Luna Bliss

Yayy... waves a happy flag @ Alexxis and other financially successful merchants in SL. LL doesn't make it easy anymore, and then we have to encounter fellow merchants trashing us for being successful and/or minimizing our concerns over basic functionality in the Marketplace. Rya, just because you haven't figured out how to be creative and concerned about money at the same time doesn't mean it's not possible! While you were reasonable in this thread, in other posts your reply of "don't worry be happy - smiley face" to people's legitimate concerns is getting old. Some people want to have a career as a freelancer here, it excites them, and even spurs them on to greater creativity.

Hey Fraw..Rya...you guys should get a job as a Mole. I know you'd earn more per hour Rya and I bet you would too Fraw as teaching people always takes longer that you plan and so you'd get more with the 10 usd an hour as a Mole. Here's a link that explains all about it: http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/84679-mistys-goodbye.html

I have been thinking about starting a thread on this topic and glad you did. Nobody has asked for money to remove a bad review, yet, but people are demanding their money back on copyable items, and when I refuse to refund they write a horrid review, embellishing it far beyond the reasons they originally complained about. Apparently this is some kind of ploy to get items for free. I'm starting to think HARP is shooting strange energies into the air...or something ;0 One customer even slammed me with a 1 star review and nasty comments over a skybox everyone else loves a lot, and that she had purchased over 2 months ago! I am certain she just decided she used the skybox enough and thought she'd try and get her 3k back for something else she needed atm. When I wouldn't refund she went on and on about how this was not good customer service and that she always refunds if a customer is not happy. Strangely, she removed her review. Another flipped out because a treehouse within a skybox was not at right angles and this made it more difficult to position her furniture (I position homes in skyboxes to disguise the box and face a waterfall in the best way). No explaining would suffice, and her vitrolic review was the longest I've ever seen, filled with lies and distortions of our conversation and all sorts of supposed flaws regarding my skybox. Here's another email IM I got just last night: "I just bought prefab Sim Peaceful Valley... It's very lovely but I fall through it.... There is no moon/flower to ride on, and I can't delete it... Any suggestions will be appreciated... I will not be happy if I have to redo my entire sim to delete 143 prims and am not happy that I cant delete it. I normally dont bother to rate things... But this is getting annoying". As you can see, first on their mind is to manipulate through giving a bad rating - can't they just message and describe the problem without making threats? Luckily this was resolved well unlike the others - it appears that rezzing a skybox the size of an entire sim (well larger actually as it had the surround too) is not a good idea after Tuesday updates..;0 Plus, as usual, they don't read directions. I have even more examples of late but I won't go on - maybe it's not HARP but instead all the flouride accumulating in brains over the years ;0 I do wonder if the economy is getting so bad that this is the reason, or are customers finally discovering better how to manipulate through ratings? I know some say people don't pay attention to ratings and comments, but some do and it's annoying all the same. Plus I don't want all this drama in my store. Also, from observation it seems good ratings do push items up in Search more too, so I wonder what bad ratings do. I'm starting to be too affected by it inworld now. I've changed my policies so that I only respond via email and feel paranoid every time I see a message pop up - this is NOT good for creativity. Plus I'm saving chat records now so as to have proof of lies and intent when I flag their review.

What is really disconcerting now is that some items are moving to the front in the Relevance search and I have no record anywhere that they ever sold. Hopefully the sorting function is just messed up for Relevance.

@Qbic Great job you're doing with the mesh structures...keep up the good work! Unfortunately there are some annoying customers out there. I used to keep a note card listing all the good things customers said - it helped me remember that most customers are great. I think it's easy to remember the bad ones because it's a kind of self-protective mechanism (we remember bad things so we can avoid the pain in the future). Some of these bad reviews do come from competition, and some come from people who get their kicks from annoying people. I encountered a new dynamic last week where a person left a bad review for a copyable item she purchased months ago as a way to engage me and get her money back. I suspect she used my item for an event and no longer needed the item and so thought she could get a little needed cash by returning it. She did keep me entertained for awhile - I had never heard so many novel reasons for why I should 'keep the customer happy'. Is there a way you could get rid of all those Demos? Like have a small space with a vendor that rezzes them for people to check them out ahead of purchase? Even a rented platform in the sky in an area that allows commerce? I fear with these Demos it will be a non-ending battle as it's making it so easy for your competition to purchase.

Please send email to lunabliss@lunabliss.us (not .com)

Earn commission on sales plus hourly amount as a sales assistant @ Luna Bliss Home & Garden. Must: 1. Love Nature 2. Be able to communiate well 3. Know the basics of SL Contact Luna Bliss for application - best to send either a note card Inworld or an email to lunabliss@lunabliss.us

Yeah I had my first 1-star review because apparently someone thought half a sims worth of plants should be included in the one plant I was selling. I had added addtional pics to show how the plant looks in a Pandora type setting, but made it very clear it was only one plant they were getting. I just deleted the listing as I plan to update it anyway. I looked the person up and he is leaving 1-star reviews everywhere (googled him and it was easy to find his helpful revues all over the MP). I guess this is his hobby, poor guy. Should I file a support ticket or be glad he's off the streets at least?

Regarding these ads, in recent years LL's failure has been to try and be like everything else as opposed to being innovative - this more than anything else will cause the downfall of a business. These ad feeds are annoying and people don't like them - how can this be good for business? Many people have ad blockers, and those who don't find their browsing lagged out. When I allowed the ads I'd even crash sometimes on the SL website, and there's the constant message of unsafe content that I need to allow, making it seem like a place where some harm might occur (and my security is set at about medium). The ads that move around and distract attention are even more annoying. Yes they do increase brand awareness - I look at them and make a note never to shop there.

Peggy said: "I said IF YOU GOOD it's easy. If you are mediocre it can be hard and if you are really amateurish it will be almost impossible. So you studied hard in school.......guess what, so did I. So you cried in frustration.........so did I. The end result is that I learned what I wanted to learn and I got good at what I wanted to do.......and IT IS NOW EASY. That's the way life is You can try to impress me with your hard work.........but I know it's little more than play. If you are still, after learning your skill (whatever it is you do), working hard, then you are not very good at what you do." ~~~ Peggy I've had enough of your denigration of merchants. It's obvious what your motivation is - you were never able to earn money here and are jealous of those who can - you post on the forum to vent your frustration at merchants, tearing them down in numerous ways. The reason you failed is that you don't understand what a successful merchant does in SL - you expect it to be easy once you're learned the software. If you are functioning as an artist it gets more difficult..not easier. It requires innovation..seeing things in new ways..and whenever you challenge yourself to do that you have to let go of old patterns, old ways of seeing things...it's always difficult to get out of the safe groove and tear your head apart. It's not easy..it's not 'playing' - it's very hard work though there are those times when one gets into the 'flow'thank goddess. Add to that all the packaging and marketing required to sell things here and it's even more difficult - both the creative and rote aspects. Why do I do it? I love to create, and I love to earn money creating, and I'm willing to deal with the stress. This notion in society of it being so fun and easy for the artist is often why many feel they shouldn't be paid for their work. I've even had people approach me in SL wanting to pay me less because 'you're an artist, it's easy for you, and it won't take you much time'. No...it's very hard for me..that's why I'm an artist. I often scan the forums, have found a lot of useful information doing so, but I rarely chime in unless I see something abusive - you are being abusive Peggy and need to shut up about things you know nothing about.

Yeah kind of ruins any kind of immersive experience doesn't it. It started happening to me when I switched to Firestorm, but there was an update too so can't really track down what's causing it. I do wonder if it's worse when theres a magnum server sim next to a SL server sim. I could deal with it if it was just a flash...but it stays there for several minutes.

Thanks Amethyst...I just posted it in the tech area. I do clear cache every day but this doesn't help, and I wonder if this only happens when leaving a magna sim. This seem to be the server that leaves people out of search when updates occur too...I wonder if we can change servers for a sim.

When crossing from a Magna sim to a regular SL server sim it looks like half the sim is resting in the new sim I just entered. Sometimes the ghosted vision stays there only a minute, and on other days it can look that way for 5 or 10 minutes. If others are seeing this they can't shop in my sky store, and I can't work with all this ghosted junk obscuring what's really in the sim. And if people are riding tours all they see is a jumbled mess when crossing a sim boundary.

When I go from one sim to the other in my store in the sky, part of the previous sim appears to be in the sim I just crossed into. Sometimes it disappears in a minute or so, but atm it won't disappear and I can't even work. And of course, people can't shop if this happens to them. Is this happening to anyone else?

yvw Porky.. If anybody is online a lot I wouldn't worry about checking vendors as we get a message anytime one of our prims intersects an avatar. I wish the message went to email but unfortunately I only receive it when in-world.

In a server update awhile back they made it so a prim or prims with bounding boxes over 64m cannot intersect an avatar during the rezzing process (excluding the owner of the prims). So I have these demos of my holodeck skyboxes that rez multiple scenes where people are sitting on a transport flower (that is also the rezzer of the skyboxes), and on some skyboxes big chunks of them won't rez because they intersect the avatar. They work fine after the customer purchases however, as the prims then belong to the customer (unless they have a friend sitting with them on the flower as the skyboxes rez). It's strange because some prims that are huge rez just fine - like those prims that are the size of something like 8 sims (or maybe more), while others that aren't so big and not even sculpted won't rez. I've found that if I rebuild it and make sure the rotation is at 0,0,0 this fixes it (so far). This is probably specific to the spot I have the skybox in relation to the avatar. I'm curious as to why they had to change this - were a lot of people getting griefed by big prims and how did they do that? Seems I heard something awhile back. Once I couldn't finish a custom job due to someone placing a big prim over the garden, and that's when I decided not to work on mainland anymore. I can only imagine how the 'creativity' with big prims flourished since those days.

Hmmm it seems to be working now on new items I set for sale...I wonder if the one tree became corrupted somehow...that has happened before. Eventually I wonder if people won't comprehend a pie menu anymore and know to right click and choose 'more' and then 'buy'. I hate dollar signs coming up everywhere too..plus it's so easy for people to accidentally buy things (happens a lot in my store already).

Thanks for the responses everyone... I've tried setting the object for sale with the Touch option and the Buy Object option, but still the customer gets the dollar sign when they left click so they can't rez leaves on a tree or accessories with a bench. I found the legacy settings under Preferences >>> Firestorm >>>Build....however this only changes the way you set an object for sale (you don't have to hit the apply buton) but it doesn't change the way people can buy it. They get that stupid dollar sign no matter what I do. Thanks LL for this lovely improvement! And thanks for the big prim avatar intersect improvement too so I get to rebuild a lot of my skyboxes because the Demos won't rez for customers. It would be nice to have time to actually create and not fix things this year. END RANT

Does anybody know if there's a viewer that will set items for sale the old way (so that the purchaser right clicks and get the pie menu) as opposed to the newer way in Firestorm (where one hovers over the item for sale and a dollar sign appears, then left clicks to purchase)? The problem I'm having...I can't set items for sale in a forest now that have interactive features (like a tree with falling leaves, or a bench that rezzes multiple items) - left clicking brings up the dollar sign instead of the menu I've put in. I hate putting ugly boxes out beside every single thing for sale in a forest or my store, and want the old system back. One of my trees with falling leaves even became totally corrupted - I can't get the dollar sign to delete even after setting it to not be for sale - so you can't get a menu for falling leaves anymore no matter what i do to the tree. All I get now when clicking is the dollar sign and the message that the item isn't for sale. I can't alternate between the old Phoenix viewer and Firestorm anymore as something gets messed up...does anybody know of another viewer that sets items for sale in the old way? Or will everyone not even comprehend a pie menu as a way to purchase eventually?

Does everyone not showing in Search have a magnum sim? That's what mine is..hasn't shown up in Search for a number of days now...Bliss Gardens Park.

Yes Knowl...there are lots of wide open spaces on the google map...but that is not how you determine if we have overpopulation. Cities require lots of land surrounding them to support the population - all this land is needed to grow food on and supply other raw materials. If there's not enough land to support the city then the city suffers. I live on the prairie - it's turning into a dust bowl as the drought continues. It's not going to be providing much wheat for the numerous cities that need it. 40,000 children die every day from starvation.

Knowl and Medhue affirm: "So, how do we as people fight back against the evil that surrounds us? We demand voluntary exchange and reject violence all together. We embrace Free Markets. Each 1 of us does what we were meant to do, which is be our own person with our own businesses, supplying each other with the things we need or want. The computer age is here and we can now all do business and inform each other. We can reject the chains they want to put on us. Profits are not the evil part, it is the people behind all the profits that create the world we live in. Profits mean that the business is sustainable and provide value to each other. They are a measure of just how efficient your business is, and how you might improve it. To save the earth, we all take ownership of it and protect it. When it's our water, we'll make sure it is clean. Each of us, individually, to benefit every1 in the market. Markets, business, profits, and self interest protects our world, 1 by 1. It's the TV that makes us think differently. With each of us, doing our own thing and providing value to each other, we will create a utopia. I don't need to grow the corn, because he will. You don't need to make the clothing because she will, and with every1 doing their thing, we'll all live in abundance. We don't need governance, all we need are markets that are without restrictions." They had that freedom in the Wild West in the 1800's (in America). It didn't work too well....unless you carried a big gun.

I remember my Political Science teacher saying that politics can be defined as 'who gets what, and how". And I see many parallels between RL politics/business and SL ones, though of course many don't apply. It''s a good thing for business people in all worlds to examine who gets what, and how. Most important, given that we all don't burn up from the RL weather feedback loops set in motion, if we want our jobs to continue as 3D content creators in user generated worlds do we want a world highly governed as SL is, or do we want a wild west world like open sim with little governance, or do we want a world somewhere in the middle?

Medhue how can you say the big corporations are not a problem when the earth is being destroyed as we speak. It may be too late to save the human species due to the weather feedback loops now in motion, but sadly I sometimes wonder if that is really a problem. Maybe it ultimately doesn't matter as Mother Earth will cast us off even as we head to the Arctic to pillage every last drop of her. They will stop at nothing for profit, and just as they stole the savings from elderly people and others who invested they will steal every last part of the earth unless we stop them. Banks...corporations...they are evil today. And they like nothing better than to use those obsessed with freedom to create 'divide and conquer' argument distractions so they can more easily run off with the loot. No..I don't think you are some horrible evil right-winger...I think you are duped...unable to see beyond your experience into a world where some find it harder to pull themselves up by their boot straps due to past circumstances, and where corporations and even some small business owners will stop at nothing for the sake of profit. Employees can't always find another job as you say...it doesn't balance out so easily IN THE REAL WORLD.

Medhue there just simply can't be the freedom without governance in society that you wish for - it will not work because those with the most money always skew things to their advantage and exploit others for their own gain. Right now those with the most money have managed to buy off government to exploit everyone else and so government is not working for the people as it should be, but if government was gone they would just exploit those with less money directly. There has to be some kind of regulation in life, and the solution is not to do away with government, it is for us to influence government to regulate for all people instead of only for those at the top. You seem like a fair person, and I imagine you would make an attempt not to exploit others working for you (and in the complex society we have today work is organized so that we have large companies and employees - most are not single entrepreneurs), but many business owners do not see anything wrong with squeezing the little guy in their company for all they can get. Even if that is not your motive, it's very hard to maintain empathy for others - I would not even trust myself (having majored in Psyc and Social Work and so trained to see others needs) to see all the specific concerns of those who might be working for me. I would rather a group of workers meet and explain it to me, for negotions to occur, and for some kind of governance to be in effect from an agency above me who has studied the matter and received input from everyone involved. Power corrupts, and once again if those in power can't buy off government they would find a way to exploit people directly. The solution is not to get rid of governement but for us to take back our own slice of power in government and make it work in a fairer way. Demonizing the government and focusing on divisive right/left, governement/no government, conservative/liberal arguments only obscures the discovery of solutions - it's much easier to just blame something as opposed to the complexity and hard work of sorting it all out.