it'd be a shame to stop now that I've started to make really good mistakes

While I deleted this as a potential published comment on the last entry, I felt I had to share it. From "Anonymous", of course, comes this gem:

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Now, the bit I've struck through was an actual link, but two things strike me, inescapably, about this:

1. It's an automatically generated bit of fluff; and
2. whomever sent it out doesn't speak English, because
3. the person who DOES speak English is steeped in sarcasm like a rich broth.

On to other things. Unfortunately, the exhibit's long gone from Calgary now, but Caitlind r.c. Brown has her own page up about both the Cloud art installation in specific, and her art overall. The installation piece that drew me to track her down was called CLOUD, and consisted of six thousand incandescent lights--five thousand of which were burnt out--installed in an outdoor space at the beginning of September. Most of those--though not all--were attached to the inner section, but here's the fun thing about burnt-out lightbulbs: sometimes, if they're in proximity to working light bulbs, and everything is wired in circuit, they can flicker as the charge passes through the working bulbs.
There were also a series of pull cords descending from each bulb, so that attendees could stand under the glass cloud, and pull a cord, turning that light off or on, thereby lending interactivity to a fixed art piece.

So...there's been an update to the whole Marketplace debacle. Intriguingly, CommerceTeam Linden actually made a new forum post to discuss the situation, which is a refreshing shock. But, in short, this is what happened:

• The Lindens, pretty much unadvertised, have been giving away free listing enhancements to merchants hardest hit by the two-year-long malfunction of their Marketplace code.
• The Lindens developed a new fix for that section of the code--it was supposed to start the billing again, both on those accounts they'd given away free listing enhancements to, and to accounts that they hadn't.
• The fix--is anyone surprised by this at this point?--failed to work.
• Worse, the fix back-billed everyone who'd been getting free enhancements, for the entire length of time they'd been getting those enhancements.

Yeah. Let that sink in. This from CommerceTeam Linden:

To show our appreciation for your patience with this mix-up, we will be doing the following:

• Giving everyone free listing enhancement renewals for the period between August 7, 2012 and today. This means all listing enhancements billed during this time will be refunded before end of day today (October 4, 2012).
• Once the refunds have completed, we will begin billing those enhancements again.

But that's not where this stopped. Let's turn to the comments.

From Pamela Galli:

I appreciate the gesture; however, although I check this forum daily, I was unaware of the free enhancements you mentioned. But nevermind because I don't need free enhancements; what I need is to be able to stop renewing enhancements that I no longer want but am not able to discontinue because they are stuck in "Charging, Cannot Edit". Looks to me like I have been charged several hundred dollars for enhancements I do not want -- figuring out exactly how much will take hours

From Bee Caudron:

Same here Pamela, many things that i dont want to list anymore are there as charging cannot edit, and i keep being charged, today i received a huge refund, and now they started to take all back,this is a huge mess

From Magnet Homewood:

I was refunded 999L and 5 hours later billed 999L, what a senseless and complete waste of resources - but if it makes them feel better because they 'did something for us' then what the hell ... I am not sure I feel any more appreciated and patient at all.

From Medhue Simoni:

LL, something is messed up again. I just got charged 4 more times for listings I already got charged for. And, I still haven't recieved the refund.

From Teradawn Serenity:

Um first of all I have been getting billed for my listings. Second I have several I cannot change because it has said billing for months. Third you refunded me for 3 listings today then billed me for 7, all of which were not due. All the listings I have had I have paid for, and the billing today does not even show me what you supposedly billed me for (which listings) and I STILL have the listings that are showing charging that I want to cancel and Can't and I have not seen them shown in the advertising for months either. So exactly what did you fix or give us? The only thing I can see is that you just took a great deal of lindens from me and still have NOT corrected the issues.

From Layla Fiertze:

First, thank you for the offer to give us credits for at least some of our ad's. I know many people are quick to point out negative in here (myself included) so I wanted to say thanks.

That said, this is obviously still a huge mess. I have been credited, charged, told I would receive more credits than I got etc. etc. I do appreciate the offer, and I hope people can be understanding through some difficulties- however please understand that this is NOT play money for many of us. This is at least some portion, or in some cases our entire, real world income. We work very hard and pay a lot of money for ad's on top of the commissions on each sale. I do hope this issue will be corrected very, very soon.

From pravda Core:

1. Today refunds had been completed and LL begun billing my active (every 30 days) enhancements.
2. Since today (10/4/2012) is the starting billing date, it is very plain and simple that LAST CHARGED AT should be (10/4/2012) and NEXT CHARGED AT should be (11/3/2012) however my Subscription page in marketplace says different dates and states that my NEXT CHARGED AT will be on October 11, 21, 29 of 2012.
3. So how was this really fixed?

From Pamela Galli again:

I got charged for 6 things, just got charged for the same ones on the 28th, in addition to 12 others. I do not want some of these at all. And I did not get any refund although I have filed a ticket.

What is going on? I want someone to do something so I am not forced to pay for all these ads I do not want.

From Sera Lok:

Who was aware that you were "giving away" enhancements, and where was this communicated? I myself filed a few tickets wanting to be assured that I would not be charged for the enhancements that I ALREADY CANCELLED yet were still running. (I did not receive this assurance, so I still have to constantly check to be sure I am not being billed). Based on the posts in this thread it's obvious there are a lot of merchants that are still trying to cancel their ads and yet cannot. Why is it taking so long to fix this? I honestly don't understand. What I do understand is that there is a lot of peoples' $L toyed with and wasted with little to no communication or visible effort on LL's part to rectify the situation.

From Tazzie Tuque:

This "Gesture" is nice for the few who benefited from it; but what I still want to know and do not understand is how there has been a JIRA for over 2 years regarding "Stuck" listing enhancements that absolutely no one has addressed to anyone's satisfaction at all. There are pages and pages of merchants who have had this issue; I myself ended up with half of my listings in "stuck" format. Absolutely NO ONE FROM LL has said anything about when this might get fixed!! Meanwhile I pulled all what was left of my active listing enhancements out. It simply is not worth the frustration of listing something and a month later having it "stuck" so you can't do anything with it at all, your item is not in rotation anymore and you are in limbo for ever I had two enhancements that were stuck since 2010!! These little band aids for a few folks are nice I guess but does litle for those of us who have been putting up with this stuck listing issue for years with NO help or even concern from LL that I can see.

And finally, from Dartagnan Shepherd:

When your pricing and monetization exceed your perceived product value, you decline.

LL's monetization and pricing directly correlate to its decline.

When you're unable to properly implement your monetization mechanics, in this case the Marketplaces most basic functions, you lose trust and the ability to monetize, further contributing to your decline. (Can't handle basic advertising billing or implement features desired by customers).

Solution, on your hiring page LL, remove the hiring ad for a currency and monetization expert and put hiring ads up for those with hefty experience in online sales and basic commerce. Virtual goods experience is less important than basic commerce.

You are underskilled and over monetized in this case. The combination is erosion. Please convince us that you're not just milking us (us being the product being monetized more than the goods we produce), Not that we'd necessarily believe it, but we'd end up with a shopping cart that say .... worked best for the customers that you're monetizing and didn't make you look quite so inept.

What do all of these comments have in common? These are all merchants on Marketplace paying for enhancements. Many (if not most) of these merchants also have in-world stores, which means they also either pay rental fees to an estate agency, or own land themselves.

In short: these are paying customers that the Lindens are ignoring. While it's far from the first time, it's continued evidence that the Lindens are either incapable, or truly that disinterested, in proper communication with their clients. Nor do they seem especially interested in fixing what's been broken--for more than two years.