[Second Life Pic of the Day 10/29/2012]

congrats .  the picture and the build look awesome.

[Welcome to the New Second Life Community Platform]

These new forums do have a lot of good things I like already over the old forums (not that it was hard to beat the buggy, disconnected, confusing, slow older forums).

But I do hope the LL Team starts working on the bugs / limitations of this new community forums.  The ones I have noticed so far:

1.   The single sign-on does not work.  If I am logged into these forums and i click to the main www.secondlife.com webpage - I need to re login.

2.   The forums spell checker is as smart as a bag of hammers.  It pretty much thinks every other word is incorrect.  As much as I could use a good spell checker - this one is simply unuseable.

3.   Making a posting reply to another posting in a thread - no one can tell who the person is replying to.  REPLY POSTS need to show who the posting is replying to.

Hope these will be worked on

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Ann basically said it right....  You can have as many Avatars or Alts as you want and move all those NON-Currency $Lindens within SL all you want, but if you wanna enjoy virtual revenue as RL $ money to spend, LL and/or a 3rd Party Currency Exchange entity will have to launder your Virtual Value Linden$ Tokens into RL Global currency into one of your RL $ accounts.  All of which can be tracked somehow.

Can you be creative of how it comes out and to which of your RL banking entities somewhere in this world?  Sure.  But that between you and your Governments on how you want to try to avoid getting "stuck by Da Man".

And you think tax avoidance and financial corruption/abuse are stopped in the Real World?  Can you spell "WALLSRTEET BANK SCANDALS" "ENRON" "SAVINGS & LOANS SCANDALS" "OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS"....  LL is not here to stop you from trying to avoid paying taxes.  Their model is simple and straight forward.  If you want to cash out from SL - its done through ways that can be tracked by Governments and tied to your Real Life identity.

As Ann says, this is not an aspect of Identity Management and privacy/anonymity that has any traction as an issue in SL.  The issue is LL's ability / desire to protect the Anonymity of their Customers in the game so that their Customers can free play the roles they wish to play in the Grid with no ties to their RL identities.

If LL takes steps to erode this role anonymity in the attempt to accomplish other objectives - they risk losing a critical value-add that SL has offered.  LL's love affair with 1-way partnering with FB is one of those erotions of Customer Anonymity.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Feb 13, 2011 12:35 PM Nany Kayo  says in response to Toysoldier.Thor: 

Toysoldier, I see what you mean.

Where I think the distiction starts to blur is where more money becomes involved.  So far most of the money changing hands in virtual worlds is tiny amounts, micro transactions.  But when the income increases to wage level full time jobs, the tax man is going to want to get involved.  Anyone who wants a real job is going to need to produce real identification.  There will be schemes to try to screen that information through third parties and terms of service and so on.  But I think that online privacy will continue to be challenged by legalities.

Money and contractual agreements is one place online privacy will be increasingly challenged  to accomodate, but other legal conditions will undoubtedly challenge online privacy, too.  Any time there is the potential for breaking the law, the law is going to want to be able to identify you and will put pressure on service providers to tell them who you are.

++++

It occured to me that is what is going on with SL's drive to include Facebook. They may be inching toward making people identify themselves and using Facebook as a way to deflect some of the criticism for the intrusion.  They are beginning to subtly discourage people who do not want to identify themselves from using SL.

"Where I think the distiction starts to blur is where more money becomes involved.  So far most of the money changing hands in virtual worlds is tiny amounts, micro transactions.  But when the income increases to wage level full time jobs, the tax man is going to want to get involved."    You say this as if to imply that in SL this situation has not already happened but when it does...

I can assure you it has been happening in SL for a longgggg time.  Countless examples of SL Account Holders who's avatars are making huge amounts of money - have been for years.  I know one that in 2006 made over $70,000US.  I am a Merchant that would be considered more of a "HOBBY-Classed Merchant" and even I make about $100US a week - and that would make me a small time merchant in SL but still making enough SL based income to be of interest to the Federal and State/Provincial powers to want to have me - the real person owning my anonymous SL account - to report this income.

That being said, the current model and level of privacy that is afforded to me "Toysoldier Thor" to both the SL community and between Toy and LL still allows these RL external entities to interact with me the real person owning Toy.  How?  Quite simple - every week as I get LL to pay me out into RL $US cash - its done by my paypal.  The transactions are now on several RL auditable records as the money that builds up in my paypal account will want to be spent or transferred so that I can enjoy the fruits of my labors.

Its also my personal responsibility as a Citizen of my country to abide by the law and report "all" my income that I generate to my Governments - regardless where/how I generated this income - even if its from a virtual world that is run by a company from a foreign country.  If the Governments wish - they could audit and track down that somewhere Toy's human owner is receiving significant infusions of revenue.

I didnt have to give up my "Toysoldier Thor avatar of SL" identity/role's current level of anonymity or privacy for the Government to get what they wanted from me.  The only situation where my virtual income - regardless of how significant or not it might be - would be if my LINDEN$ account is generating and spending all completely within the SL grid.  BUT, remember an important fact - a Linden is not a legal form of currency - spelled out clearly in LL TOS.  It is simple a Token used within the "game".  As such - the governments dont care if a pile of virtual tokens are passed around to and from my avatar to another.  Until its converted into RL Currency - its not a valid income to any Government.

As for law authorities rights to gain access to providers' databases / records to identity a virtual person/identity to a RL human, this is not an issue unique to LL.  LL would be deemed a "Provider" like any other Provider - from ISP to Game Hoster.  The level of access granted to the Authorities by their Governments to identify a rl human behind an anonymous account has been there and continues to be there.  No one said that your SL AVATAR nor your LL ACCOUNT is 100% private & anonymous to LL or to other external RL authorities.

The big question and debate is "how wide a scope of external entities are legally entitled to breach my LL Account / SL Avatar's privacy & anonymity?"

As for how all this discussion ties into the reason why LL's current policies are encouraging all their Customers to create FB accounts in order to ensure they follow all that is happening in SL.... I honestly do not think its for the reasons being that sinister.

I think the reasons fall much more in line with "naivety" and "poor strategic thinking".  The previous LL Sr. Management had a serious case of "self confidence" issues about the products/services that SL could offer the market as compared to the huge adoption and success of players like FB.  They did not (and in my opinion still strongly do not) believe that SL was good enough to offer anything unique enough to the market to compete with FB.

They had FB and TWITTER envy (primarily FB).  The previous management (prior to summer 2010) believed they need to be more like FB.  They needed to leverage FB.  They had to somehow incorporate many aspects of what FB was/is.  They also truly did not (and currently still do not) see that FB is a competitor to them.

What do you think was one of the fundamental drivers behind LL VIEWER 2 being so radically different to previous viewers?  It was in hopes that Tom Hale's vision of developing a viewer that was more "WEB LIKE" so that it can become FB 2nd Generation.  That is primarily why Viewer2 is much more web-like than all the previous Viewers.

Tom Hale's insatiable and blind love for "all that is FB" was a major driving factor for what has been hurting SL for the past couple years.  Thankfully he is gone - part of the June/2010 LL house cleaning, but sadly the legacy of his poor vision and directions for LL are still quite deeply engrained in LL Staff Culture.

So unless Rod Humble can come in and scrub the Tom Hale FB-Wannabe vision from the minds of LL Staff, the strategies like this recent Communication Strategy that fully embraces FB will continue.

That is why I am very excited to see that Rod Humble sees the strength of what SL has had as critical unique competitive advantages over FB TWITTER etc.  It hints to me that he is not walking in and pulling up the bowl of SL soup that current LL Management will put in front of him and just starts eating it.

I am honestly seeing a man that has the previous experience in the gaming/entertainment industry and the deep fundamental technical skillsets to see what meal is best for LL, SL, and its customers.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Nany Kayo said...

Sounds like marketing BS to me.  Rod Humble is a public person.  You can easily find his biography and photograph online.  You could probably find his home address and phone number without much effort.   He may have an alt, but he doesn't have any privacy.

 

The catch with privacy is that you can't make any money anonymously.  You have to show some ID or you will not get paid.  And that is becoming more the case, not less.  Now you have to show proof of citizenship. You have to file tax returns and be present for tax audits when asked.  You want to get paid, you have to take off the mask.

Nany,

Related to what you are thinking is BS... I Humbly (pun intended) have to disagree with why you think this is BS.

Two points you need to understand about that he is trying to say and I would agree:

1. Your example that "Rod's identity is completely public" is invalid.  Why?  Because Rod Humble's personna and the role he plays when he interacts within the sphere of "Linden Lab" is not meant to be a private anonymous role.  He is in the top employed role of a Real Life company called Linden Lab Inc.  Its a role he CANNOT be allowed to be anonymous.  I can go into a lot of details why but its pretty obvious why. 
   
   This role / interaction that "Rod the CEO/Employee of LL" plays is completely different than your NANY account/avatar plays with LL.  Nany is "Nany the Customer of LL".  The level of privacy & anonimity that "NANY" is afforded by LL is much more flexible and currently is quite high (not 100% but pretty high).  Its also different than the levels of Privacy/Anonymity that "Nany the Avator in SL" is provided - and flexible based on the RL person behind Nany wishes to stay anonymous.
   
   So, working with what I just explained, I can explain why your example is invalid.  What holds true for you and me when we play the role of "Avatar in SL", also holds true to Rod Humble.  When Rod doesnt accidently let slip what his first Avatar's identity is (which he already did), Rod's avatar in SL is afforded the same level of anonymity as me or you.  "Rod the avatar in SL" can be standing right beside you at a club or even potentially be at some Gorean, or Vampire, or Singing club as a singer and would not know. 
   
   THIS IS THE ANONYMITY/PRIVACY that Rod is talking about.  This is one of the fundamental pillars of what has made SL so completely successful and addictive for SL Customers - 99% of them Adults with countless roles - many of them being high profile powerful positions in Real Life.
   
   
2. I think I have now cleared up the second point you brought up.  Yes you are correct that "Nany the Customer of LL" must reduce its anonymity in order to allow LL to legally interact with Nany's RL human that owns Nany.  But "Nany the Avatar in SL" did not have to reliquish this privacy. 
   
   Also, you - the human that owns Nany - should fully know the impacts of roles you want Nany to play in SL.  As such you have the option on how far you wish for Nany to remain anonymous.  If you know that in order for Nany to be a Merchant and get Nany's revenue to be paid to the RL human that owns Nany - you have to provide RL information to LL to allow for this RL legal transaction to happen.  No ways around this.  If you dont like it - Nany doesnt become a Merchant.

This mindset and understanding of the countless roles / personnas that each of us humans play in life and how it directly ties to the success of SL is critical and also fascinating.  That Rod grasped this so early in his tenure as CEO of LL is very impressive to me!  This tells me a lot.  He quickly grasped an obscure yet critical factor of SL's success.

(this topic is one that I - the human behind Toy - had long deep philisophical / technical discussions and debates about back in the late 90's with some of Novell's brains and implementors when Novell was visioning how their enterprise directory services could possibly be used at a national/global level for ideas like "John Doe the Taxpayer, the Voter, the Citizen of a Country, the Politician, etc.etc.  The obvious issues of identity privacy and even roles privacy were discussed - as well as portability while still being in  synch with the global directory - as well as the polical adoption of this idea... loved this topic)

This is also an important topic related to LL long-standing communication "Tower Of Babble" strategy and LL's new strategy which promotes FB as a primary communication avenue that LL wants SL Residents to embrace.  Its clashing with Rod's position on this topic.  (it also doesnt make sense to push your customers onto a competitor's platform to service your own - FB is a competitor even though they do not offer a 3D virtual world).

OK... I am stepping down from my soapbox.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

So... if the LL team wants very strong evidence that their position on including FB as a critical component of their Communication Strategy (i.e. promoting FB as a place one needs to be plugged into in order to stay on top of whats cool in SL), they had better read their new CEO's beliefs and vision of what makes SL so power and what I would have to also believe he will be taking an active role to promote/defend.

Following are Rodvik Humble's comments from a recent interview he held with Dusan Writer (you can read his entire article at http://bit.ly/hz744V as was re-tweeted to the SL community by SLBallyhoo today):

When Dusan asked Humble whether he subscribed to the conventional wisdom that in the digital age, privacy is dead, Humble responded...

No, I don’t think that the conventional wisdom is the only way to look at it. Privacy is extremely important for anyone putting themselves out there, expressing themselves, or expressing a side of themselves through an avatar. People don’t want other people to connect the dots from their avatar to their real life person – or even, for that matter, to an alt. One of the ethical obligations we have is to protect people’s privacy.

People come to Second Life because they want a story, they want to be in a story….and we have an ethical obligation to protect that.

I’m not so sure that the conventional wisdom makes any sense. Yes, it might be technically easy to track people and all that. But in the long-term I’m optimistic that we’ll see the pendulum swing back in the other direction towards more privacy.

Humble later went on to say...

“It’s not unlike the persona I portray on Facebook I suppose. I mean, I’m very deliberate about what I post on Facebook. It’s a persona. I’m not sure it’s a construct, but it’s certainly an aspect of me.

Now, Second Life lets you really extend those dimensions, the ways you can show yourself.

I don’t want to get all geeky about it, but I sort of see this day coming when there’s a formalization of identity that happens. We haven’t had the tools before to formalize our broken up bits of identity.

See, there’s the me who goes to school meetings with my kids and that’s a very well established identity. And there’s the me who plays shooter games online and I don’t want those separate identities to mix up. It’s not appropriate.

We can increasingly go deep on each element of identity and they become more valuable and I can’t help thinking that if we formalize the structures around those identities and have the tools to do that it might actually change us – it might change the person.

The identity system itself influences the person.

 

First of all, I will personally say that these statements from Humble were truly impressive to me because it tells me HE GETS IT!  He understands a critical aspect of what continues to make SL so amazing powerful and addictive for so many of us that love SL.

But more importantly - with regard to this recently announced Communications Strategy, it also tells me that Humble's vision is in MAJOR CLASH with the current LL Management's philosophies and beliefs and resulting strategies when it comes to LL's love affair with FB.

Since we can all safely assume that no LL Management would openly promote a strategy that would violate another company's TOS or encourage that LL Customers should go out and violate another company's TOS, we must have to assume that LL is asking that all their SL Customer register with FB using their RL Identity.

As such, since Mr. Humble's beliefs are that the SL Identity, personna, and most importantly its anonimity should be protected, what this is telling me is that he surely could not condone that LL should be promoting that their own Customer base should be registering with FB.

If this isnt strong enough evidence for LL to back away from promoting or openly supporting FB, I dont know what is.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Well its amazing how much gets posted in one day while at the rl office

took me an hour just to skim most of the topics... which most have already died off.  Actually it seems most of the SL Residents that wanted a "say" about this recent announcement - has finished.

A couple points I had (which are responses to discussions that have come and ended)...

1. As for LL ending VOTING on the JIRAs, I think its silly that they trust the WATCHES more than the VOTES.  If LL thinks Voting is not a viable measure of interest on an issue cause its gamed, WATCHES are just as non-viable since a Watcher does not indicate the person is impacted to cares that the issue gets resolved.  It just means he would like to follow the topic.
   
2. Regardless of my opinion on the previous point - in the grand scheme of things related to LL's overall communications strategy - which I have serious issues with even after this announcement - if LL measures a JIRA's importance with any other measure - it really doesnt matter!  Even with Votes and Watches and 500 comments... LL has proven that they never really actioned a JIRA based on any form of Resident activity on a Jira.  So why waste a posting to debate it.  Its their choice which JIRA they are interested in solving.
   
3. I saw many postings about the new Community Participation Guidelines... and wow I cant agree enough about how biased and "playing favorites" the LL Moderators have historically been on forum discussions.  I can provide many examples where posters like me - who follow the LL TOS but because my posts have been ad odds with a subset of major LL supporters, I have been labeled a Troll (which btw by accusing someone of being a Troll is a TOS violation in itself) and many of my postings have been removed.  Yet LL Champions and Friends of LL have openly swore are me in postings, accused me in postings of breaking federal laws, called me a RL stalker of their loved ones (who I dont even know), and even have posted openly that by saying what they said that they were fully aware they were violating LL TOS.  Their postings were ARed by several ppl to LL and these posters and their posting remained in the forums with no punishment at all.  SO... its very hard for me to have any belief that these new guidelines will be used for anymore more that to give LL Moderators even more of an excuse to shut down those that are openly critical of LL actions and policies while other posters are free to violate any LL TOS they with with no punishment simply because they are friends of LL.  This is not myth - this is fact.  If a Linden doubts me - feel free to IM me as I have kept record of this.
   
4. We really need to focus on the big picture that was missing in this announcement.  It was not the proclamation of any new revolutionary new communication strategy.  It was more of a major clean up and shuffling of all existing "tower of babble" communications between LL and their customers.  The best analogy is "they slapped a new coat of paint on the weathered old barn".
   

I am glad that Amanda is open to hear new ideas beyond "lets clean up and pretty up the current tower of babble".  Being that I am a solutions architect in RL... I see the current problem of LL COMMUNICATIONS WITH CUSTOMERs as a system with an outdated architecture.  One that maybe worked well in the early days of LL but one that requires a fundamental re-think of the new demands and a new and more flexible architecture that LL can use as a guiding model to begin to disassembe the current Tower of Babble.

I dont want to post the details of how this new architecture might work.  It would bore most until its fleshed out.

Anyway.... seems this thread is finally calming down.  It was exciting to watch

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

--We do not depend on Facebook/Twitter to  communicate with you, but since so many of our Residents are using these  social platforms, it makes sense for us to be where you are--from a  communication perspective--in addition to being inworld and using  inworld communication tools. Today, most smart businesses use social  media to reach out to customers, get feedback, etc. and we are not only  using them, but also providing clarity on which ones are best for  different types of communication and audiences. That said, it’s  completely opt-in.  And, more importantly, using these social networks  is an effective way to reach new potential customers and grow Second  Life. That sounds pretty good to everyone,

Many small businesses have a presence on Facebook because they don't have their own social media platform where they have their customers full attention. SecondLife customers logs on to that platform to do their business, and you have every means possible to communicate directly with them there. That is  a heck of a difference!  (...on a side note, I hope your new platform will be visible inside the viewer or at least tightly integrated.)

When you review you communications strategy, you need to instill in everyone involved that you already have the ideal (perhaps not in tooling) platform for communication with your customers; it is completely captive and you don't need to go elsewhere.

That you use Facebook, twitter and others as a secondary communications channel it fine, and it may also be an efficient channel for prospecting new customers. The biggest problem is that you have little control over what direction your Facebook communication takes; you try to convey a message, but that can be highly skewed by comments and likes for that profile, This is not something small businesses will see as they have a defined product set that usually is not controversial like parts of SecondLife can be with other Facebook users.

...

Very well said Gavin about Facebook.  That would have been my response on LL's position on Facebook and even twitter.

If the message from LL would have been something more in the line of:

"All our primary messages, announcements, news, communications, etc. to our user base will ALWAYS be on our own website... but if our residents fell more comfortable in receive a copy of our news on the popular sites like facebook or twitter and this will also help foster the popularity of SL and get the word out to new potential SL citizens of how exciting SL is, we will ALSO be posting copies of our announcements on these other popular communities.  But we want all our customer / residents to know that you will never miss any information or news from LL if you follow our www.secondlife.com website."

It is fine if LL wants to encourage their own captured customer base to use, grow, and promoted SL on other non-LL communities.  That makes sense.  Contrary to the way Dartagan spun his argument defending a LL strategy on FB (which is not surprising as 99.9% of all postings from Dartagan will defend and justify a LL decision, action, policy), countless small and large corporation have a presence on communities like Facebook but they do not use it as PRIMARY communications.

What Dart did not mention is that the big difference between a Microsoft usage strategy on FB and LL's strategy on FB is that companies like Microsoft do not open and strongly encourage on their own websites that their customer learn more about Microsoft activities/information by being members of FB.  Can you imagine Microsoft posting on their website as a policy "if you really wanna know whats going with Microsoft - you really need to join up on FB and friend our site!".

Except for LL, most companies use sites like FB, Twitter, mysapce, etc. as Secondary and even Tertiary forms of communications.  All their information posted and communicated in these non-controlled secondary & tertiary communication mediums would be COPIES of what can be learned primarily on their own websites and information stores.

THAT IS WHY LL "FACEBOOK / TWITTER" STRATEGY IS COMPLETELY WRONG.

Thanks Gavin

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

So its definitely good to see that LL has finally recognized one of the critical weaknesses of LL’s business – their general communications strategy.  It currently is an utter mess if you look at it.

Many residents (your customers) that actually attempt to try to follow / engage / participate in any form of communications with LL already can list several reasons why the current communications has been a completely mess but I think I can say with a high level of confidence the main reasons is what I will explain below (sorry for the lengthy post but I wanted to get the point across since today’s announcement seems to have completely missed this critical weakness in LL Communications with their customers)…

Over the years LL has willingly established and strongly promoted the TOWER OF BABBLE communications strategy with its customers.  I say “strategy” very loosely since the mess LL has created over the years was clearly not created because of a conscious strategy.  LL has pretty much allowed its pockets of staff and even individual staff members to initiate their own personal preference of communications medium that basically suited them – not what was a corporate standard.  The standard at LL is – what ever LL comes up with is a new standard.  Sadly, today’s announcement – from what I read has done almost nothing to address this.

So what do I mean?  Well lets look how clear and straight forward LL sets direction to its residents on how to interface with them.

• The main SL Website.  Has important primary info about all that is LL and SL and the commonsense first place any confused resident might think to go to – if it weren’t for the fact that LL sends constant confusing streams of advice to look 10 other places for LL / SL knowledge.  It has some valuable info but then sends residents to links to countless other sources of LL info – some of which are not even LL owned communication mediums.
  
• The SL Forums – with all its categories and sub-categories and even its well hidden categories (like the Commerce Merchants Roundtable).  In fact its well know but forum participating residents that LL Forum Moderators use this maze of forums to hide topic threads that LL is uncomfortable about by arbitrarily moving the thread to restricted forums or to forums that the segment of forum posters would not find.  Happens all the time.  Sometimes the LL staff participates in them, announce in them, or completely ignore them.
  
• The SL Blogs – sometimes used by LL staff for announcements – often not as the LL managers make their own personal decision when to use them (at least this has been the case in the Commerce forums).  Residents can actively monitor the blogs only to find out an important announcement was made elsewhere.
  
• The SL WIKI’s – yet another mass of LL information – lots of it valuable as to LL activities, policies, announcements, etc. but not tied to the forums or another other main communications medium except for when a LL webpage or blog links to it.  Often completely confused with whate might be in Forums to many customers.  Strangely not even important enough a medium to LL to mention in today’s announcements as to how it fits into the new strategy.  Also, a completely different User look and feel to the LL customer than themain website & forums and the JIRA.
  
• JIRA – another large blob of knowledge and for those Residents that even know about it, a critical place to post bugs and technical problems about SL (even though the issues in JIRA are notoriously known to be ignored or rarely auctioned).  Also, similar to the SL WIKI, yet another completely different user interface – and even quite intimidating to the uninitiated.  Basically, like the SL WIKI, another disjointed island of LL information for the customer to find / know about.
  
• The Dreaded and mysterious and often not trusted LL EMAIL LISTS.  Even its use over the years has been questioned and criticized – as in August 2009 when LL used the internal customer email list to spam all the residents about an arms-length fashion industry marketing campaign.  Many Residents  - like myself – were furious at LL’s use of our email contact information being used for a preferred treatment marketing spam and asked to be taken off this list.  Since then LL has occasionally used this list to send some important info and then not used it for other critical announcements.  And even when they have used it – many of the target audience doesn’t get the email.  Its use in LL is completely at the digression of the individual SL manager – no consistent policy.  Nice to see that the lists of Email groups has at least been clarified today – lets see if they get used properly by LL.  If these lists previously existed - J not many knew about this – including LL staff.
  
• Inworld Groups.  Generally created by LL staff as a personal “good idea to have” but only learned about by word of mouth.  Not formally announced or promoted – at least the Commerce one isn’t.  Its ownership operation and moderation is often neglected or spotty.  Yet  used by LL staffers to mention important info or respond to residents – who just happened to be on at the time it was said.  No record of the conversations – so if you were not there when it was said – you missed it.  The use of the group Notify – just starting to be used in the one group I participate in and the only formally stored part of any communications in these groups.
  
• Office Hours – well what can one say about this medium.  Great idea in theory but because of LL’s rare and often spotty use of them, when they are run, often the pent up frustration and anger from the residents that have serious issues, questions, concerns for the LL staff holding the OH sessions boils over.  Frequently unruly and since the communications is often a ONE to MANY flow in a horrendously slow TEXT CHAT format… they often ten to be one way communications with very few questions answered.
  
• Now we understand there will also be new smaller FOCUS GROUPS for those residents lucky enough to be invited to participate.
  
• Lets not forget all of LL’s other strongly promoted additional mediums of communications that they don’t even have control of and yet have ask us all to also follow….
  
• FACEBOOK…  Even though LL does not own FB.  Even though LL demands we all abide by LL’s TOS… we have LL promoting – even today – that LL residents should break FB TOS and follow them there if they want to be in the know.  This is just wrong.  Most mature companies would say – follow us on our website and on our forums and blogs that we own and control.  Not LL.
  
• The short-lasting Avatar United experiment – where LL begged us all to move our FB presence to their own version of FB called AU.  Many of us – in order to attempt to stay connected did just that.  Put in a lot of time to set ourselves up…. Then “we are closing AU down – oops sorry”.
  
• Twitter.  Forget about LL promoting a consolidation of critical up-to the minute announcements and info from LL staff on LL owned mediums… now LL promotes that we should follow the countless LL staffers and groups on Twitter.  There are so many.  Sure – today they said to follow @secondlife.  But if you don’t follow torley or slgridstatus or SLballyhoo SLmerchants or or or or… you could miss out.  Another really counter-productive medium to follow.
  
• And lets not fail to mention the countless times LL staff ask us to email or IM or Notecard them directly.
  

I can keep going… but I think you can see the #1 issue with LL’s Communication Strategy…

Its called the LL TOWER OF BABBLE strategy.

Sadly, today’s announcement did little to show that the future for LL’s communication strategy will be resolved – especially when today’s announcement actively promoted many of them to continue.

So to those in charge of this mess…. My advice:

• CONSOLIDATE!!  Shut down non-LL controlled mediums as formally supported ways to communicate with LL.  Stop promoting TWITTER and FB.  Find solutions to integrate these methods of communication/communities back into LL controlled mediums.
  
  
• Further CONSOLIDATE by looking at all of LL’s inventory of communications and pockets of information.  Then find solutions to integrate them together.
  
  
• For all mediums that have been consolidated…. Develop a common User Experience – a common look and feel.  If the main web, and forums, and JIRA end up existing – they should all look and operate the same.
  
  
• INTEGRATED whats consolidated into a SPOC (single point of contact).  This must be the main website.  From the main website, ALL OTHER LL COMMUNICATIONS AND DATASTORES SHOULD LINK.
  
  
• CHANGE LL CULTURE – force LL staff to understand the new consolidated communications model and promote it and abide by it.  Don’t allow LL staff to create new rogue mediums of communications with residents.  That is how you got into this mess in the first place.
  
  

OK sorry… I could go on and on about this single issue.  There is so much wrong with LL’s communications strategy that it would take a novel to get through it.  So I will stop here.

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

Its only a philosophical debate as we all know that LL will not only do what they "primarily" want but moreso exclusively what they want.  You know as well as I do that its rare that the LL Commerce Team has ever reached out to the Merchant community to ask to help formulate strategy on Commerce plans.  We all find out about their plans about 2 to 3 weeks prior to them deploying it... CASE IN POINT:  The SLM MATURITY FILTERING/CENSORSHIP SOLUTION.

So, based on this, regardless of any of our opinions it will be like LL has stated:

1. a new form of focused meetings will start to be used more by LL - called "USER GROUPS"
2. LL Commerce Team will use a method of picking random merchant members based on a broad spectrum of merchant sizes (sales/value)
3. We Merchants can volunteer but it has not been explained how.
4. And I suspect there will still be the occasional open invitation free-for-all meetings (called open office?)

I am sure each of us Merchants could identify other Merchants that we would personally not want to represent our interests as well as represent our interests.  That is a typical issue in human nature and in a democracy - if one existed in LL's thinking.  Not a shocker.

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

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.

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.

I am in agreement with you that even though for the most part - even on calmer days - the open invite OPEN OFFICE meetings are extremely limited in any effective communication that the LL staff could just as easily have posted as "down from the mountain edicts", there is some value in the form of optics that makes it look like LL is attempting 2-way dialog with the community.  So, for 1 hour a month - why not run them.

As for the past "invite only" meetings that caused a major backlash both both LL and yourself (and others that participated).... you are forgetting one major difference between the ones you attended last year and the most recent one that Brooke just held....  TRANSPARENCY.  If your meetings with Pink or whomever from LL would have subsequently has the entire conversation posted as transcripts by LL for all the community to see, I can say that the backlash would have been minimal.

I will give Brooke a lot of credit for how she handled last week's impromptu UG Meeting.  She openly announced she was going to have it.  She explained why.  She invited a broad representation of merchants. The discussion was primarily on topic. AND... most importantly... it was subsequently posted for all to see.

So... that is the difference between the Pink meetings and the recent Brooke meeting.

If these User Group / Focus Group meetings are conducted the same way as the last one... I am ok with that as long as Brooke makes it clear how willing participants can be allowed their turn at the up coming meetings.

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

My understand from Brooke's few brief mentions of UG plan was that the User Group memberships should not be getting stale since there would be some turn over of invited merchants at each called UG meeting.  To me this meant that each time Brooke calls a UG meeting, she would engage some magical process (using a selection process that picks from a broad spectrum of Merchant types based on sale volume on SLM) that would pick NEW attendees to meet with her.  It would not be the same group each time.

I am not sure that is what she meant.  I also dont know / havent seen the process on how one volunteers to be called upon for these meetings.  Where does a Merchant register to be open to be a spokesperson?

My other concern about the "HOW" and "WHO" is that its become clear that Brooke only wants to call meetings within her "9-5" work hours window.  That would eliminate a lot of us willing merchants - like me.  So will Brooke be willing to be more flexible on UG meeting times?

As much as I do see value in smaller UG meetings - I wouldnt call them that.  UG means an open group of interested members that meet.  What Brooke is really wanting to engage in is "FOCUS GROUP" meetings.  This is a meeting called by LL of a hand selected target audience of their customers.

Finally, I think there is value in LL having a rotating audience of Focus Group meetings, BUT, the disadvantage is that there is not a common and consistent message from the Merchants and the effect of what the merchants want from LL will be confused and watered down if LL hears at each FG meeting a contradicting message.

EXAMPLE...

FG meeting #1:  "we clearly want to see LL address freebies from SLM and listing fee them out of existance"

FG meeting #2:  "freebies are a concern but not at the cost of imposing listing fee upon all listings - where did you get that idead from?"

FG meeting #3:  "freebies are good and do not hurt SLM traffic or sales.  Leave them alone and focus on bigger issues"

I still think there needs to be the establishment of some form of non-LL controlled SL MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION.  Where interested merchants can join and topics of concern can be discussed and even votes to the membership can take place.  Then this association could also carry these common issues and priorities to LL with a stronger confidence.  We would also have more of a voice that LL would find harder to ignore.  Yeah I know... many of you will say "there is no way we can get this flock of merchants herded together to establish this association.".  We were close in late 2009 when the clutter tax fiasco cropped up.  I still see value in this organized group.

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Pamela Galli wrote:

 

I hate to think you are serious. When a company's legal team advises them that X is a lawsuit waiting to happen, that's the end of discussion.

I don't know what world it is that you are working in, but that's the way things are in the US.

So pamela.... you think this is the best solution / approach that the legal team or sr. LL management could come up with?

I am on a planet where a business thinks far enough ahead NOT to make stupid myopic decisions like "lets merge the teen grid to the adult grid so that we can save some operational costs and not have to manage and operate two production grids - think of all the money we will save".

I live in a world that when my company makes such a dumb move, that the legal mitigation strategies to protect my company from the political and legal risks dont also damage my critical customer base and its revenue streams.

As a solutions architect for base of companies that makes LL look like a corner drugstore, I can tell you that if our legal team told us the legal risks to the company, we would think deep and hard how we could protect ourselves WITHOUT impacting our customer base.  Our primary objective would be to protect our current customer base and its revenue stream - and any legal protection solution had better fit with that objective.

I am from a planet Pam that would say this SLM Maturity Filtering solution is a horrid idea, inaccurate, easy to get around, and damages the existing customer base.

I dont know what planet you are on Pamela, but that is the planet I am on.  But I guess since you say that is how things work in the USA - no wonder their economy is in the tank.

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Not sure if an IM or email compaign to the new top Linden would help.

We all know that Brooke is doing the best she can and is ad professional as I have ever seen a public facing Linden, but all her communications have made it clear that SHE is not the one calling the shots on this stupid blacklist filtering process and has no direct effective powers to negotiate neither its removal nor any fundamental changes of it (i.e. removing words like GOR and GOREAN from the keywords search).

This is being significantly influenced by the LEGAL LINDENS that have no concept or care if LL loses current revenue or customers - nor do they show their face in publice to face the heat they have created.  They have a stovepipe objective - protect company for potential litigation regardless of business impact.  It is being dictated by the senior executives of LL - including the new CEO that is a brand new wet-behind-the-ears SL resident and has little understanding of a virtual world that has a strong significant business economy (not a bonus fake economy like sims).

Maybe us Merchants need to get the contact info of CEO LINDEN and start expressing our concerns to him.

Forget the small group meeting between Brooke and a sampling of us Merchants.  This meeting should be between a sampling of us Merchants and CEO, LEGAL, COMMERCE.  We need to talk with the persons that actually have the power to negotiate and make changes if they can be convinced that the BLACKLIST FILTER method is uttering lame and stupid and does nothing but hurt the economy and insult/blacklist a significant segment of SL customers that have been discriminated against because they are part of a community.

I still think if the SL Merchants are going to have any effective voice, we cant be as un organized as we are now.  We need some formal organization of a group where our issue can be discussed and structured into critical concerns and demands against LL and where we can set up a rotation of representatives.  We also should meet and talk off the SL blogs/forums if we are going to do this.

If you all think this is an idea, I got the place that I created in december 2009 with private registration and many of you are already members of this SL Merchants group of forums.

Just some thougts.

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

So lets play devil's advocate now regarding this GOR GOREAN and all the other bad words on LL's SLM blacklist...

Since it is so evil to even mention the word GOREAN in item listings because it might influence the children of SL, when will LL deploy the Forums/Blogs content filter to ban these same bad words from the forums?  When will LL deploy a SL Forums Maturity System that will segregate SL Forums that have "G" Rated content versus the forums, threads, postings whereby these non-child rated words can be openly used?

If LL is willing to damage the SLM marketplace and cause so much pain and disruption in the SLM because LL LEGAL says they must filter the chlidern from any mention / use / access to SLM mature items with these words, then why is LL LEGAL not concerned about these same bad words being mentioned openly in the forums without maturity filters?

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Ciaran Laval wrote:

 

Loving Clarity wrote:

at today's Office Hours, it was made clear that anything Gorean was considered Moderate by LL and that would remain the way it is.

This is very very silly.

To deem an entire community of a large portion of the SL population to be evil and deserving of being hidden and shunned by LL, that is a sad reflection of the LL we are dealing with.  IT shows how myopic and sheltered LL is and not caring / interested / respecting LL is of their customers (both those residents of SL that are part of this community as well as those that are dependent on servicing this community - the merchants).

I know thre are merchants in our community that would facepalm me for saying this but this is discrimination of a virtual community within LL customer base.

That is truly sad and shows how uncompromising LL is.

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

Brooke,

That is a long list and I read in inworld group chat last night that you might set up a JIRA for all of these discovered features/fixes that Merchant have been asking for and some structure on how we all can vote for which ones LL should be focusing in on.  I hope it wont be a structure in JIRA made up of dozens of Jiras that we have to hunt down and vote for.  Some more centralized listing of all of these would be so much more effective.

I would also like to see the LL mandated features, changes, required fixes that Merchants have not asked for but LL must do - also be placed in this list.  This tells us how far down the list our Merchant priorities are with respect to the LL priorites (which have historically constantly trumped our requested improvements).

Please advise how you will be letting us vote on these and insert new ones?

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

Pamela Galli wrote:

Brooke has already said she will use only text at the next meeting.

Honestly, I cannot see how anyone can expect her to do any better/more than she is. She is doing everything we have pleaded the Commerce Team to do, and more. That is not to say that she and the team will do everything perfectly, but she has certainly demonstrated that she will solicit and listen to feedback, and will adjust course when needed.

I am sure the maturity settings were not her idea -- yet the almost impossible task of doing so is hers.

I totally agree Pam.  I believe that this bad maturity filtering solution was not thought up by her or her team nor did she likely want to put in her first major slm change that was assured to do nothing but be a Negative to the SLM Merchants.  This change was purely a LL Internal CYA to protect them from their Teen Grid Merger decision and senior LL management is forcing her to execute an idea she knew full well was going to be hated.

The fact that it was rolled out so poorly saldy does fall on her and her team.

But regardless, for exactly the reasons you mentioned Pam, that is why I find it of limited value to spend too much time in the meeting to talk about solutions for child protection filtering with someone that has no authority to make any significant or "shift in direction" changes/alternatives.

We merchants just need to be assured the bugs will be worked out, that we will be given the BLACK LIST that LL is using (so we dont have to create an underground version of it), and exactly how the filtering works so that the Merchant can do what they have always had to do - ADAPT to the new hurdles LL placed in front of us.

Focus on other issues in the meeting - Maturity Filtering is here to stay and convincing her to change direction or even compromise is wasting time IMHO.

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

TriloByte Zanzibar wrote:

...

I'd also like to see Traffic and Sales Reporting get covered this time.  I know it was on the ambitious agenda from last week's session, but there wasn't enough time to get to it.  Sales and traffic reporting tools were talked up early in the development stages, and we were promised better tools than XStreet had, and that those tools would be in place before the big launch.  As data migration problems continued to stall development, reporting slipped from the site's initial launch with a new pledge that we'd have them within a few weeks.  That was back in October, and we still do not have functional tools.  Many of the current reports are flawed (only Transaction History and Orders are accurate, and with those reports we've got fairly limited sorting/searching capabilities).  Please share with us the current status, and an ETA on when we can expect to get some of this functionality.

I am 1000% behind this agenda item and all the background that Trilo mentioned in this point !

I have harped on this over and over and over and over in posts in the forums since I first saw the completely useless SLM daily traffic sales reporting that was first deployed - and is still currently in play.

It is my #1 issue of an SLM feature that needs to be fixed.  Right now I am pretty much selling blind in SLM.  The top searched and top selling reports are still based on the "since slm inception" statistics!  I dont really care that my #1 SLM item has been seen in search 145,000 since SLM came into play.  I have no use for tracking SLM items that have long since been disabled or deleted in my SLM inventory.

I need an SLM reporting system that at minimum tells me:

• Item TRAFFIC volumes (daily, weekly, or within a custom selected period)
• Item SEARCH RESULTS VIEW volumes (same options as Traffic) - Click Thru would be sweet
• Item SALES volumes (same options as Traffic)
• Histographs of the statistics

The above is not much more than what we had in Xstreet and I am not saying this is a GREAT reporting system - but at least I can work with this.

If LL really really wants to provide an awesome solution to its merchants AND doesnt want to do as much development work to provide it to us, maybe LL should consider Google Analytics integration.  I currently have that capability in the awesome online merchant store site of zazzle.com where all I have to do as part of my zazzle store setup is click on enabling the google analytics button and providing the google analytics code.  They then integrated the critical google code into the zazzle pages.

Brooke... I would bow to you and your team if you could provide us Google Analyitics integration to our SLM store and item pages.

Trilo.... I entrust in you to be my flag bearer at the meeting to make SLM Reporting a front and center item.   I will buy you a virtual beer later.

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

Darrius Gothly wrote:

 

Y'know Toy .. if Brooke had done anything the same as the Old Guard did, I might agree with you. But from what I've seen, she's done it a whole new way ... including changing the name of the Office Hours to User Groups ... and that speaks volumes to me. As someone that has stood shoulder to shoulder with you on many issues, I'd like to suggest you grant her the benefit of the doubt for a bit. It might open the door to benefits for all. At the worst, if everything turns out the "same as it ever was" ... you won't have lost a thing.

As I have said, I see a different and more open and professional attitude with Brooke and a willingness to concede that LL screwed up and how could they do things better.  The talk sounds good - regardless if she is able to have the power to effect/influence any significant old LL cultures and "policies from the ivory tower that the minions must deploy" practices.  It is positive to see more communications from the SLM Commerce Team than we have not seen in a long time.

But to me - painting a pretty coat of paint on a drunken pig and making due with it is not acceptable.  We shouldnt have to compromise on poorly thought out and market damaging policies.

What would have given me more hope that things will change with Brooke's team is if she said in the transcripts....

"We admit we screwed up AND we now see that we really need to some how figure out how LL can come up with effective solutions to meet the critical objectives / strategies that LL executives have placed on our team to carry out.  If we can do it in a way that also works well with our Merchant's needs and objectives - that is our prime objective.  As such, I am willing to sit down with a representation / "spokesperson team" of the Merchants to tell you all what LL MUST accomplish and then work out how best our team can reach those goals with the Merchant's agreement/blessing.  If the Merchants have other solutions / ideas that can meet the goals I must meet then I am willing to consider alternatives to the maturity blacklisting filtering solution we just deployed and would consider replacing it if it makes better sense".

NOW... if Brooke said anything close to that, I would be the first on the soapbox to cheerlead Brooke and her team because this message would speak VOLUMES to me.  I would even put up my hand as a willing volunteer to be on this Merchants Team that works with LL.

Until then Darrius, I will remain skeptical and we will see what comes out of this up-coming meeting's transcripts.

PS..... DONT USE VOICE IN THE MEETING!!! It makes the transcripts utterly useless for us that cant attend.

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

Rachel Darling wrote:

 

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.

What I read in the transcripted was Brooke saying (on a couple occasions) that although LL and the Merchants can talk about ways to improve things regarding maturity rating systems.... the maturity filtering system "is here to stay" and black listing related to it will not be going away.

You just said it right "besides the present filters" - meaning in addition to the present filters that Brooke stated very clearly are here to stay and removing or replacing the filters are non negotiable.

So like I said... Brooke is willing to make the filtering system less painful and maybe fine-tune it and maybe compensate the merchants that have been filtered into a poor SLM marketscope position and maybe release the blacklist (since Brooke is not stupid and knows we merchants will quickly create our own lists so that we can better adjust and avoid the blacklisting filter process), BUT, you are not going to convince her that there is a better system that would replace the filtering system.

I also disagree that the new USER GROUP meeting is a place to negotiate and make decisions with Brooke and the LL team on matters like this.  You have been to many of these meetings. You know yourself that these meetings take on 1 of 2 scenarios:

1. 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.
2. The conversation will be a mass of intersecting and spawning ideas, conversations, conflicting opinions on ideas that it will resemble the "Tower Of Babble" and no effective ideas will be allowed to foster.

Not to mention that the ideas brought up in this 1 hour meeting will be from a population of .01% of the merchant population whom would not have had any say or input into the negotiated discussions with LL.

So... the meeting to me is only valuable for what LL has historically always used it for... to announce new initiatives and gather initial thoughts and to have a fireside chit chat on feelings from the Merchants.  Nothing more.

Changing the name of the meeting will not change the capability of getting any more from this meeting.

We will see if you are correct when we all read the transcripts - if any effective negotiations are 1) willing to be entertained by Brooke, 2) possible at the towe of babble discussion.

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

I am not sure what the logic is for Brooke to change the long standing LL naming convention of an Open Office to a User Group meeting.  It serves no purpose but to increase confusion and reduce effective communications.  shrugs... but what ever.

Rachel, after read the transcripts of Brooke's meeting with trilo and pam today, the message was pretty clear in that other than trying to make an ugly useless solution look more pretty and work a little better, she is not allowed to compromise on considering any better new solutions on maturity filtering.  She made that point really clear.  So LL filtering fields as stupid as the KEYWORDS fields is not on the table.  Considering more effective establishement of maturity ranking items (like self assesment and policing) are not going to happen.  It will be more - how do we make this ugly idea less painful to the merchants.  Then the Merchant have to figure out for themselves what creative ideas they can come up with to find loopholes or re-enter their items to be seen by the entire SLM shoppers market if the filters are hurting business.

I think we should discuss with Brooke the option of commissions compensation since LL "MUST" put this policy in place to protect themselves from their own stupidity of merging the teen grid with the adult grid.  That should be an internal cost to their business.  As such, reduce the commission to 4% for adjust for lost market reach and reduced sales that the policy has impacted the business.  This wont help those Merchant that have lost a lot more but maybe the new slm commission model should be 5% commission on all GENERAL Classed sales, 4% for any MODERATE classed sales, and 3% for any mature classed sales.  THEN Brooke and LL can keep their Child Protection Filter in place.

I think the agenda should focus on more basic issues.... 1) effective communications with Merchants, 2) How will Merchants get more access, voice, input into future SLM decisions BEFORE they have been decided upon,  3)  Can SLM Merchants see / hear further out into the LL future of what we need to be ready for and fearful of.  What is LL's 12 month roadmap on SLM?  What do they really wanna accomplish?  Will SLM features ever be fixed like reporting?

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Pamela Galli wrote:

 

I am just curious how they are to determine ratings without using keyword filters at all.

Pamela,

How?  Look at all the fields on a ITEM in SLM.  If you remove "KEYWORDS" field which is a customer hidden field and who's objective is to be used to properly index the item in the SLM search engine, there are many other fields that would be much more effective to be used to TRY to assess an item as to its child friendliness.

Fields that LL should have focused on are:

• FEATURES (since this field should primarily be used to talk about the technical aspects that describe the item - its an excellent candidate)
• DESCRIPTION which might still be using LL "censorship bad words" but at least they are visible for all to see and that an item listing can be openly reviewed and judged by all - including customers that would have the basis to flag a listing that is wrongly rated.
• TITLE which I would not leverage as much for item censoring / categorization but since the content of this field is visible - it is a candidate.

But KEYWORDS are bad bad bad and a "NO NO" to accomplish this strategy.

I want to state this again, I am totally against categorization of item maturity based on an arbitrarily created secret "Black LIst" that LL created and that Merchants will only be forced to guess what those bad words are.  We all know that its only a matter of time before the Merchants begin creating TIPS and "how to improve your item's searchability in slm" documents and postings.  They will be forced to.  and as Rachel said, the bad guys are not stupid and they will easily get around your lame keywords censorship filter while the good merchants suffer.  And since LL has decided to hide the keywords from the item listing display - it makes it even harder to review and report by other merchants and customers.

BLACK LISTS have never been a good idea - specially if the list is kept secret.

If Brooke really wants to show that she is willing to work with her Customers (us merchants) then she would be willing to discuss better approaches to CHILD PROOF slm for the few teens on the grid and that shop on slm.

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Loving Clarity wrote:

 

I would like to also add..this is not only to Brooke but to the commerce team, and especially those who oversee them...

Please don't mistake the results of your actions as general merchant hatred/distaste for LL in general.  It's just that we have been shouting issues at LL for months now.  Since MP went "live" (I use the term loosely as it still operates as a beta product IMO) we have filed jira after jira.  We have begged and pleaded with any Linden that would listen to fix known issues that are plaguing the merchant community.  We have begged and pleaded for known issues to be examined and fixed.

Yet the first public act of the "new" commerce team has just added to our issues.  We are fed up, frustrated, disillusioned with the whole thing.  Had you fixed MP search, come up with a short term fix for delivery failures, made adding listings easier, addressed any one of the numerous other issues/complaints about MP (publicly) before swinging your mighty filter around, we might be a little more inclined to say "ok, this was a MAJOR screw up but at least they fixed XYZ."  Instead, your first public act was to reign down a mess eqaul to the initial migration from SLX.

And "sneakily" too, I might add.  I, for one, do not recall ANY mention of a filter being used when the new system went into effect.  You were clear that anything marked "mature" would be moved to adult.  That didn't seem unreasonable to us and we all were aware we might have to go in and fix anything that was mature before and decide if it was moderate or adult.  We were given NO indication there would be a filter put into place.  Nor was it indicated that the judgements of this filter would be irreversible without the hoops we have had to jump through.  Bad form.  And shame on you all!

It's as if we are kids who have been left home alone countless times then all of a sudden, mom and dad have decided we need a babysitter.  We didn't do anything wrong.  We've done well at keeping the house clean, didn't throw parties, didn't eat everything in the fridge.  But now we have a babysitter telling us what to watch on TV and when to go to bed... it's insulting, quite frankly.  The merchants have always had the ability to police their own items.  And for those who tried to "cheat" the system, we've been able to flag them and have action taken.  Peers policing peers has worked up until now.  I could understand if this came after a public request from LL to properly rate our items "or else".  But there was no indication in advance this would happen.  And it's just a shame that this is our first experience of the "new" MP team.

 

Loving, I could not have said this any better!!  You are dead on!

We have been waiting and waiting for LL Commerce and Development Team to fix the missing peices of the SLM like poorly deployed SEARCH RELEVANCE, and EFFECTIVE REPORTING & USAGE ACTIVITY.  And what does the new LL team do.... deploy a solution that makes the weak SLM service even more ineffective and problematic to the merchants.

Brooke, do you not see why we are so utterly frustrated with what your team deployed?  You state you will listen... but what your team deployed last week just shows that YOU HAVE NOT BEEN LISTENING.

So we are frustrated Brooke... and skeptical that your promises will be nothing more than "how can LL stroke you better and still be allowed to accomplish our objectives and ignore the Merchant's demands"

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Brooke,

Moviing Moderate items to General is a start - helps my items that were flagged to moderate even though they are completely G Rated.

Hopefully this "bug fix" fixes things.... but i cant see how if you are using the basis of flagging/categorizing items by their KEYWORDS... its just a wrong strategy to start with.  That is the bug -  that you are using keywords.

As for email issue... I and many others asked to be taken off LL's Spam Marketing email list when in 2009 they were using our Customer Email Contact info to promote 3rd party merchant and vendors to promote their events.  This should not have taken us off legit LL important customer email communications.  And... it doesnt seem it has in some cases.  Your team sent out an email to merchants in early January and I received that email - so why not this one?  Are you switching between lists?  Your customers should not have to endure LL Markeing email spam in order to get serious important customer service email communications.

I am glad you are trying to address these issue and I really do hope you follow up with action on addressing this terrible deployment.  Here is hoping your team recover the damage from this one.  Sadly I dont think LL will allow your team to stop this Child Protection Filter strategy.  Its wrong and LL will lose the larger population of their customers to protect a very small fraction of teens who should not have been allowed to enter.

Thats another story and before your time.

Good Luck.  Wish I could attend your open office but not if you will be having them all in mid day North American time.