Toysoldier Thor

you sure know how to diffuse a situation dont ya.... lol Stroke the Toy's ego

sure hope you are right.

Marcus Hancroft wrote: ... OK but...what's the migration process from Magic Boxes to Direct Delivery? Last we heard from you that process hadn't been completed yet. How do we edit listings once the inventory has been grabbed from our folders? I use Phoenix so what you're saying here is that the Phoenix/Firestorm team will have to do a code change to make the "Upload Button" work? Still lotsa questions, CommerceTeam! Thats exactly my concerns too as this is 3 times LL has stated that there is extra functionality that only seems to work with the LL Viewer (which like you - I do not use - I am a Phoenix and Firestorm Beta user). So is LL saying that until the 3PV's develop functionality around this recently deployed API to them that LL is holding Merchant's hostage and forcing us to use LL Viewer or not be able to use MP with DD? Also, I want to get a clear answer on.... If I have 50 boxed items... can I drop the 50 boxed items directly on the OUTBOX (WITHOUT ANY USE OF FOLDERS)? As Paladen stated a few times... we can consider the Outbox to be the magicbox. Well the Magicbox doesnt use flolders NOR DO I WANT TO USE FOLDERS.

OK so this will likely take another week for LL to answer this question but regarding.... The Marketplace inventory is composed of all the folders and objects intended for sale through a merchant’s Marketplace account. The only ways that these inventory items may be accessed are: A customer may access item after a purchase has been completed and the item has been delivered to the customer’s inventory. Merchants may access inventory items through the Merchant Admin to view those items, return them to their inworld inventory, or try a test purchase. You better explain this statement. My customers that have already purchased my product on MP and completed their transaction "may have access" to my MP content?? Please dont tell me that LL thought it was a good idea that a customer that bought an MP product has the right to access my MP inventory related to this bought product for some logic of a "self-directed redelivery" or that they can convenient get the content in the future for what ever reason.... Under normal situations where we are dealing with a mature Systems Development company that knows how to do proper requirements analysis, I would believe that I must be misunderstanding what was said here. BUT this is LL. So LL - please explain this statement - and hopefully not in 7 days.

ohh ohh... LL is TRYING?? LL is "Fixing"? When LL tries to fix something it normally means "how can we leave the change in place that we refuse to back out of and make the newly created mess tolerable for the Merchant to stop their yelling? This is not good. I suspect for some korny obscure reason, this change may be related to the Sep 13th Pre-DD-Prep changes and the DD rollout. Of course they would not admit that they are continuing to sneak in DD components into Production and hoping that their changes are not noticed - but the changes are either poorly tested or so hairbrained that they cannot be missed by us.

So I guess Brooke and the LL Commerce Team have successfully accomplished their goal with regard to their DD COMMUNICATIONS Strategy. What is her team's strategy: "Maintain a Bare Minimum Communication Strategy on DD with the general Merchant community" Post a small blog that points to a couple other links with old general DD information and make promises to answer any Merchant's questions / concerns on DD in the Merchant Forum. Provide a FAQ that is confusing enough that it doesnt paint them in any corner regarding potential lame ideas to their solution which could cause merchant concerns, questions, debates, criticisms. In the Merchant Forums, let the Merchant start asking the countless questions that they have not got answered from the Commerce Team in the past several months when the team stayed in pure Black Ops with Gagged Beta Testers. Have some private talks with some of the Closed Beta Testers and proven "friends of LL" asking them to answer any of the questions that are being brought up. This is to avoid LL directly having to answer questions themselves. Make one post that answers the easy questions and avoid answer questions that likely have answers that Merchant wont like hearing the answer to. THEN... tell the forum you will not be answering anymore questions for another week. Lets the anger and frustration of the Merchant community escalate and fight itself out until the community comes to the realization that the LL Commerce Team refuses to take responsibilities on communicating with their customers and the thread participants give up on the thread knowing its futile to get straight direct answers from LL. RESULTS: This thread has died off and Merchants have actually done exactly what Brooke's plan intended. They have given up on LL's team to be responsible and are now just waiting for the LL's Developed DD disaster to hit us when it does. PS - before ANY of you think I am overly critical that DD will go into production with major disruptions - just look at yesterday's change by the LL Commerce / Development Team and their unrequested change of the Transaction History to use an avatar's DISPLAY NAME instead of the users permanent accurate name. If they can screw something as silly as this up - extrapolate how bad they can screw up DD.

So to see how effective this new personal attention @lindensupport Twitter account is, I have Tweeted the Jira to them this morning to see if anything will happen. I also tweeted the stupidity once again of LL's solution team for coming up with this unsolicited (no customer asked LL that they needed this stupid change) hairbrain idea and angering LL Merchants once again. I think Rodvik has given up on the antics of the LL Commerce Team as anything he plans to clean up. I think the Commerce Team and anything to do with the Commerce / Merchant activities of SL has just become a dirty little secret that Rodvik doesnt want to address at all. His team is in way over their heads in running this unit of the business and they have proven to have near zero customer relationship, customer support, and knowledge of the Merchant business operations in general. I think this change shows clearly that LL is using the Commerce area as a place for their junior techs and management to cut their teeth in their respective careers.

Luna Bliss wrote: Are you sure this is an accident? I'm starting to feel like they don't want serious merchants here anymore. Maybe I should message Josh.. LOL... One really needs to wonder when you see LL Commerce and Development teams making such a design decision mistake that I.T. students could tell you makes no sense. This is why so many of us Merchants are so openly vocal about getting as much details of up-coming systems - even the most basic of details - from LL's team. And why we get frustrated when LL's team doesnt answer. And when we are told by LL's white knight defenders that we are being too critical and negative about LL's solutions that have not yet been deployed...... We are this way because of examples like this. One needs to wonder if LL is simply trying to destroy the Merchant's ability to make an SL living in SL.

And.... for all of you that are once again witnessing just how bad a solution development team is at the helm at LL with this bonehead idea of using a changing NICKNAME in a transaction log, remember that this is the same team that has come up with something vastly more complex and will impact us all.... DD! If they cant understand the basics of solutions and SL busines functions.... how will they get DD right? Now Paladin might realize the fear many of us have about LL deploying DD. Its beyond they skillset to get it right and we will all suffer on deployment.

You know what is more sad Rya..... That this thread is 21 pages and in LL's recent blog that announced the DD Open Beta, they stated and link to read the forum for more answers from them. AND YET... LL Commerce has only post 3 times of which the first post was just LL saying Sassy was right. So 2 posts from LL in 21 pages of questions, concerns, debates, guesses on DD from the Merchants. Do you find it surprising that there is this much activity on this topic? LL has stayed in hiding on DD for about 7+ months regardless of the countless requests from Merchants for Brooke and company be more transparent and tell us all more what is going on with DD.

You know what is more sad Rya..... That this thread is 21 pages and in LL's recent blog that announced the DD Open Beta, they stated and link to read the forum for more answers from them. AND YET... LL Commerce has only post 3 times of which the first post was just LL saying Sassy was right. So 2 posts from LL in 21 pages of questions, concerns, debates, guesses on DD from the Merchants. Do you find it surprising that there is this much activity on this topic? LL has stayed in hiding on DD for about 7+ months regardless of the countless requests from Merchants for Brooke and company be more transparent and tell us all more what is going on with DD.

Zanara Zenovka wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: I guess maybe its because I am not a "LL SCRIPTER" so maybe I dont know better but as a RL Systems Architect for 15+ years on countless solutions / projects / deployments of all sizes and complexity.... Toysoldier Thor wrote: THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE MAGICBOX. They threw out the baby with the bath water. LOL I rest my case. Even though this has been technically discussed and that even Sassy and Darrius know what I meant by this statement, I wont explain it to you Zanara.... You are not a SCRIPTER... would be over your head if you didnt even understand this statement. sniker... maybe Darrius has the patience to explain it to you.

Zanara Zenovka wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: I guess maybe its because I am not a "LL SCRIPTER" so maybe I dont know better but as a RL Systems Architect for 15+ years on countless solutions / projects / deployments of all sizes and complexity.... Toysoldier Thor wrote: THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE MAGICBOX. They threw out the baby with the bath water. LOL I rest my case. Even though this has been technically discussed and that even Sassy and Darrius know what I meant by this statement, I wont explain it to you Zanara.... You are not a SCRIPTER... would be over your head if you didnt even understand this statement. sniker... maybe Darrius has the patience to explain it to you.

I do see that LL still has not spoken up to answer the outstanding questions in this thread - you know - the ones that LL Commerce seems to have not seen on Friday. I know us dumb non-scripters should take Zanara's avdice and trust the all knowing scripters of LL, but sorry, I would prefer taking answers from the only ones that know the answers with authority and not educated guesses... I want LL to step up and stop hiding and start taking responsibility and ownership with what they promised and to perform mature systems deployment - Communicate with their customers. Its pretty irresponsible actions the LL Commerce Team is practicing once again. Just like the Sep 13th MP changes where Brooke makes one small post a day in advance telling us a little change will happen tomorrow and we will tell you later what the changes were. Is this how LL plans to handle DD deployment?

Paladin Pinion wrote: Mickey Vandeverre wrote: ....and that's not what the official LL answer said. I interpret that as saying "we do not know yet".... A difference in interpretation, I think. I interpreted it to mean "we have the basic process working, and the last step is to integrate automatic listing updates. We are working on that now and we'll let you know when it is done." Interesting interpretation... one I guess we should take serious if we are all to take Zanara's advice that "Scripters Know All and Better than the rest of us". Strange how your interpretation seems to go againt my 20+ years of RL systems integration and deployment experience. The way I read - knowing the backgournd of LL's DD situation : 1) LL has been designing DD since early 2011. 2) LL has been coding DD functionality into the summer far enough that they could actually make it available this past summer for the CLOSED BETA Testers to start trying out, 3) that the Close Beta Testers have been using LL's DD solution 3 months, 4) and now LL believes DD is ready and stable enough to release it to OPEN BETA for any merchant in the community to try out. Yet as far as LL has taken the DD soiution through the development lifecycle, they post on Friday that as of right now LL still has not thought through and deployed even a bit of the DD solution that 100% of the 10's of thousands of Merchants will be needing and would want to test out the most???? This DD functionality is one of the critical functions of DD and LL Commerce Team is ONLY NOW TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THIS FUNCTION? LL felt this function was so trivial that they didnt even want their gagged Closed Beta Testers to try out the function with the highest risk of complication or failure before the general Merchant community tries it out? The way I interpret this message from LL is: "OOOPS We Missed this concept in the DD development and deployment and wow I guess if we should have thought that maybe the Merchants are going to be royally ticked off if transitioning 100s or 1000's of MP listing from Magicbox delivered content to DD delivered content wont go over well. We better figure something out NOW and just tell the dumb non-scripter merchants that we are just working on this component of the DD solution." And this is where LL will likely introduce most of the bug that I am very sure we will suffer through when DD goes into production. Why? Because this is the code that LL is rushing to get completed ASAP and that the Closed Beta Testers wont even be able to test in private. WOW Paladen, you said in RL you are a professional software developer? I guess maybe its because I am not a "LL SCRIPTER" so maybe I dont know better but as a RL Systems Architect for 15+ years on countless solutions / projects / deployments of all sizes and complexity - I dont interpret this as nicely as you. But I guess the next few weeks will tell if yours or my interpretation is correct. I find this to be a safe bet if you are willing to take a chance on your interpretation.

Darrius Gothly wrote: Paladin Pinion wrote: Josh Susanto wrote: >I don't know why LL can't read our current magic box and transfer the listings Please do not encourage LL to take unnecessary control over additional parts of the process. You know why. I agree with you. Someone asked why LL couldn't just grab our box contents and use those as the source, and I didn't know why. But now that I think about it, I'd much rather be in control of the process, and maybe LL considered that too. It's likely that most of us will want to start with only a few transferred items, and then gradually move the rest over after we see how it goes. The link from SLM to Magic Box is handled through a link to the old XStreet website or, it would seem as part of their last major update, handled by code directly within the SLM itself. The problem, so we are told, is that the path from SLM to Magic Box to delivery to Customer involves an unreliable communications link (proven) and problems with in-world object-to-avatar deliveries (also proven). So DD is meant to go from Inventory to Inventory thus eliminating all problem parts. The rationale (and it's good too) is to make it just a database copy ... from the source location to the destination. In this case the source is some internal inventory folder that they create based on stuff we upload from our Merchant Outbox, and the destination is the Customer's SLM Inbox. So good, so far, right? My Magic Box has a database record in the same database as the Customer's Inventory (or at least in a database that is equally accessible). The UUID of my Magic Box is well known to SLM because it has to know that to communicate with it in the unreliable method used now. So the database copy that is at the heart of DD could just as easily be from my Magic Box's inventory to the Customer's Inventory. If I change the contents of my Magic Box, I must synch with SLM but everything after that is complete. The net result would have been a solution that caused almost no disruption in how we work now, would not have required any changes in documentation, and would have resulted in the loss of only one feature ... delivery of folders instead of a single boxed item. Apparently the value of that one feature outweighed the benefits of "minimal disruption" .. or they don't consider disrupting us as having any value. Either way, it appears to me exactly as Lasher stated ... they do their level best to obfuscate anything they do. THANK YOU DARRIUS!! This is exactly what I have been trying to say countless times!! The Magicbox is only a record in the Asset server (as Sassy made it so clear to all of us back in the spring). So since its in the Asset DB.... all LL Developers had to do if they used common sense was to use the magicbox Asset Record and do the same DB copy to the MP DB table - where MP's new DD could do all the distribution. No disruption of our magicbox. The Magicbox stays as a MASTER SOURCE. No transitioning. Hopefully because you explained it now Darrius... people like Sassy and Paladen will understand. But again, too little - too late. LL NEVER CHANGES THEIR MINDS.

Sassy Romano wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: SO.... at this time... the ONLY AUTHORITY to provide the correct answers to the FAQ as well as to answer our questions that were not in the confusing FAQ is the group that should be stepping up..... LINDEN LAB. Regardless of who is a participant in the beta, the above remains true. Participants of the closed beta testing are not restricted from saying so but for the reasons mentioned, I maintain that it's probably why they choose NOT to state their participation. LL should be doing a better job of communication, everyone agrees with that but at this stage, there's little to be gained in arguing as to how DD has been implemented and why it wasn't done differently. It is what it is right now and the opportunity for people to test it has been announced so there shouldn't be any surprises when it goes live. The opportunity to have any peripheral influence in how DD functions is/was the same as any other beta programme and that's to participate. That opportunity becomes more widespread when it's publicy available. (That's not to say that LL will listen or has listened in the past). The choice to test it remains up to the merchant, nobody is forcing merchants to make themselves aware of the processes that they will need to be familiar with and how to prepare for changes required. As to "coming clean" and telling people why beta testers should be trusted, I disagree. Beta testers aren't making policy. Communication remains LL's job. I wouldn't trust the beta testers to know the fine details of the implementation. We both agree - as do most Merchants that the only authority to explain how DD works and to answer the questions flying up in droves is LL. Although I would think the Closed Beta Testers that have been using the DD for a couple months should be able to provide an educated opinion, no one here should be trusting any poster's opinion as to what LL's FAQ is trying to say - unless LL has stated it and clarified it. Technically, everyone else here would be guess as to their interpretation of how DD works. So its nice that you and Paladen and other are posting your guesses as to what the FAQ means... its only a guess. As per your comments on providing influence on DD's design and functioning, even the Closed Beta Testers have no influnece either - at least they shouldnt. Once a solution reaches any form of Beta - open or closed - the fundamental design and even coding around the functions around the design should be close to locked. The job of the Beta Testers should not be there to rethink the solution developed by the developer. They should be there to execute use cases against the solution. So, unless LL is an immature shoot-from-the-hip development environment (oops hold on - they are), the Beta Testers would have had no input to convince LL that the OUTBOX should be the Magicbox or that the Outbox / Magicbox should be a MASTER source and none of its contents should be deleted after upload. That is a major reason why I did not even try to be a DD closed beta tester - I know LL well enough to know I would have had zero ability to change their solution for the better. Secondly, LL hand picks their closed beta testers and I am 99% sure Brooke would not have invited me. They want want "always agreeing" slave labor testers - not someone that would challenge your marvelous ideas / designs. I know a couple fellow merchants that did want to be closed beta testers and were rejected - and I am sure I know why. So... at no stage does any non-special Merchant have any significant influence on how DD was designed. Only a few merchants with special access to Brooke and company had influence. Too bad they have little clue how to design a solution. I still shake my head that so late in the game - and as DD enters an open beta - only a couple months from production release - LL has not even figured out the "automagic" magicbox to DD transition system. All these months and they are only now trying to design a solution for this? Ohhh this is a red flag for the DD screwups as the first merchants try to move to DD.

Sassy Romano wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: Only LL and the closed Beta testers - and none of them want to answer questions. I suspect the reason is that when they have, they have either been ignored or feel that any post they make is one to be jumped on and called out as "one of them, the LL defenders". Accurate answers have been given, the FAQ decoded without being in breach of any NDA since the information is already public but if people choose to ignore and attack the information then it's no wonder that further input will be sparse. I understand what Paladin is saying, she's not saying that the Outbox IS a magic box, only that it's the new process. Like it or not, that's what it is, at this point further berating of the process is pointless. As to fixing "delivery issues", it seems to be the problem that Ruby on Rails is single threaded and gets backed up with the inherrent delays with LSL script functions. Magic box uses outdated protocols. It would seem that they'd either need to re-code Ruby on Rails to be multithreaded (unlikely an option), update all the magic box scripts as an alternate option or use something completely different. Does it really matter if the source of delivery is a magic box that you can look at or if it happens to be the asset database? The objects aren't really in the magic box anyway but are merely pointers to the item in the asset database. The method IS, upload to MP and that's now your "master". That's it, that's what it is. You know Sassy, I dont mind and I have already posted early in this thread (to other's response that this is not possible) asking that anyone that was in the Closed Beta speak up and give us their impression. Since it becoming clear that LL Commerce would rather take a position of "lets let our friendly and in-the-know merchants - those that were in the closed beta - speak for us in this thread" , I would rather that Paladen or whomever else from the Closed beta would at least come clean and say... "I was in the closed beta and I do have deeper knowledge on how DD works that the rest of you Merchants that were not part of the closed beta. Since I was a closed beta tester, I am providing you educated interpretations of the screwed up cryptic LL FAQ. I am not providing answers of what the confusing LL FAQ mean because I am smarter than the rest of you - its just because I know what LL means because of my close beta participation." Right now, those providing answers have not come clean to explain WHY the rest of us should trust them as an authority. Since so far they have openly denied that they were even in the closed beta, this means that their answers / interpretations of the FAQ can be just as much a guess as those of us that were not part of the closed beta. SO.... at this time... the ONLY AUTHORITY to provide the correct answers to the FAQ as well as to answer our questions that were not in the confusing FAQ is the group that should be stepping up..... LINDEN LAB.

Paladin Pinion wrote: yada yada.... Toy asked why I entered this discussion. It was because I don't like fearmongering and unfair accusations before the facts are in. Until we see the process in action, the things that people are afraid of are conjecture. I don't like conjecture. I like facts. and guess who has the facts? The persons that - as Darrius said - are the most silent here. You dont have the fact (as you have mentioned many times you know no more about the development of DD than anyone else here and if you or zanara or other did and were on the closed beta you would be in violation of the gag order). Zanara doesnt. Only LL and the closed Beta testers - and none of them want to answer questions. So you say you read what we all read and yet now you say a new number that I have not read about the bulk of uploads to MP... 50?? I read 100. Where did you pull 50 out of the air? Again, unless you know something. PS... stop saying the new OUTBOX is anything close to the Magicbox... ITS NOT! The magicbox has one layer flat structure and has no folder structures inside - Outbox does. The magicbox ALWAYS holds its content even as it transfers - Outbox does not (LL in their wisdom felt they need to upload and delete instead of making it a master source like Magicbox could have. The magicbox is a stand-alone rezzed object - Outbox is a special fodler in our inventory Magicbox is the actual source of content distributed to a customer - Outbox is only used as the entry portal to the MP wormhole to our new MP content storage. So... stop promoting it as just another Magicbox. Here I thought you knew more than the rest what DD was about that you understood what little infor LL posted on DD. Seems not. Lasher was completely correct - LL could have made this so simple by making Magicbox the source for the DD upload and not throwing in the kitchen sink ot added features no one asked for when solving the delivery problem. They could have just stuck to fixing delivery failures and stuck to delivering BOXED ITEMS. But nope... as Lasher said... LL in their continued history of making something simple into a major complicated and inefficient solution. LL Developers never fail to disappoint.

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: They came in and answered Sassy's question. They generally do for Sassy. The rest of the questions were not attempted until after the "hystrionics" As I explained to you earlier, which you must have missed.....it seems as though that's the only way to get answers now, and it seems as though that is the mode now. Not a fan of it, but if that's the only way, it is what it is. I don't believe that mode evolved because of "us" - - I believe that it evolved because of poor communication from the service provider. We were pretty much conditioned to accept that mode, but at the beginning of the year, they made strong statements that communication would improve. When you make strong statements like that to your customers - you should probably back it up. After all - you were probably making those statements to keep them. They kept some - so deliver. If asking questions bothers you - there is a log off button. If you understand everything entirely, and are totally confident that you won't have to rework your entire listing process, then not really sure what you have to gain by poking at those who have far more inventory than you do. Wazzup with that? Completely agree Mickey. and you are also right in that Zanara completely missed your point. The LL Commerce Team's past history of open communications with its customer base (the Merchants) has been rocky for most of its life (at least in the 3+ years I have participated). Over the past 2 years - pretty much after the November 2009 Listing Tax Strategy announcement/fiasco - the team's already poor and "favored few" communication strategy transitioned to a SAY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE TO THE COMMUNITY approach was entrenched. This was developed by Pink Linden when she and her team realized that the near Merchant Revolt from her team's announcement strategy on the forum was like a wildfire they couldnt stop. Instead of listening to and addressing the Merchant's legit anger and concerns at the horrendously developed policy they released with near unanimous rejection of the plan, Pink and her team took the common sense approach, they decided to stop defending their stupid policy and just went into their LL Bunker and started to TRIED to execute the policy. Listening to their customer's deep concerns / rejection of the policy and its logic was NOT AN OPTION FOR LL. In the 7 months after the announcement as LL tried to execute on the flawed strategy, the anger in the community didnt reduce much, many merchants shut down their Xstreet stores, 100's of thousands of listings (many of them good ones) were removed from xstreet, and many merchants established new accounts with competing services to xstreet. Finally, after constant "calling LL to the carpet" in the forums on the timing of the long delayed delivery of this horrid policy (often by hysterics and ridiculing of the team by ppl like me), LL Commerce Team quietly announced that they had to shelve the strategy. They realized what the community told them all along - the plan was not feasible or even executable with xstreet. If Pink and team would have taken the high road and backed out of the stupid plan right at the beginning, she would have established a strong and healthy communication between them and the customer. But, she didnt and the plan still failed and she destroyed the Merchant's trust in the team as well. So the moral to the story - LL Commerce's stubborn "we know best" attitude, lack of listening and responding to their customers, and childish "just dont talk to the the public and the problems / anger will go away" communication strategy started by Pink has become common Team strategy. Brooke's team is doing exactly what Pink started in 2009. And.... as Mikey has correctly stated, it developed a culture within the Merchant community on the forums that the only effective way to get the Commerce Team to post at all is to expose and rehash their weakness and allow a lack of answers from LL convert to posted theories, guesses, and legit FUD from the community. When Brooke and team realizes that their childish "SAY NOTHING - LET OUR FORUM FRIENDS SPEAK FOR US" communication strategy is not working anymore. they eventually pop out of hiding and make a post. Is this a good way to get LL Commerce Team to step up to their responsibilities? NOPE! But so far it has been the only proven way to get LL Commerce to step up every once in a while to talk to us. Of course, you can tell in the forums whom among us has these special backroom communication lines to Brooke and team. Its those that open defend their inaction and their lack of communication. Its the Merchants that seem to speak on behalf of LL and answer our questions to LL. They seems to know the answers to our questions and speak with authority to know. They seems to not be scared about what most of the community is concerned of. They are the ones that brush off horrid LL mistakes like Xstreet to MP migration and the Sept 13th change and pretend that LL never makes development deployment mistakes. These few merchants (as there has been generations of them before this team) are there to be LL's communication strategy. Sadly this fails every time since most of us do not want to hear theories and answers from a Merchant that should be no better in the know of the deployment like DD as us but yet they are. We get more angry as LL makes promises to answer questions month after month and then says very little. So yes Mikey... the only avenue the Merchant community has in the forums to get Brooke and company to answer us is to post increasing concerns and fears of unanswered questions that could affect us.

Paladin, I read all your posts and your responses to my posts to you and your LL defending posts to others here on your complete faith in the Maturity and capabilities of LL Development team and I wonder what planet you have been on inside SL for these past 4 years. When you make statements like: "If I was, I would be under NDA and couldn't say. But no, I was not. My comments were based simply on knowledge of how software development works, and a basic understanding of how a business works. The one thing I consider a given is that the company will not do anything intentionally to hurt themselves; businesses always strive for the best possible outcome. Making life difficult for merchants will hurt their business, therefore if there are issues, it is not intentional. If only a few of us help test the product, then there will be undiscovered bugs. Software always has bugs, there is no such things as bug-free software. The goal in software development is to create the fewest possible bugs, and to triage known issues so that those that remain will affect the fewest possible users. That's why I am convinced that LL will not do anything intentionally to harm themselves. Harming their own business and marketplace model is not one of their goals. It's just common sense." What kept running through my head was "was this person on another grid when LL has proven time and time again how poorly they have developed code, and deployed and caused tons of grief to the Merchants, Customers, Residents???? If you didnt swear up and down how you are just a lowely hobbyist scripter in SL, I would swear you are one of LL's actual software developers and are here to defend the 100% proven immature development / deployment processes that most OTHER than you see of LL. Come on!! You cant be for real to actually believe - specially if you really say you are a software developer in RL that LL has followed proper development / deployment processes. If you do and if you are a SLM Merchant, then how do you explain the PROPER LL DEVELOPMENT / DEPLOYMENT that happened on September 13th on the MP? Is this how you run your RL development company? Remind me not to contract out to your firm. Unlike you - that seems to have been on another grid than LL's, most of us have seen LL's skill. We saw how they deployed MP and transitioned us from Xstreet. We saw how they screwed up the adult filters into MP. We saw how they followed proper processes of code testing and change communication on Sept 13th. Whatever motivates you or has driven you to post in this thread defending LL's competance in software development... that is your call. But you are trying to convince most of us with past LL experiece that the Sky is purple. Just remember this talk Paladin in 2012 when LL releases DD into production. I will. And you can tell me then and shove it in my face if LL deploys DD with no serious glitches. I am pretty confident I will be the one shoving this talk into your face.

Paladin Pinion wrote: TOY: only if you use the LL Viewer. This feature does not work on any other viewers from what I read. The other viewer makers need to adopt the new API for DD. Do you know any that have? It won't take long for third party viewers to catch up. Every new implementation over the years has been adopted by the major players. You know that, so this is a red herring. By the time this method is final I can promise your viewer will support it. If you don't believe that, you could ask the authors of whichever viewer you are using. Toy: you may be right - you may be wrong. You nor I do not know this. But considering that Firestorm is still in Beta and possibly in beta into the new year and that Phoenix/Firestorm are the market leaders of SL viewers - chances are that you are wrong and that no one other than the LL viewer will have this functionality. Time will tell but as of right now - your statement is incorrect.  TOY: It also was not clear how the items actuall interface with the listings in MP. LL didnt say it was automagically... they said they are still working on this and will provide details. Right now the process to link your current content to the current listing by means of DD is a manual process as Darrius described. That's why it isn't a released feature yet. It is still in development, which takes time, and requires testing so that the developers can figure out the most efficient way to proceed. Since you aren't willing to help with that process, and you don't want to bother with the beta grid, it shouldn't affect you at all. When the final procedure is in place you will get the benefits without any effort on your part. If you aren't helping to test, you will never need to bother going to SLM and changing your listings. LL has stated the behavior is the final goal, and it will be done for you by the time it is ready. You can sit back and wait. Toy: The fact that you actually agree that LL is still in development on a function that supposed has passed thru development and even closed Beta is a major factor / indicator that this rollout to production is going to be another example of LL Development bugs and terribly planned deployment. My prduction - We Merchants are going to be suffering from this LL deployment in the new year even moreso than the suffering we all felt and many are still feeling from LL's disgusting Sept change fiasco. I dont know what IT / software development background you have Paladin, but I do have lots. And when I hear LL openly announce after 8 months of design, development and even closed beta that they are only now still trying to figure out MagicBox transition solution to DD.... WAVE THE RED FLAGS HIGH... but if you wanna take the stance that you trust LL's development & deployment and that all things will be worked out when LL forces this to the production environment in the new year. Thats your call. Just be ready then for me to tell you .... I TOLD YOU DO. TOY: You said you read the FAQ but the FAQ didnt say that exactly. They said that there will be a cutoff of Magicboxes eventually as they are retired in stages. True. But that will be far enough off that for all reasonable interpretations, it is currently indefinite. LL has no current deadline. I suppose if you want to fret about something, you can worry about it. Since the final implementation isn't due for release until Q1, your magic box is safe for at least another four to six months or so. And after that, if there are still issues to be worked out (ANS is a concern for me) then the boxes will have to remain even longer. So Paladin, what have you been told through the back channels of LL staff about when the MagicBoxes will be retired? You seem to be confident that LL will not retire magicboxes for a long time until its safe. Come on ... tell us more. What are you so confident about regarding magicbox retirement. PS - may I ask if you were one of the DD Closed Beta Merchants? am shocked Paladin... honestly, did you really have that many delivery failures as a merchant of MP? How many a month? If you are like me and it was only a couple a month, would it really be worth all this hassle of transition to solve a few failures a month? I dont see this as much of a hassle at all, to be honest, especially after the LL clarifications. I will be able to drag-drop my product boxes into an outbox folder and that will be the end of it. I won't even need to manually create enclosing folders. Tthe reason for deliveriy problems is the interaction between the magic boxes and the LL servers. I'm not sure why you are so opposed to a solution that will solve these issues. Even a single failure is one too many; zero failures is the only correct answer. TOY: Where did you get information that it will be SO EASY AND SIMPLE - "as easy as that". You just admited and LL openly stated that they have NOT worked out how the transition process from Magicbox to DD will work. Please explain how this automated process will be able to flip out the content in my magicbox and go into all my MP listings and automagically change my pointers from magicbox to DD? I give you credit for being so confident about a process that LL has not even created and seems to be an afterthought of their development since they are ONLY NOW starting to try to figure out how this transition process might work. Ignorance and blind trust in a company that has aproven HORRID software development record is bliss I guess. At least you are not stressed out about your SL business. I think if you revise your paradigm it would help. If you stop thinking of the folder as a storage location and start thinking of it like an email outbox, the analogy lines up better. When you send an email, it disappears unless you save a copy of it locally. The email is removed from your drive and sent to a remote recipient. Same here; your item is removed from the outbox and received at the other end by the marketplace. It will function almost exactly like email, with the (eventual) added advantage of automatically updating your listing on the marketplace. I think that sounds quite elegant. TOY: I have read enough of the LL confusing FAQ to realize that LL's deployment of this DD does not make the OUTBOX a storage location. Its wrong and misguided but that is what it is. That the content in the OUTBOX disappears instead of it being a MASTER COPY was a horridly stupid idea - but that is what they did. I dont know who gave the LL Developers this stupid idea but ohh well. All us merchants will eventually have to add this extra MP store maintenance effort to your work on MP. LL doesnt care if what they create causes more inefficiency to the Merchants - not their problem - its ours. still hope you will actually try it on the beta grid so that you understand the functionality. And please keep in mind that development is not yet complete, and that this is still an ongoing process. That's why it hasn't been released for general use yet. If there are problems or changes that need to be made, this is exactly the right time to do it. LL wants us to find problems -- that's why we are invited to help. There is no reason for them not to want to make the experience as easy and efficient as possible. Things will undoubtedly change as the new method is revised and improved. That's what testing is all about. TOY: NOPE I will not be participating in this OPEN BETA. First of all... like most SL Merchants, this is the first I ever heard of this beta grid/MO environment. Its becoming clear which merchants were in the Closed Beta... its the ones that are posting in this thread that this beta grid is old news and easy to get into and makes total sense. Most of the rest of us never heard of it... have no clue how to log into it.... how it works. I assume you were one of the Closed Beta Merchants. Anyway... as I have already explained... I am not a customer of LL, SL, and the MP to become one of LL's unpaid beta code testers. Nothing I would do in this test grid and to test DD would do anything to improve when LL developed or will deploy. BUT the fact that 99% of the MP Merchant will not participate in the DD Beta tests does not give LL ANY EXCUSE that they can shirk their responsibilities to provide proper, full and detailed communicated information on the DD and how it works and answer Merchant's questions and concerns. If you or LL or anyone else is trying to lay the Guilt Trip at my feet or any other Merchant's feet that "if you dont try DD in the Open Beta then you dont deserve to know more than the little confusing limited information LL is providing", yo uwill get the middle finger from me aimed at you or anyone that dares telling me that. IT IS LL's RESPONSIBILITY TO INFORM ALL THEIR CUSTOMER BASE HWN THEY PLAN TO MAKE CHANGES THAT WILL IMPACT THEIR CUSTOMERS. Darius' story is a good one. If LL finds the limitations are unproductive, they will have to change them. There is no reason for them to intentionally make things behave badly for us. It hurts their business and their bottom line. Happy merchants and a full marketplace are good for both us and them. They have every reason to want to make this succeed. TOY: Nice dreaming to think LL actually fixes its mistakes and makes improvements to poor code and poor service. Have you looked at how many LL JIRA's are dead and stale with a status "sometime in the future when hell freezes over" or how many of LL's MP missing functions from 2010 are still in the incomplete abandoned status that they were in when MP was deployed? When LL deploys DD - and once they get through about 1 or 2 months of bug fixes that cripple MP - they will move on to other pet projects of theirs.... they will not be improving code like Darrius did as a child. You and Darrius are both dreaming if you think LL will be improving poorly written code. History has said they wont. 

Ela Talaj wrote: I think you are somewhat misunderstanding and devaluing the word "game". Football is a game, baseball is a game, basketball is a game, no one's going to deny this. Olympic Games is what the name says: games. Yet they all are also multi-billion dollars businesses for those involved. In each one, the bottom line is the fans who are willing to watch. The NFL can do many things but it cannot force people to watch badly performing teams. Who is to blame there? The fans or the NFL or the team? Seems to me that some people in these forums behave like a player blaming the NFL every time he misses the ball... So I am very happy you used the example of the NFL as maybe by using your own example - I can show you how LL is screwing up over and over on its policies, actions, poor / immature business & IT development practice based on its misundertanding of who it is and what business it offers and its poor level of customer focus. I will agree with you actually in your NFL example... FOOTBALL is a GAME, the NFL is a business. But add one thing, an "ORGANIZED LEAGUE OF AMERICAN RULES FOOTBALL TEAMS" is the product/service they offer to the market. So lets try to explore and compare The NFL to LL. This is not a perfect match since they offer different types of products to the market but there should be a lot of commonalities since they both are some form of business offering a product with a target market and competitors. Company / Business Operation offering the Product to the Market: The NFL Linden Lab Inc (aka LL) Primary Product / Service Description offered to the Market: Entertainment: An organised league of franchised teams of amercan rules football Multi-Purpose MMO: Virtual World Simulator Massively Multiplayer Online Platform Host / Service Provider Primary Product Name in the Market: The NFL SecondLife Business Model / Structure: Franchised - NFL Football teams that make up the NFL League Centralized Corporate Operations Target End-Customer for the business (whos primarily putting money in the business's pockets): "Corp - Media" - those willing to pay the business for the rights to distribute the product to the target market "Corp - Advertising" - those willing to pay to use the product's branding in any way for advetising/promotion "Corp - Sponsorships/Affilations" - those willing to pay to extend the product's offerings in any way (Notice how the actual Fan of the NFL is not a primary target customer for the NFL - the Fan is actually a target customer of the NFL's franchise holders who as a part of their own revenue model make $ from selling seats at the statiums.. The Fan is part of the NFL's product target market. As such, for the NFL, the Fan is part of the PRODUCT used to reach its Target Customer and make them spend as much as possible to have access to this product. See the difference here) "Individual Consumer" Persons with varying interests of an Online experience of one or many of the following: Social Networking Social Interaction Love, Relations, Sexual Encounters, etc. Role Playing of various interests, cultures, fantasies, beliefs The Arts (many aspect of Art : photography, 3D, digitial, mixed media, poetry) Music (both professional and hobby / casual karaoke) Business Operations using the SL platform and customer base as a target market Education Social / Political Awareness and Expression (Notice here that the the target end customer for LL's SL product is not a person "playing a game". LL's Target customer is widely varied in the same manner as any ASP host, Utility provider, Service Provider would be. Saying that LL is business that provides a GAME to its target customer is like saying the Power company that runs LL's Data Center servers is in the Game business because they drive the power that runs the servers that offers the SL "GAME" to the market. Of course this is stupid since the Power company simply provide excellent power with good reliable service to countless customers of varying interest in the use of this power.) Target Market for the Service provided (who needs to be interested in the product on the market): "Individual Consumer" - Fans of the sport of american-rules football Same as LL's Target End-Customers (notice the big difference here between the NFL and LL - The NFL has a focus to make their product as desirable as possible on the market to the target customers by making sure its Target Market is as pleased as possible about the product it offers. The NFL knows intimately who is paying their bills and who is critical to making their product as desired as possible to the target customer. For LL, the Target Customer and Market are the same - not for the NFL. LL needs to know that the target customer that pays their bills is also the target market that they need to keep as happy as possible since they are one and the same. If LL provides poor customer service to the target market... they eventually look for other options then the product LL offers and LL then loses both the target market and target customer at the same time. This is what happened with ELF CLAN and countless others) Direct Competition & Positioning: > Other Football Leagues (College, CFL, UFL etc.) - NFL is by far the leader in this market space > Other Sport Leagues (NBA, NHL, MLB, etc.) - In the NorthAmerican Market - NFL is a big player but does have strong competition with MLB - luckily these leagues tend to stay out of each others seasons for the most part. > Other branding products / services competing for the Media, Advertising, Sponsorship Target Customer > OpenSims Grids (Inworlds, Avanation, etc.) - LL's SL is still the near monopoly leader in this marketspace but is watching its lead erode because of it lost attention to keeping its Target Market happy (poor customer service, lag, constant impacts to the inworld operation and interests of the target market) and keeping its product competitive to its competition for its Target Customers (i.e. cheaper services / better value proposition to SL) > Other Online MMO's MMOG's, Social Media platforms, Art communities, Music communities (WOW, SIMs, Facebook, eBay, SingSnap, etc.) - LL's competitors in this space are all those that want one or more of the several target customers that LL needs to make its money. As you see, since LL must cater to countless micro-groups of target customers - unlike the NFL), its must try to keep and grow and is losting its battle in a death of a thousand cuts to several competitors from several avenues) So I can go on comparing but I have described enough to now show how LL is screwing up because of its lack of understanding who its Target Market is and its Target Customer is. LL's biggest risks in my opinion are: LL built a business model whereby its Target Customer is not focused. i.e. the people paying LL's bills is so wide ranging and varied that even for the most mature and amazingly talented business management, this would be a steep challenge to provide a competitive product to such a wide variety of target customers. LL built a business model where the product they are offering needs to satisfy such a wide target market of customers that often there could be conflicts in satisfying one may damage another (i.e to make all the users of SL sims happy they could reduce the monthly price of mainlands but then they would tick off those that are in SL to make money on the land they buy and rent from LL). LL has a model where the Target customer and Target Market for their product are the same in addition to the two risks mentioned above. So a policy that might satisfy one faction of the target customer needs might and often does anger a need of a faction of the target market LL's youth as a company and immaturity as an organisation compounds the huge risks already existing in their business model they created. They have proven time and time again that they dont understand Customer Service. Their new service delivery/deployment skills are near non-existent. Their ability to effectively listen to customer demands is terrible. Their staff is still in a Startup culture with no corporate controls. Their staff are often willing to take advice only from those of their customer base that strokes their egos and not those that are critisizing their actions for legit reasons. Their ability to develop and execute on a long term Strategy has proven to be horrid. Since LL doesnt really understand what their product is and who their target customer & target market is, their strategy has been what ever the will of the next Tech Geek is in their staff or management LL's willingness to actually participate in the economy and compete with its own target markets within the virtual world economy. Selling/offering homes on LL public land. Establishing MP that is destroying all forms of inworld selling. Favoring / executing on partnering marketing relationships with select target market players that makes it non-competitive for others in the same space. etc. etc. etc. So Ela, some examples of how LL's mistakes screw themselve up? If LL were the NFL, here are some scenarios of how a good product can be damaged by a company that makes stupid decisions... The new LL/NFL decides on week #1 of the season that to ensure there are no empty seats at any games, they enforce a policy to all its franchise owners that Gate Prices for tickets will now be lower than season ticket prices. Wont that be better for attendance? Seems like a good idea. right?? The new LL/NFL will offer media rights to all broadcasters in the world that want to broadcast any NFL game for a set price per game televised. WOW isnt that a great idea? Think of all the extra TV revenue we could get now? There is a quickly growing market of illegal counterfit NFL Team Branded material flooding the market. The new LL/NFL decides... "well if the NFL Chargers jerseys are being made sold illegally that is the franchise's probem not ours. Let the franchises figure out a way to stop it.". Hmm sound similar to LL not protecting IP for merchant? The new LL/NFL decides that all game tickets will only be bought through an Amex Credit Card. the new LL/NFL will tolerate Players are not accountable in any way for their conduct on or off the field. We dont wanna lose good players because they might be a criminal... right? The new LL/NFL decides in mid season because there are not enough points being scored on a game and to make fans happier, effective immediately the rules will change to allow 6 downs per drive and field goals will now be worth 4 points. Its our rules - we can do what we want with the rules. I am sure the fans wont mind and even if they do... they will get over it. Afterall, we are the top league, where will our fans go if then dont like it? Anyways... as you can see, if the NFL was run like LL manages SL, you can see that the fault of the NFL business failing would be solely in the hands of the NFL/LL. You could not blame anyone else. This Ela... is where you and I fundamentally disagree. To me, you do not understand what LL is as a company and the level of responsibility LL has for their own success and their own demise. LL is failing because LL is causing it to fail.

Ela Talaj wrote: It sure does, Toy. This whole thread was started in reference to The Elf Clan and there you are, in the same thread claiming that SL is not a game. Just how many elves have you met lately in real life? Yup I said that. SL is NOT a game. It a virtual world platform supporting a very large and complex diverse virtual culture economic system. The Elf Clan of fantasy Role Players is culture in this virtual world. The fact that this culture of residents do not physically exist in RL makes it a game??? BTW... I am sure that if want to look in RL for a RP culture of people that dress up as elves and goblins and fairies that I could find them and participate. Ohh and Ela... this virtural culture of Elves supported and generated and was very active with the SL economic model that LL's Real Life bottom Line revenue was generated from. It is also a portion of the economic engine that has now joined a growing list of other failing / abandoned sims in SL that LL makes money from. So you still belive LL is running a GAME and that their interest in trying to support and grow the virtual world economy is only a game they have no interest in supporting? See Ela - you think just like a LL staffer. That is why LL is declining as a business.... to them its a game and treated like a game and has a CEO that came from and understands a business like a Game. BUT ITS NOT A GAME!

Paladin Pinion wrote: Josh Susanto wrote: I would, nonetheless, like an explicit confirmation of what the real limit of listed items per user account will be. Also, what if I prefer to just keep usig magic box technology? I think LL's response here was pretty good, it clarified a lot for me. There is no limit to the number of items you may sell. Each item you sell can have up to 200 objects in its folder. You can divide those into subfolders if you want, but regardless of subfolders, no more than 200 objects per listing. Any of those objects can be a box of a zillion other objects, so in reality there is no limit. If you do want to use subfolders, no more than 20 subfolders per item listing. If you want to use sub-sub folders, you can't nest them more than 4 levels deep. Regardless of how many nestings, subfolders, etc. you use, the total number of folders all together cannot exceed 20. That's per listing. There is no limit to the number of items you may list in the marketplace. I'm very pleased about the automatic folder creation for already-boxed items. That means all I have to do is drag my master copies into the out box and I'm done -- especially if LL can finish up the automatic marketplace linking. That'd be a nice touch. Then I wouldn't even have to change my existing listings, they'd just connect up automagically. TOY: only if you use the LL Viewer. This feature does not work on any other viewers from what I read. The other viewer makers need to adopt the new API for DD. Do you know any that have? TOY: It also was not clear how the items actuall interface with the listings in MP. LL didnt say it was automagically... they said they are still working on this and will provide details. Right now the process to link your current content to the current listing by means of DD is a manual process as Darrius described. As for magic boxes, the FAQ says you can continue to use them and there is no cutoff deadline. In fact, the beta grid has a place to pick up a magic box customized for the beta test so that you can see how they work alongside the new system. TOY: You said you read the FAQ but the FAQ didnt say that exactly. They said that there will be a cutoff of Magicboxes eventually as they are retired in stages. So... a Merchant CANNOT plan to stay on Magicboxes for ever. Only until LL retires them. Knowing LL it will be a quick retirement so some LL management can ge their bonus for finishing a project. I really need to find some time to go and test it. I'm actually kind of jazzed about this. The delivery problems people have had should be a thing of the past when this is done. One thing I do depend on is ANS. The FAQ says there will be a similar substitute. I'd like to see that in testing too, because I rely on it so much. I may have to keep my magic box around for my one product that needs ANS. TOY: Still a ton of questions not answered and that LL didnt even see in this thread that were clearly asked. I am shocked Paladin... honestly, did you really have that many delivery failures as a merchant of MP? How many a month? If you are like me and it was only a couple a month, would it really be worth all this hassle of transition to solve a few failures a month?