Toysoldier Thor

Pearl, It not just you. None of my items are anything other than GENERAL, none of them have unlisted, yet my sales this week are down about 30% for the week. My weekly sales normally fluctuate very little from week to week - its generally like clockwork for me... Sometime on Sat or Sun I liquidate my $L account to near $0l. Through the week my sales will bring my account to about the magic threshold value of $27,000 (just over $100US) - which it hits that trigger about Sat or Sun and then I liquidate back to $0L. I do this almost every week. Some weeks it might take an additional day - other weeks it might make it a day earlier. As of this posting my current account is at $18,000. I am about $9k down from normal weekly volumes this week - about 30% The only change in SL has been the market upgrade. Now, maybe the Japan international events could be a major factor since I am sure a portion of the virtual community is from Japan or intimately involved in the horrid disasters that have fallen on Japan. So, this drop in sales that we are all seeing could be partly a Japan factor - but I was seeing slow sales even before the event started.

Not sure if I read your chart calculations right but I based all my Searches and Views ratio to 1 sale (i.e for every 1 sale, I would have x number of recorded searches and y number of recorded views from the SLM reports). For me, my top seller by far (4.5 times more sales than my 2nd biggest seller) is my FREEBY Demo product. So its price is "0". The prince number of "1" meant under 100L. The price number of "9" meant around 900L. Product Searches Views Sales Price Category 1 170 6 1 0 Landscaping 2 987 24 1 9 Landscaping 3 856 20 1 9 Landscaping 4 908 16 1 9 Landscaping 5 313 7 1 1 Art I get tons of search result hits per sale as you can see.

and today - our thrid all forums SPAM POSTING in the past 2 weeks of the new forums. I guess there is nothing LL can do to stop these spams - they are powerless. New SL Forum accounts should not be able to post until they are 15 or 30 days old as I am thinking this SPAMMING user is a freshly created account. Maybe they should work with REDZONE find out the person/spammer behind all these daily spamfests.

an imworld merchant friend just told me that this week was the worst selling week she had too. but maybe it was just a bad shopping week mood for SL residents.

thank you very much. To date I did not get this survey.

That is what boggles my mind that with all the evidence of repeated and flagrant TOS violations by the product owner attempting to keep it in the SL market - that the product and moreso the owner have not been removed from SL. LL has removed SL residents for TOS violations that have been significantly smaller is scale then the impact of RZ. SL Residents have been removed from SL with far less chance - i.e. 1 violation.... and yet in this situation... LL seems afraid to take decisive actions. Not sure why

my sales for this week are down about 40% from normal weekly sales volume. Not sure why the reason - if its changes to the SLM or just an anomaly. I did some SLM search tests and even with this KEYWORDs fields search - it seems the search is still heavily weighted by item sales popularity since only my top landscape sculpty pack shows up consistently on the top 1 or 2 pages. Even though all my other packs have almost identical base keywords - they never show up on the top pages. This explains why my top item continues to sell at a pace 2 x that of all my other packs. My other packs would likely sell much better - like my main pack does if they were fairly visible on the front pages like my big seller is. STILL..... LL - FIX SEARCH! You cannot sort by BEST SELLER for keyword search or relevance search.

I just clicked on the link you posted that you said you got a 500 error on and I had no troubles getting to it. Maybe the site is congested with everyone reading the news about zFire's hacked customer DC.

I know... I feel bad for them but again... if you establish ANY form of formal relationship with a hacker (even as an unwitting customer) - you are taking the risks on how you will be treated. Remember - zfire was sending very clear signals on his defiance in the face of heat placed upon him - even making posts threatening how he was going to maintain operations if LL tried to stop him. That to me was a major warning sign of who we all were dealing with. So sadly he first got huge business and $ from the SL community of frustrated / angry Merchants & Club Owners that had very little protection tools from LL and felt that addressing their own interests at the cost of their own customers privacy was worth signing up with the snake oil that RZ promised them. Then he gained more business and $ from more customers that simply loved the idea of having the power to be able to spy (know anonymous secrets) about fellow SL residents. And finally zFire got more business from several of the original victims of his service that all his first phases of customers willingly collected for him - and they subscribed in desperation to get a glimpse of that harvested database of SL residents to see where they fit in. And now... the question has to be asked - seeing what information his DB actually has maintained on even his own customers (i.e. failed passwords)... was the original intent all along for zfire to use the RZ tool as a LURE that fed off the intense frustrations and fears of naive merchants and club owners in an ultimate goal to actually collect their more private and intimate data? i.e. my IP address and how he used its annoying but not dangerous for my RL identity (just potentially violates my SL anonymity), but to get an actual SL ACCOUNT with a Password.... now we are talking REAL Privacy Data Goldmine for any hacking community member. Just a thought to ponder.

Well I guess one can categorize this late breaking news / on Redzone under the label of "SWEET JUSTICE" http://alphavilleherald.com/2011/03/zf-redzone-security-breached-sl-passwords-compromised.html So basically, hackers have hacked the SL hacker and what they found inside will have all of zFire's Customer Base scrambling in fear to change all their passwords related to the account ID they exposed to zFire as one of his customers. His DB was cracked and the passowrds of his customer base was weak and easy to expose. Not only that - but what was revealed for all to see was that failed passwords were being collected... there are only a few reasons one would be doing that. I have little sympathy for any of the 1000's of RZ customers that were so loyal to zFire and RZ and all the legit and moral reasons for secretly collecting our private information. When you sign up and work in harmony with a Hacker - you get all the moralities of a hacker. But of course, I dont see why all of RZ's customers would be worried that their account and passwords and failed passwords were all being kept, and poorly protected, and used by zFire for what ever reasons he saw fit. Afterall, this was the position they have all stood by on why it was ok for them to conspire secretly with zFire to collect and harvest and use all our private information.... RIGHT? So if you are or have been a custom of Redzone or logged into his website, I would be scrambling REAL QUICK now to change all your passwords for all your systems where you used the same User ID as you gave to him freely.

So for those of us that didnt get the survery that supposedly LL sent out, anyone post a copy of it or summarize what the questions were about?

I will tell you after my big Art show event on Sunday evening. All my guests will TP onto the 1st floor of a 7 floor Art Gallery. I will see how many of my arriving guests will end up at the top patio level. Maybe because its an art gallery and each of my round rooms is small enough (only 300sq. meters) that the ramp will be their natural progression for guests to follow. Plus I have an artwork at the top of the 2-flight ramp that will entice the guests to continue up. But maybe whats good for an Art Gallery design is not good for a general Store design. IM me if u wanna see the gallery design. Coming during the art show on sunday might not be a good idea as it is looking like its going to be very crowded unless u want to watch how the guests travel.

I am glad some of you are seeing some of the initial concerns I have about LL's MAGICBOX'less new world. LL and so many other can all get so wrapped up in their historical pains of current systems (like magicboxes and like the evils of copybotters) that they run too fast to come up with solutions that initially appear to be the MAGIC BULLET (pardon the pun) that will solve all their woes. Without a deepdive analysis of the solution design based against a full set of CASE CASE scenarios as well as the environment that you are applying the technology too, and if you are only using your sheltered internal development team to validate the solution (I say sheltered because most LL developers have never been well established Merchants - or even Merchants at all), and a very small team of hand-picked merchants that may know how to do business on SLM but have no strong understanding of systems designs... it seems we will all be heading toward another "out of the frying pan and into the fire" scenatio. Why did I say magicboxes & copybotters? - Well this AIS has been devised as a response by LL to address the complaints about MagicBoxes... - RedZone has crept out of the crevasses of the "hacking world" to address the frustrations of CopyBotting... Both ideas looked like such perfect solutions to address the problem they were solving. We now all have seen how NON PERFECT that redzone has ended up - and if RZ came into the market with more transparency for the larger population to assess - the experts would have told the zfire's and zfire's naive customerbase how bad and non effective and dangerous the solution was/is. The subject matter experts and the larger merchant community are starting to get peeks (hearing through non formal channels) how this new non-magicbox solution might work and we are already seeing potential risks. I sure see the risks. The fear I have is that - like all of LL's past development / deployments of "good ideas" - by the time we formally hear about the details of the solution from LL, we will only be a few weeks away from LL's commited deployment. We all know full well (like we did when Brooke dropped the SLM MATURITY FILTER solution bombshell on us in January that LL NEVER BACKS OUT OF A BAD IDEA at that stage of the game. With AIS, It will be exactly what Brooke told us with the SLM Maturity Filters, paraphrasing: "ooops we made a bunch of mistakes and maybe this was not the greatest idea but we will not be backing out now so deal with it - we will just tweek it a bit for you all" THAT IS WHY I AM TRYING TO BRING UP THIS CONCERN NOW - even though I still have not heard any formal details about this solution from LL... if I dont get people thinknig about this now - it will be too late for all of us if we hear about it formally from LL - if its not too late already since I understand that Merchants are already in closed beta with LL on this solution.

WOOH OOO Hoooo - the community Forums getting hit again with SPAMMER attack - not this forum yet.... but lets wait and see

Nothing to shoot you for. There are actually leget purposes to copy contents with all permissions in place from one account to another - copybotting viewers are just viewers used for illegal purposes. BUT that is a good idea to think ot - there must be legit versions of this kind of viewer / application.

Madelie... I didnt know either except when Trilo mentioned he was in the beta testing this AIS system that LL has already developed and is testing. so I am not sure if the new system can point to a specific avatar account even if another avatar account is the SLM store owner. I would hope that these requirements have been thought of by the LL Team. But since the LL has not openly asked anyone what requirements this new direct sales delivery from the merchant's inventory should have - there is no way to feed these requirements in to LL unless you are in this beta (which I also dont know how ppl like Trilo were asked to be in the beta). I would hope the new AIS has the ability to set the name of the SL Account that the SLM service will transfer inventory from. If so, it wont be too difficult to create a new SLM MERCHANT Account for me to replace the function and protection that the MAGICBOX currently offers me. As was already mentioned - the only tough part will be transfer of SLM items for sale to this new AVATAR and make sure the permissions will be set right for transfer to my customers.

that being said - I see the topics in the private roundtable forum - those can can see whats inside - you are not really missing anything. All the commerce postings and conversations related to commerce are happening out here in the open marketplace forums. JUST THE WAY IT SHOULD BE.

Well I know all the promises that this should be simple and a no brainer and and and... BUT I would rather maintain my healthy level of mistrust of LL's development processes and application development - for obvious reasons (history). It is this healthy skeptical self protection I have with LL's application / systems development / operations AND even out of the blue policy changes that I have maintained a scheduled rules based model of liquidating my $Linden account to the $100L whenever my account reach $27,000L ( ~ $100US) and cash out into paypal. I do this so that in the unforseen event that LL screws up or a virus or hacker inside the SL systems/grid happens to penetrate what is VALUED to my SL Avatar, the damage would be minimal. So will it be the case for this situation. I personally want isolation and demarcation of my SL AVATAR/ACCOUNT from my SL business transactions with others in an automated way. So.... knowning that AIS will eventually become mandatory and Magic Boxes will be shut down - I am not going to sit and wait until LL tells us all "ohh ok in the next 2 weeks we will be shutting down magicboxes". I will be working on a plan to create a new TOYSOLDIER-MERCHANT Avatar which I will use as my new MAGICBOX. Anything I have on SLM for sale - the AIS can target this business only inventory - no other inventory will be in this new avatar. In this way, anything that potentially happens to the AIS can only have an impact at the scope of my SLM items - like my magic box. Argus, I dont think thinking ahead of LL doing backroom work and simply waiting for LL to tell us with only weeks of a window to transation is considered SPINNING OUR WHEELS. Sadly not all of us havbe a full understanding of what Brooke's team is doing with AIS. Those in the Beta do know all the details and likely are under informed non disclosure to know whats coming our way. I am not one of them that is in the know and I am not going to sit around waiting. I need to protect my interests.

So I know from LL comments that an alternative to MagicBoxes is quietly being tested somewhere in the beta sites of SL (at least I hopes its being done in the beta grid). And eventually the concept of direct merchant inventory transfer/delivery of SLM sold items will eventually go live. No clue when... BUT... For us Merchants that - for a few reasons - would rather stay with the MAGICBOX delivery solution and not migrate over to the new LL Direct Invesotry Delivery system, will we have the option of maintaining out MAGICBOXES? I know serveral of my fellow Merchants seem to constantly complain that Magicboxes are so terrible and unreliable and cant wait for the new alternative. But, personally, MagicBoxes have not been a problem for me at all. Yes there is the rare occassion when a delivery of a SLM sold item is slow but this is not often for me nor have 99.9% of my customers ever complained about it. In fact I have has almost as many inworld basic prim vendor issues as I have had magicbox issues. So for me - Magicboxes work great. If they work great for me - I do not want to take on the substantially increased risk of having LL's SLM Sold Item Delivery applications now performing transaction DIRECTLY from my avatar's core inventory (i.e. pulling out - transfering out items in my avatar's personal inventory) and sending it to my customer. WHY? because history has shown that LL does not have a good track record of proper Software development - followed up by having an even less mature software deployment and quality assurance testing methodolgy. So... even if initially at a very small scope and with very limited situations, the new Direct Inventory Transfer application appears to work, the chances are good that in the larger deployment - things will break. AND... even if somehow LL pulls off a miracle and the direct delivery solution V1 rolls out without a hitch, any future tampering of this code by LL could break this solution. The reason I am VERY CONCERNED about LL making mistakes here (which again histry says there are good odds) is that their mistakes will DIRECTLY IMPACT MY CORE INVENTORY. Scary example: "Ooops - we had a bug in our delivery application and it ended up transfering in the avatar's inventory to a customer or it exposed/delivered something to the customer that was not intended". With the Magicbox solution - AS MUCH AS MANY MERCHANTS HATE IT - at least the scope / scale of the impact of a mistake by the LL delivery system is only with what is in my Magicbox. There is a clear layer of seperation between the SLM applications and my Avatar's general and most critical/personal inventory. Its like my Credit Card being hacked/compromised versus my Bank Card being compromised. If someone hacks my CC - the damage is limited to the credit limit of the CC and I have 30 days to rectify the issue before I might be forced to actually pay. With a Bank Card, the damge is done directly to my primary source / store of funds. Its immediate and dangerous damage! So... I would like to know that LL will give us Merchants that would rather not trust LL's new method, the ability to stay on the Magicbox model.

Once again Darrius.... you nailed it. That would have been my response. So many ppl use this argument of "whats the big deal - you are probed, scanned, spied upon, monitored all the time without explicit consent". If I am brave enough and dumb enough or dont give too hoots to upload all my personal information into FACEBOOK - then basically I have provided very clear intent that I am offering my private personal information for the service to do with what they want (well within limits - as so many Facebook users have absolutely no clue how their personal information is harvested and used in ways they dont even realize). BUT... as Darrius said, these SL scanning tools are doing it by exploiting a security weakness and in the shadows of secrecy. The RZ USERS / CUSTOMERS prove how immoral and underhanded it is when they beg and plead and hope that it doesnt get out that they have deployed it. One Club/Mall owner told me she is not hiding anything and is proud to be running RZ - so I asked her.... WHERE IS YOUR TP POINT SIGN telling all those that arrive "this is a REDZONE sim and your avatar will be scanned for its IP by an external individual/service to determine your ALT list"? No response. Mr. Humble said it right in an interview - a major reason SL is popular is because of a RL person's ability to maintain his/her anonimity in the SL virtual world. Well... RZ slaps Rod Humble right in the face and puts a bullet in Rod's major Success Factor. Why do you think that LL is taking such completely RARE actions as actually listening to its customer base this time and taking strong (if not 100% effective) actions to shut down RZ? Not because they are listening SL Residents - they rarely have in the past. They are doing it because RZ flies completely in the Face of a very powerful statement made by Rod Humble... ANONYMITY IS CRITICAL TO SL's SUCCESS !

Well I hsve seen clear evidence that the Karaoke club that I have frequented for almost 2 years and was like my second home in SL - I have stopped going to when I discovered the owner of this karaoke club had been secretly scanning all of his guests for some time. I hoped that after confronting him about this issue and explaining to him how utterly useless REDZONE is in effectively stopping true copybotters - and for his case GRIEFERS. In fact in the weeks previous - his club had been attacked frequently - the club that he swore up and down that RZ was protecting. We ended up having a heated argument about it. His attitude and blind "zfire told me the truth - all else are lies" loyalty to Redzone is no different that what I have realized from many other RZ customers that will defend and hold onto RZ at all costs until its torn out of their cold dead hands. These customers would rather anger and lose their valued guests and customers then give up their RZ. Sadly, when LL announced that RZ had to be taken down and I told this club owner the news and asked him if he was going to now shut down his RZ, he became furious and flung accusations at me that I was a cry-baby he questions my personality and morals and accused me of being a copybotter if I was so strongly against RZ. I had enough. I left a club that LOVED and that I was one of his strongest promters - bringing a lot of his guest to. I left and I have told any of my good SL friends at this club why I left. Every one of them were shocked that this owner had been secretly scanning them without informing them. They have all stopped going there too and they are telling their fellow karaoke singers. So... has this club owner lost his loyal guests? I have watch his club's daily guests from the map. It is almost always nearly empty now since. So.... I have to say that once a store/club owner is detected to be running RZ - and as more SL residents are learning what RZ and similar privacy violating gadgets are... it has to be reduce traffic. These owners / merchants maybe stopping the rare stupid copybotter... they also may be blocking the innocent that they naively think are evil AVI's but they are likely now losing more business than the griefer or copybotter was taking from them.

I think the content in the SPAM has HTML code in as well - when I copied the content to paste it here as a quote - it came back as "invalid html code" when I initially tried to post my posting. I had to remove the Spammers content to allow my posting to post. Could just be an anomoly but I would stay out of those SPAM threds if I were anyone. I have memories of last spring when the old forums were hit by a Hacker within the authenticated session and several people's SL account passwords were openly compromised and exposed - including mine! So yesterrday's spammer fest on this new community forums makes me real nervous.

LOL... maybe one more all-groups spam and this bogus spamming account can be improved to ADVISOR or even HELPER! (is the role of LINDEN possible?) Look at all the participation this person has done on all the threds/groups! I can't even imagine aspiring to this level of community forums participation. Not enough hours in the day - or no AutoSpam Script to help me. What a nice intro to the new forums

WOW... The new community forums have only bee up for a few days and the first massive SPAM SLAM of the entire forum groups has successfully be executed. So when will the Linden Moderators delete all these threads and ban the clealry TOS violating forum users - which btw is likely a bogus alt account. HOT!LindenDollars【10K=＄23.99】FREE1k,【EingeeCom】【Authorized&Legal

ROFL!! WOW Darius - I could not have described the borked SLM Search any better..... plus it made me laugh