Is there someone new doing the Marketplace delisting?

[Lasher Oh]

Today I have had a few of my more risqué items flagged as not being listed as adult. Even though I had and always do, take care to pixelate or  blank out the naughty bits that nature gives us all.

The flagging was thankfully a rare event and having been from time to time on the wrong end of the censors trigger finger I went to review the item and make the neccessary adjustments before relisting.

However this time around the items were not just flagged and delisted they have apparently been completely blocked.

Very Odd!

I've never had that before so I'm wondering if there is a newbie in the censor department who has hit the wrong button or is this a new policy?

^L^

[Pamela Galli]

Might ask a Linden who is an expert on what the MP team is up to. :-)

[Lasher Oh]

I've just had some helpful feedback and assistance from Dakota. I must say she's always on the ball, fair and great to deal with. Markplace team's best asset if you ask me.

^L^

[Pamela Galli]

---

Lasher Oh wrote:

I've just had some helpful feedback and assistance from Dakota. I must say she's always on the ball, fair and great to deal with. Markplace team's best asset if you ask me.

^L^

---

Yep, she's the one!

[Prokofy Neva]

I've had the same, on "spamming", for only having a 2nd copy of a gatcha. This is nasty. I know people who have doubles who aren't touched. I see them, and talk to them. I have had some up for months not realizing it -- only now am I savaged. I find things like these can be revenge for real or imagined criticism.

But if that's not the case, I still find these moves always overly aggressive and stupid, frankly.

LL gets a chunk of each sale and they should be helping people to make sales not aggressively blocking them on technicalities.

In the last month, I've had the following stupid things happen:

1. ALL of my gatchas -- hundreds -- dumped off en masse in a "technical glitch" that had no explanation and no fix. Had to put them all back on one by one, hours spent.

2. Ridiculously specious "violation" notices -- like a windmill that I had under "buildings" is cited for "not being a building". So what do I put it under guys?!

3. Yet another stupid thing -- I put a fence under "structural components" and THAT is cited as "not a structural component". This is just pure idiocy. It's wilful nastiness or cluelessness.

4. Now yesterday I had a dozen items dumped and I was cited for "spamming". I couldn't understand it!  What could be spamming?! Then I realized that I had inadvertently put doubles of some gatcha items. They are single, no-copy items, and two of them got posted in some cases. 

I could understand if the system automatically removed one of them, but to block the remaining one and ANY one for ever more? That's just crazy and unnecessary because this isn't "spamming" like putting out a gadzillion different colours, it's putting up a double of a gatcha. 

What should be done in such an instance -- if there has to be a policy that you cannot have doubles of a single-copy gatcha -- is that one is removed and the other remains. Surely they can write a script to do that? And once you are told this, you will be more careful. What's so NASTY about this is that you are not warned and given a second chance, but blocked FOREVER MORE from putting up that gatcha, never again to be able to put it on the MP.

Honestly, the MP has been a vexatious hell lately. They need to get the Lindens on this to straighten up and stop savaging merchants. Only a petition from the most visible, most high-selling merchants will accomplish this.

[Dakota Linden]

Hello Prokofy,

I am sorry that you have had technical issues with products getting unlisted by the system for apparently unknown reasons. 

Unfortunately, other than a couple of possible suggestions, those must all be investigated and resolved by the coders who can delve further into the listings from the deep sides of the site that Customer Support does not have access to. 

1, If the items that are getting unlisted en mas are created from using a Quick Fill template, edit the listings and review each of the language option tabs to ensure all of the Required information fields are filled out and contain the same information as the English language tab. 

The Marketplace indexes items nightly and if there is a mis-match in the required information on the listing it can result in the products being unlisted.

2. A Windmill is a structure, but please ensure that the listing wasn't placed into the top level Buildings and Other Structures category as listings in the Top Level/Root categories are considered being in an incorrect category as stated on the Marketplace Listing Guidelines. 

If there isn't a specific sub-category for the product, and in this case there is not, the listing should be placed into the Buildings and Other Structures - Other Structures sub-category.

3. Fences should be placed into the Building and Object Components » Structural Components » Fences and Railings sub category.  If the item was placed into the Building and Object Components » Structural Components only, and not into the Fences and Railings sub-category, then again, it would be considered being in an incorrect category as outlined on the Marketplace Listing Guidelines.

4. Duplicate product listings are considered Item Spam as outlined on the Marketplace Listing Guidelines. 

The Viewer Managed Marketplace system was created with the ability to have Stock Folders specifically for Limited Quantity resellers who have multiple copies of the same No Copy items so that they do not have to create new listings for each copy of the same item. The initial Listing is created and then all additional copies of the item are placed into the Listing folder as Stock folders.  

Not only does this cut down on time for sellers who no longer have to create a new listing for each copy of the same item, they can quickly and easily restock the item when it runs out by adding the new copies to the existing listing and reactivating the listing without having to stop and create a new listing each time for an item that they have previous had up and sold.

A really awesome ability that this function has instituted is for sellers to be able to offer their own "Random" items from the same listing.  Sellers can place multiple different items into the listing as Stock items and then create the listing as a Random Offering or Surprise Product, etc.  Each time the item is purchased, the buyer could end up with a random/surprise item. 

5. Duplicate listings removed.  All reports that are created when someone clicks on the Flag this item link on the listing is reviewed by a human Linden Lab employee.  Humans ARE fallibile and mistakes can happen. 

When a duplicate listing is reviewed, the oldest listing should remain and the newer listings are removed. This is determined by the Item Number on the listing.  The higher number is removed and the lower number remains.  

This does not always happen, but it is what we try to do.  

Unfortunately, this can mean that a listing for the copy that has already sold remains and the newer listings that have not sold are the ones that are removed.

Again, the Marketplace Listing Guidelines specifically state not to create duplicate listings, so it is the ultimate responsiblity of the seller to ensure that their products and listings comply with the policies so that sellers are not affected by the issues you have outlined in your post.

If you do have a listing that is blocked that you believe should not have been, a quick Support Case under Marketplace - Marketplace Listing Issues explaining the issue and asking for an additional review or help will allow us to assist the seller as quickly as possible.

Linden Lab is not here to punish sellers, but we must both (Linden Lab and Merchants) work together to try to keep the Marketplace a valuable resource for all users. 

Unfortunately, at times, it may seem like Linden Lab is against sellers, but sellers are what keeps the Marketplace going and helps keep Linden Lab in business.  

Our ultimate goal is to help sellers understand the policies and ensure that their items comply completely with those policies for the betterment of sellers, buyers, and Linden Lab, in that order.

Products are blocked under a very narrow set of circumstances with the 2 most common reasons being that the item has been unlisted at least once before and has been repeatedly reported for the same issue or the item is a duplicate product listing.

Linden Lab has heard the comments and feedback from sellers regarding the current system that is used and we are investigating ways to improve the system and communication with the sellers when issues like this do come up.