try as he might to rescuscitate the life-light in my eyes, rigor mortis had seized my corpse

I can't say "enjoy" these ten frightening author sites, but hey, they're offered up for your baffled eyes anyway.

Happy Birthday, David. They've even taken out a full-page newspaper ad. Movie promos are getting fun again.

Getting back to the Marketplace JIRA...SkydiverAnarta Fall had this to say:

I'm so glad I am only a small merchant, it took over 4hours to edit each individual item to correct all the errors that could be corrected. There was hardly a page without errors, different pics to description & different sellers to items in my store.

Which brings up an important, and annoying point: if it takes a small merchant four hours to edit each item, what kind of crazy-making headache has this created for larger merchants? Though honestly, I think we know already.

I'm not going to quote NaughtynNice Littlething's full message--hit the link if you want to know why--but it quite clearly indicates the level of frustration going on with many merchants.

And then, Julia Hathor weighed in. Now, there are merchants with more items--there are merchants with more sims--but considering Julia makes large, detailed, intricate landscaping items as well as homes, and that some of her sale items on the Marketplace are currently clocking in at six thousand Lindens--I'd be willing to say she's a voice the Lindens should heed:

I'm being affected by this too....haven't migrated my magic boxes, but I did put up 3 new direct delivery listings...didn't have a problem showing wrong pictures until then! Really, LL, this is ridiculous!

Indeed it is.

Both Stasey Oller, a maker of skins and makeup layers, and Sea Warcliffe, a maker of sculpts and textures, both said they'd filed support tickets. Here's to hoping that works out for them, though I doubt the Lindens will pay any more attention to actual support tickets, than they've been paying to the JIRA.

(Just as an aside--seriously, Stasey, that shape. WTF? Also, that's not a dress, that's an afterthought with leopard spots. The hell? There is no teen girl on the planet that looks like this.)

Czari Zenovka notes:

One step forward, two steps back? The original two borked listings in my MP store are now gone; however, three new ones have cropped up! They do not show in my edit/listings and when clicked upon default to the MP home page. Here we go again.

Pretty much. It seems as if whatever was done to "fix" Marketplace eased some of the original (dating from September 2010) issues, while causing all new ones (new corrupted listings, new un-editable content). Just perfect, guys.

Carmella Ruby noted this, but so did many, many other people:

I now have new borked items (4 or 5) that have shown up in the last couple of days (I check my store almost daily now) they are old items I no longer sell, the listings and product had been removed from my store so no editing them they take me to the Marketplace home page when clicked (same thing everyone is experiencing) they have my titles and someone else's picture.

That seems to be the issue--items that merchants haven't listed for months or years are suddenly showing up as new listings. Why would that happen?

Crystal Robespear:

I have just checked my [store] and now it is completely empty. Started by having other people's items in place of some of mine, had some of mine with other people's texture and prices. Doesn't look like the issues on marketplace are getting fixed anytime soon. What a shame so much has been messed up.

That happened to me, too.

Tiff Aristocrat:

Everything was pretty much fine until yesterday . . when i had a TON of my old products from xstreet that i chose not to relist on marketplace show up in my store. plus they have incorrect pix on them. i can distinguish them from good ones by the gray box on the bottom to the right of the reviews (on that same line)...when i click them they take me to the main marketplace home page and i cant fix becuase they dont show in my listings. My store is: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/52001. I should have 172 good listings but have 274 items in my store...102 items are BAD!!!! please get this fixed as soon as possible.

She's not kidding:

(from the shopping album)

I love the "CHEER UP Greeting Card Bear Balloon" picture, btw.

(from the shopping album)

Apparently "tattoos" equal "horses".

(from the shopping album)

I especially adore "Abstract 14" and "Abstract 114".

(from the shopping album)

More large horse tattoos! Also, "Erotic 59" makes me giggle.

Save it's no longer funny if you're the merchant whose listings are this corrupted.

Barziban Castaignede:

I have taken my store offline and it is still offline after about 3 weeks...all with the same issue as listed here.... I would really like to know when it will be sorted. Nothing appears to be happening which is really disappointing.

I'm sure there are things happening, but as usual, the Lindens do not see fit to enlighten the plebes.

Robin Sojourner:

[W]hether or not you've migrated seems to have nothing to do with whether or not you are having this issue. Things that you fix in your own store tend to stay fixed, and it's quite possible that things you fix in your store fix the problem with your things showing up in other people's stores. Lindens will have to fix the reviews, and I'm sure that they will as soon as they can. But in the meantime, we can fix a lot of this ourselves. We can certainly take the totally inappropriate pictures off our own items!

As helpful as this sounds, it's really not. While Direct Delivery, itself, has nothing to do with the remapping of Marketplace listings--because, when Direct Delivery arrived, it landed square in the middle of an existing code problem from September 2010--it's still showing a stunning lack of comprehension to say that fixed listings stay fixed. Because for many people, they aren't. Also, according to many merchants, if it's not their item in their stores, they can't touch it. And if it is one of their listings, and they delete it rather than edit it, if it has any borked information, it can persist as an undeletable "ghost" that won't go away, and from that point cannot be changed.

Zanara Zenovka in response:

Robin: These new ones that are old, resurrected listings can't be edited - they show in storefront but clicking takes you to MP front page, and they don't show in your MP inventory list.

Which, frankly, presents a whole new complication set to merchants already struggling to fix older bugs with their listings.

Stasey Oller adds:

Exactly Robin, as Zanara has stated, you can not edit things that are no longer in your magic box listings. These listings are old, resurrected "ghost" listings that are no longer available to me because I deleted them a very long time ago.

Yeah. So now there's two types of persistent "ghosted" listings: the ones with the wrong maker/wrong photo/wrong description, that once deleted, persist; and the "new" listings created with whatever fix the Lindens put in place in the Marketplace code, that--somehow--resurrected old listings long since deleted, and fixed them in place in uneditable form.

Great, just great.

Just past noon today, the 18th of Aprille, CommerceTeam Linden tossed up another comment:

Thanks for the updated information. Some of the changes you have seen are related to the search results being updated, but that should not show unlisted items. We will continue to investigate.

Oh, my gods, you're worse than useless.

ScaryJosh commented on the above:

The first thing that should be investigated, CTL, is how you somehow failed to predict the additional 15xxxxx bork, although I had absolutely no problem predicting it.

Wait wait wait wait--there's now corruption in the 15xxxx block of the database? WTF?

Kampu Oyen asks a relevant question:

And what happens when someone places an order?

Skydiver answers:

Kampu, 1/ you get complaining IM's because they have not received the item they ordered because it's not your product. 2/ They demand a refund of the $L they have spent even though you have not received it, because it's not your product. 3/ They demand that the item be delivered immediately, as they have waited long enough, even though it is not your product. 4/ you offer to send them one of your products to the same value, they don't want your product, just the one they ordered. 5/ You give them the money you have not received, as it's not your product they ordered, just to shut them up!

I'm wondering how many people are doing this, just because they can't take the constant complaining. If so, then these affected merchants are not only losing the Lindens they would have made if the Marketplace, y'know, actually WORKED, but also, losing money as "appeasement tax" to complaining customers--who bought an item with the wrong image, or the wrong maker's name, and now want that item and will accept nothing less.

Also, I've asked this before, but it begs to be asked again--where are all these Lindens going? Do they just hit CommerceTeam Linden's account and just sit there, because the listing and the maker's name don't match? If so, that's an amazing little dodge the Lindens have developed to be refinanced for all our hard work.

Finally, from Mister Acacia:

LL needs to answer to these upset customers.

They really, really do.

More when more responses come in.