewers. That will be changing within the next few weeks but I have decided that even when I get a new PC I am going to stay with MBs until the absolute shut off date. Knowing how LL operates, who knows if they will say, "Ok, we're going to discontinue DD and go back to MBs (or some other system). Perhaps unlikely...but I've seen stranger, like the new "non-jira" system. :matte-motes-sour: With that said, most of the merchants who post here have been able to successfully migrate to DD with little to no problems. I would recommend Darrius Gothly's step-by-step directions in .pdf format here.

This is happening to me today. I listed two identical items yesterday (MB); one is active and the other listing is doing the same thing, grayed out check mark. When I edit the listing, "inactive" is checked. I change it to active, save, but the grayed out check mark is still there. Heading off to file a support ticket.

iCade wrote: Ah, I apologise then Czari. Though thinking about it, it may be possible to have a Market place hunt co-ordinated from one directory parcel. Instead of tp'ing to stores, people would be send to marketplace stores with a hint. They have to find a specific item the creatore sells and somwhere is the solution. Awww...thank you and np, iCade. I agree that including MP-only merchants in hunts would be wonderful. One of the situations that invariably arises in most hunts is a merchant changing shop locations during a hunt (that happened to me during the last hunt my store was in). A notice has to be sent to the group, some people will still end up in the prior location, etc. - none of which would happen with a MP store. The creative ways some merchants offer their gifts within a hunt is amazing and most enjoyable, imo, for the hunters. One of the most memorable for me was a store that was huge and had many themed locations within the sim/s. To get the main hunt item, one had to go to 12 different locations, each being a mini-hunt. Within the gifts at each of those hunts was a notecard with a number on it. After collecting all 12 cards, the hunter returned to beginning of this store's hunt and there was some scripted item that the hunter touched, then had a certain amount of time to type in the numbers from the notecards in order. It was one of the most challenging, and fun, locations. The mini-gifts were all treasures as well. iCade wrote: Basically, 1 parcel puts down a treasure chest for each MP store that participates. People tp to that parcel, click on a chest, get asked a question say "What song birds sing the most wonderful songs?" and are linked to an mp store. There they find that the creator of the store has song birds on page 2 of their store. They open up the item and anywhere in the description or features page it says " XXX sing the most wonderful songs". All the hunter has to do now is copy and paste that exact line into the treasure chests answering window and it will open up and send them the gift. I am so proud for coming up with that lmao I'm proud of you too.

Tiffy Vella wrote: Name all your vendors descriptively and make them all show in search. This is a tip I received long ago from an experienced merchant, but she went even farther: She suggested placing search terms for one's store in every conceiveable prim possible, meaning not just having the search terms on each item (where items are rezzed within the store) but placing the same descriptive name/search terms within each prim of the item. Same with all prims of the store housing itself, decorative items, display items, basically any prim one owns within the store. Not sure if this still works well, or at all, given how search currently works (or doesn't) in world, but I still do it by habit. Great tips, Tiffy!!!

/facepalms It went right over my head that trying to convince the Lindens to act on this proposal is really no longer a jira issue. If you make a new logo for the info sign, please let us know. I can revise the notecard in my sign to point interested parties to this forum. Heading off to read the meeting transcript.

I'm amazed at all the virtual worlds that exist that I've just heard of from this thread. Looks like I've got some exploring to do. (Not bored with SL nor do I wish to leave it, even with all the warts. As long as the lights are on, I'll be here.)

Perrie Juran wrote: Drongle McMahon wrote: WEB-4587 is one of those minority of jiras that gain high exposure, for obviously understandable reasons, and then become overrun with comments that are at best not really useful to the solution, and at worst agressive. I think we have to assume that it is to avoid having to deal with this kind of jira that the changes have been introduced. I don't mean to imply that the frustration expressed there is not legitimate, only that it doesn't contribute to the solution, which is what the jira is for. However, it should be possible to find a less drastic solution to this. That jira could surely reasonably have been closed to comments some time ago. Perhaps some other way for people to exoress their frustration could be found? I remember seeing film of some Japanese companies who kept rubber models of thier executives in a basement roo together with baseball bats for employees to hit them with. A digital equivalent, maybe with Linden-bots (even a Rodvik-bot?) in the stocks, could be set up somwhere inworld. There's plenty of abandoned mainland avaiable. Perhaps some could be dedicated to this? Probably better if it's nor personal. The effigies could be identified by issue identifiers hung round their necks, and count the blows received used to measure the extent of frustration per issue. A small charge for setting up a new effigy could be adjusted to discourage potential over-use. I would have made this a feature request, but those are not available any more. "A digital equivalent, maybe with Linden-bots (even a Rodvik-bot?) in the stocks, could be set up somwhere inworld. There's plenty of abandoned mainland avaiable. Perhaps some could be dedicated to this?" What an awesome idea for a role play SIM. It could quickly become the most visited spot in SL. I'd go there!!!!

Teagan Tobias wrote: I also use storage boxes, have a folder of them and a note card telling what is in each one. I also try to do a house cleaning from time to time. I recently deleted close to 4000 items from my inventory, but that is hard to do. I keep my inventory under 8,000 and I'm a content creator so that adds some extra inventory. It can be challenging to keep a low inventory but I'm a stickler about it. With a good storage system and a few creative ideas it's amazing how compact an inventory can become. ETA: I have an old PC, as in it will not run the SL v3/Firestorm, etc. viewers. Just throwing that in for the speed discussion. I am on broadband cable.

I don't know if this has any bearing on the issue, but I heard it advised in a class on inventory management and have been doing this ever since: Each time I log into SL, the first thing I do is force the inventory to load by typing an A in the blank search box. My inventory promptly loads, displaying the item total. It is the same thing that is recommended to do when one has inventory missing (clear cache, go to a low-lag sim, force inventory load), but I do this each and every time I log into SL (not clearing cache...I just do that periodically) and my inventory loads in seconds. I do keep a relatively low inventory count by archiving items I don't use regularly in storage boxes, have textures in organizers, etc. so that may also help. Just a thought of something to try.

The jira I have been closely following is 4587 - Mixed listings on the Marketplace. This is a particularly pesky bug that results in Merchant A having the image of Merchant B's item showing on her product description, or vice versa. This bug reared its ugly head in April during the time Direct Delivery was introduced to replace the Magic Box. After much comparison of issues and discussion on the Merchants Forum, it appears that DD did not "cause" this bug, but rather this mixed listing issue has existed since the transition from the former Xstreet to the Marketplace with the ensuing integration and changes to product listings. For some strange reason the DD change brought it to the surface. Initially the bug seemed to only affect certain product item numbers, ie. merchants who went through the Xstreet -> MP migration, but, from following the jira, newer merchants have reported mixed listings in their stores. At this point the mixed listings default to the MP home page when selected, but initially there were reports of very angry customers, especially those for whom English is not their first language, who purchased an item based on the image and received something totally different. There were also some outrageous "mixtures", such as very XXX-rated item images for G-rated items. This bug still exists. There is no way the merchant can remove the mixed listing from their MP store because these listings do not show up in the merchant's "Edit Listing" screen. Point of this post: I was among the first group of merchants who discovered mixed listings and, thus, was able to directly communicate with two specific Lindens. Perhaps due to this, the original mixed listings on my MP store were eventually removed, but 4 different ones popped up and are there to this day. After communicating with the first "wave" of merchants reporting this bug, others that followed were directed to file a jira. The most recent communication from Commerce Team Linden on this subject was to make sure any issues on our stores were reported via a support ticket. Since I had not added the new mixed listings in my store to the jira since it was and is an ongoing issue, I followed that instructive and submitted a ticket to report that I still had mixed listings in my MP store. The response was to file a jira. Since a jira for this existed, I added the info to the jira. At present, this jira is still showing in its entirety here: Jira 4587. At least it is for me. I'm not sure now if one didn't contribute to a jira if it can be seen. This is considered a "showstopper" bug so I'm interested (1) to see if this bug is EVER corrected (technical minds on the forums have commented that new coding of the MP is needed to correct this and that's likely not going to happen) and (2) once this jira is no longer visible in its entirety, merchants who discover this bug going forward will have no idea how many other merchants are experiencing it as well. As others have mentioned on this thread - knowing "it's not just me" from referencing a jira is invaluable.

Great news on the updated info...thank you for sharing that, Toy! Due to the new jira issue, those of us who have the VLM info sign posted need to revise the notecard that the sign gives to refer people to this forum thread rather than the jira. Would it still be feasible to ask interested parties to vote for the jira? Considering the mess new system, more than one person submitting a jira for VLM will basically be thrown out integrated with the others and could have the result of annoying the person doing said integration.

iCade wrote: I have schimmed over the posts and it seems what people in here didn't take into account is that you do not have an in game shop. As such you will not be able to participate in hunts. Hunts work the way that you go to a creators store in game and find the freebie/dollarbie. I did mention that in my post: "As for how to become part of one as a merchant, afaik you do need an in world location..." But the OP kept asking about hunts so provided some information that, if not able to be used now, could be helpful when/if the OP does open an in world location.

Spinell wrote: Emma, thanks for the tips, but I'm still clueless on how to get into a hunt. Where do "hunt makers" GO when they want to "recruit" merchants to be a part of the hunt? I belong to the Builder's Brewery group and I never seen anyone recruiting for a hunt. I find this to be an excellent compendium on hunts. As for how to become part of one as a merchant, afaik you do need an in world location - have not heard of any MP hunts - but that said...generally once you find a hunt in which you are interested (can find lots on the linked site) you complete an application and are contacted if you are accepted into the hunt or not. Sometimes the hunt organizers visit the store to check it out. Besides this list I belong to two groups who each do hunts: *Historical Hunts, Ltd. runs about 4 different hunts a year. As a member of the group I get notices of when the hunts will be and where to apply. *Homestuff/Womenstuff/Menstuff - This is a large group that holds hunts as well as providing a location where member merchants can sell exclusive items for a period of time. (Depending on what you sell, this might be a good idea to get your store's name out there.) Both of those groups can be found and joined in world and both have websites.

How to promote one's business is a fairly broad topic. One thing I might suggest is a class that Caledon Oxford holds regularly which is called something like "How to Start a Business in SL" and includes promotion. I just looked to see when the next one would be held, but the notices on the dashboard are only good for the next 24 hours. To check for the class (I'm pretty sure it will be held again within the week as I see it offered a lot), go to the bottom of your initial "Dashboard" page where it says "Upcoming Events." On the drop down menu select "Education." That will list the next 24 hours of various classes. Good luck to you. ETA: Years ago a resident started a business and came to the (former) forums and asked for advice. Thus began a 2-year thread where merchants beginning businesses brainstormed ideas and more experienced mechants gave tips. It is a loooong thread...but skimming through it you might find some posts here and there that would be helpful. Archived here.

Chloris Hathor wrote: It seems like people are selling their regions for much less than what it costs to purchase a region from Linden Lab. The forums seem to indicate that people are selling their full regions for around $300, yet Linden Lab charges $1000 to buy a full region. I wonder why such a difference in pricing? A friend of mine sold her estate sim recently for quite a bit less than she paid for it (I don't know the figure) and finally accepted it because she was hounded by people low-balling the price...like offering 100L.

What Echo said, but I do know that years ago if land was abandoned (which was MUCH rarer than now because a person could always get "something" for the land if even from a landbot) it sat around as abandoned land for a long time and showed up as purple on the map. However, if someone who owned land contingent to the abandoned property wished to purchase it, they could contact LL and a Linden came out to check in person (yep, those were the days!) and would sell it to the neighboring owner. That all took a bit of time so I doubt that is what happened in your case. Just a bit of SL "history."

Destiny Bieler wrote: For those of you who were in SL back when it started up, the first several years were an adventure. You couldn't rezz in without wondering if your shoes would be on your feet, or if they would be on your butt or head. Back then, we laughed. Back then, we kept developing new things for use in SL and pushed forward. Now, when people go to a new alternative world, they make fun of it or knock it because it isn't running exactly like SL. My experience tells me that they are actually running far superior to SL when it started up. Where is your sense of adventure? Where is your desire to be in on the ground floor of something exciting? That was my attitude when I was going to set up my shop in the virtual world I referenced. We were all saying we were enjoying being "Pioneers." My "Pioneering-spirit" died when the world's owner decided to accuse me of harrassment. I never heard of Virtual Highway, but will have to check it out.