trouble is a friend

So, I'm planning some back-end fill-ins for old content (none of it hugely relevant at this point, just drafts that are aging in queue) behind this one, but there's been a ton of things happening of late, and I've been hermitting, so...right. Time to get to it.

First up: Mr. Ciaran Laval noticed that LL changed their land bot allowances, from "allowed" to "not". As he points out, five years ago this would have been both relevant and helpful, but as things stand now...what, exactly, is the point? Unless--as he also points out--the Lab's planning to also reorganize tier in some fashion.

Sort of in the same vein--that of unsettling changes, at least--there was a thread on SL Universe querying if the Lab had a policy on requesting tax information. Which wouldn't be that big a deal, save for the way they handled it--or rather, aggressively and ridiculously mishandled it. First was the utter lack of communication, followed by wrong information given out by Lab employees who apparently weren't informed of the correct procedures, and--to my mind most significant--an utter refusal to change their policies when illegally employed.

Now, the lack of contact we are unfortunately accustomed to, along with the spreading of misinformation by people who should have better accesses to correct info than those not in the rank and file. But what started out as a reasonable conversation about terminology and correct interpretation began to slowly go south. The first hints of trouble were seen in Malkavyn Eldritch's post of January 18th:

First sale of the year (over 600.00 under 20,000.00) we now have received the support ticket and it is our first. (We wondered why the deposit hadn't processed in over a week)

[...] LL has failed (as usual) to provide relevant information to the residents in a timely manner. This shouldn't be a shock to anyone.

It really shouldn't, and that might have been the end of it, just an unfortunate delay, but...Kat Fetisov was next, on the 20th:

I got one of these the other day when I tried to cash out - for the record I'm nowhere near 200 withdrawals or $20,000 a year.

Then Charli a day later:

I have received the email as well. Who is Tommy Linden really? This is a matter of real life information and to be requesting such information without even providing their real name is just ridiculous.

Kat Fetisov received resolution...sort of...maybe?...on the same day:

I've had a reply from the Lab about this. It's left me a little puzzled.

They said that I don't need an ITIN or an EIN, just my UK National Insurance number (that's the UK's tax reference code for an individual; the equivalent of a US SSN). This is good news because it makes everything nice and simple but it leaves me puzzled because every other US based business platform (yeah, please forgive the pretentiousness of that term - you know what I mean; Amazon direct publishing, all the other e-book publishers, stock image sites etc) that asks users to file a W8 variant require an ITIN or EIN or they'll withhold US taxes from your payouts.

I hope that LL are in proper compliance because what seemed a big problem earlier today has now vanished. I can't help but feel that acquiring an EIN hasn't been a wasted effort since I can't know how things will change in future. The IRS is coming down harder and harder on this kind of commerce, so having an EIN in reserve gives me some reassurance I'll be able to deal with any stricter requirements that may come along later.

And then things got really worrying on the 24th. This was Desmond Shang, chiming in with his responses from the Lab:

I've made more than pocket change with my SL estate, and as such, I've always routed it through my S Corporation.

Why? Because you can't have, say, greater than 50,000 a year come into your personal bank account without paying appropriate taxes. I put in work to build my SL business, and that means wage taxes. Which I have paid. Just try telling the IRS that you had money rain out of the sky for no reason and see what happens ~ that's most certainly a bad, bad idea.

So I get a W9 request thursday. It's the sort of thing I get all the time in the course of other business, before SL even accepted residents. Except they doctored up the form horribly, and locked it on Individual / Sole Proprietor, and SSN through this weird electronic form overlay. I use an S Corporation with an EIN.

No big deal except they say if I don't fill out THAT form, locked to the wrong tax information fields ~ my account goes on hold in 30 days.

Let me restate some things from this, because I feel they're vaguely important.

• For the purposes of estate management, Des has filed as an S corporation.
• As he is an employee of this corporation (he's also the owner, which is another reason to incorporate; it makes things very neat and structured for purposes of taxation and filing), he pays himself wages from this estate-based income.
• As such, it's fairly standard to fill out incorporated deduction forms (which he's done, both as employee and owner), as well as standard for companies and incorporated entities to interact with him as another incorporated entity.
• Linden Lab did not do this. In fact, they doctored the form before sending it to restrict his ability to fill it out properly; they insisted that he fill it out as a private citizen, not an incorporated entity (or even employee of same).
• Legally, Des cannot fill out this form.
• If Des does not fill out this form, his account goes on hold, and they withhold wages until he properly fills it out--which, again, he cannot do as provided by the Lab.

This is insane. Why would any company mess with their paying clients this way? And "Because they're the Lab" is no longer a sufficient answer.

And let's not forget the next bit of Des' section of the thread:

I'm very upset with:

1) the incompetency of trying to force me to fill out a W9 incorrectly,

2) the fact I can't get anyone on the phone for something that should be a 5 minute thing

3) the fact that they are threatening to put my account on hold over it.

Yeah. Let me restate that bit, too, because it's important: A major estate owner, paying operational capital directly to Linden Lab, cannot get anyone on the phone to answer him. And if they're doing it to Des, they're doing it to everyone else. So forget regular users of SL trying to get information--when the people essentially providing working capital to the company can't get answers, we're in very deep. Drowning, not waving time.

While Des (and presumably other businesses and estate owners) were trying to figure out what waqs going on, on the 29th Karlin James developed an all-new, easily resolved problem:

I started to process my credit on January 13th and asked for USD1200 to be sent to my PayPal account. This is only the 3rd time I have withdrawn money from SL in 4 years. After 6 business days had passed I gave billing a call and asked if there were any delays in making payments. I was told that I would be paid that day as Wednesdays were when LL do their mass pay outs.

Well it didn't arrive in my account that day or the day after. But I did receive a case number and a request to fill out a form. It was the W8 for me because I am from the UK. I did that immediately and sent a photo of my passport and of my bank statement showing my address. That was a week ago.

[...] Just to add to that, I called a couple more times this week to ask to speak to a supervisor. I called during LL office hours but both times I was told there was no supervisor available and then got this recorded message "This call has ended, please hang up".

Joy.

Passages bolded for emphasis above; and because James hadn't reached either internally stated limit, it's wholly unknown why the Lab decided to dick them around like this.

So now we're near the end of the month. New program, or least the Lab's new compliance with a program which may have gone into play (at least in the US) in 2010; still not sure on that score. Bumpy couple of weeks, but everything worked out, right? Well...

Here's eku Zhong on the 29th:

I cash out pretty regularly (monthly).. last week when cashout should have gone through I got the W8-BEN form and filled in and sent in photo ID last Friday.
Still waiting.. ticket is still IN PROGRESS.

Evil String on the 29th:

I got my ticket on friday. Everything filled up in less than 1 hour ( I had everything prepared), documentation uploaded. Still nothing.

Desmond Shang, same day:

Still waiting here; they have enough info to ID me seven ways to Sunday by now. I don't care if they are understaffed on the effort. Staff up. It's not like they couldn't see this coming for at least a decade in advance.

Now, very late on the 29th, both Zhong and String had their payment issues resolved; Charli and Nan still hadn't been contacted; Min Barzane, on the 31st, meanwhile, still hadn't heard anything:

Monday 20th requested cashout to paypall...friday 24th got suport request for aditional info ,tax stuff(ID,online form,the works)and normaly they stopped my cashout ... filled and sent ewerything inside 1 hr...today is 31st and still waiting for LL to move their lazy asses and let my money go!

And a few hours after both Des and Mm. Barzane posted that, they were mysteriously resolved. Someone reading along at the Lab?

And on February 4th, Eboni Khan added two more cents to the discussion:

My 1099-K arrived today from Linden Research. Not one single USD number on it matches my Paypal 1099-K. Hello double reporting!

Which I find highly suspicious on the part of the Lab. Shouldn't the numbers match? And there are still folks waiting for funds to be received, and all of this right at the turn of the month, when many of us are also asked to pay rent. The hell, Linden Lab. The friggin' hell, what is going on?

And does it have anything to do with Rod Humble leaving the Lab?

coffee laced intoxicating on her lips

I have had a very busy week behind the screen, most of which is not germane to these writings. However, some interesting links have cropped up that I think are worth sharing.

First up: apparently there are genetic sequencing hobbyists. Now, while that story is fascinating, and I fully acknowledge that the father, in that case, started out being a clinical geneticist, there's still a great wonder for me in that we have advanced medical technology so far that individuals can make these kinds of leaps. To be sure, he collaborated with other geneticists, and did a substantial amount of work in genetic labs; nevertheless, we have mapped out enough of the human genome that we can now identify separate mutations within familial structures.

Similar research in Australia--though done by more official researchers and labs--discovered an ability to rewire the HIV virus. If this technique proves viable, then doctors could, in theory, cure AIDS and other immunodeficiencies; perhaps so far as curing cancer. It's a long way to go from this discovery to official human trials, but the initial work looks very promising indeed.

Viruses are not the only interesting research going on in the HIV research circles, though. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have come up with an alternately creepy, and cool, way to "vaccinate" against HIV...by using modified bee venom. Now, me personally, the first thing that comes to mind is the number of people who have bee venom allergies. But barring that, the theories they're operating from seem logical. The nanoparticulate melittin is the protein being isolated. While it seems to me to be a spyrochete, and would thus be almost infinitely able to drill through cells of the proper size, it may simply be a small protein able to infiltrate other cells through the corkscrew method, which also creates holes in those cells. Either way, it has potential to cure many diseases, from HIV infection all the way over to Lyme disease. I'm very intrigued with where this research will go.

Another class action lawsuit has been settled against the Lindens. But--at least as far as I'm able to ascertain--it looks like they didn't lose that much, and it seems like the settlement was reached out of court, so did not result in binding decisions on the rights of virtual landholders. Which is rather sad--with so many virtual spaces like Second Life, and in larger MMO games (I'm thinking primarily of gold farmers in WoW, and of gains and losses in EVE Online), there is a fair amount of real money that's being tossed around. I'd really like a solid legal understanding of what that buys for individuals, and how binding those purchases are.

Another bit from NWN interested me, and led me from Iris Ophelia's rant (which really wasn't, based on Botgirl Questi's entry (which still wasn't a rant) on a new (at least to me) artistic endeavor called Single Frame Stories.

In short, the blog lists a theme. It is then our job to take one single photograph that we feel best applies to the theme. From their "About" page:

Each Saturday we'll offer a new word or phrase for a prompt. Participants will each create a Single Frame Story based on the prompt of the week, consisting of a single image with up to 140 optional characters of text. The image can be a photo, screen shot, drawing or painting. The text can be integrated into the image or used as a caption or title.

We don't have to include text in the image; if we're more called to use text (AKA typography)over words, we can do that too--with a 140-character limit. Personally, having been on Twitter as long as I have been now, I'm comfortable with the 140-character limitation, but even if you're not, it's still a structure to put in place to outline your thoughts.

There is an odd freedom in working within set limitations--as NaNoWriMo shows us year after year, it can be quite the creative spur to our energies to work within external limits. It forces us not only to think outside our internal self-limitations, but can as well inspire us to redefine what that theme means to us when examined from all sides.

At the Kennedy Space Center, Atlantis, the last Space Shuttle to fly before the shuttles were retired, is now open for public view, where it will remain as a tribute to this chapter of our space program. Things have been so stagnant for space exploration in the last few decades, so I am hoping the slow-rising enthusiasm I see among my friends is also carried outside our social groups. Space travel brings with it many scientific, educational, and inspirational benefits, and we need to find more ways to get out there. The dream of life in space is not just a search for aliens that may or may not exist; it is the sure knowledge that when we look up from this small planet, we know there are beings working, beyond the horizon, and that they are part of us.

And I can't help feeling very sad at this NWN story about ex-Lindens gathering at SL10B. I truly think the Lab did all of their ex-Lindens a great disservice when the cuts came down. They went from a company many of us wanted to interact with. with Lindens we felt listened to us and heeded our concerns, to a company who was actively resentful of customer interaction, who rarely if ever bothered to listen to customer concerns. This was not a good shift, regardless of how much in resources they saved at the time.

now hush, love, hush. here's your gown. there's the bed; lanterns down.

[21:30] Cxxxx Nxxxxxxx: Someone is *breaking* a spanker at Doomed Ship.
[21:30] Cxxxx Nxxxxxxx: gotta love people. :D
[21:30] Emilly Orr: How...does one break a spanker?
[21:30] Cxxxx Nxxxxxxx: By setting it to spank -way- too many times.
[21:30] Emilly Orr facepalms
[21:31] Cxxxx Nxxxxxxx: I can't honestly bring myself to believe that they're using it as part of some perverse RP.
[21:32] Emilly Orr: Honestly, is there just a higher percentage of idiots on the Doomed ship than anywhere else? Because I swear, I know some of the people who hang out there, and they all SEEM to have functional brains.
[21:32] Cxxxx Nxxxxxxx: XD
[21:33] Cxxxx Nxxxxxxx: I think the sex tentacles help bring'em out.
[21:33] Cxxxx Nxxxxxxx: Even though they removed that whole portion of the ship with the most of them.
[21:33] Emilly Orr: Yeah, exactly. You'd think that would DROP the percentage of dumb, not increase it.

Questions for the ages. Perhaps we lowly mortals are not truly meant to know.

And it's official, people--Oskar Linden has left the Lab.

And if you need ideas for next Hallows--or your next costume party--you could always go greyscale for an evening. (Amusingly, I've been collecting greyscale skins in SL, so I could conceivably do this in-world, too.)

And news of the latest invasion force infiltrating the grid: GIANT MEN IN LEDERHOSEN. Run! Hide the children!

And now for the last bit of eye-centricity: the last set of the Cassiopeia eyes from Rue.

(from the Avatars album; the Woodland set from the Cassiopeia eyes from Rue)

The "Dryad" eyes remind me of ivy shadows in dim and mossy groves, as the harvest moon (in this case, in triplicate) rises overhead.

(from the Avatars album; the Woodland set from the Cassiopeia eyes from Rue)

The "Forest" eyes continue this conceit, replacing the ivy with multilimbed, multibarked trees by a green rill.

(from the Avatars album; the Woodland set from the Cassiopeia eyes from Rue)

The "Hunter" eyes are a strong and sure Loden green, with just a hint of lantern gold.

(from the Avatars album; the Woodland set from the Cassiopeia eyes from Rue)

The "Meadow" eyes fascinate me. If I'm looking to my left, they're rose, silver and gold will-o-the-wisps, drifting through a green meadow just lightly touched with autumn frost. But if I'm looking to the right, it's all thick moss on green stones dappled by moonlight and wine.

(from the Avatars album; the Woodland set from the Cassiopeia eyes from Rue)

The "Pear" eyes don't so much remind me of pears, per se, as they do of traditional French pear brandy.

(from the Avatars album; the Woodland set from the Cassiopeia eyes from Rue)

And finally, the "Swamp eyes", which are perfectly reminiscent of peat bogs, deep swamps, with little glowing traceries of swamp gas and eldritch glow. All of these are from the Woodland set.

(And the final style notations: The hair you don't see is from Ploom. Outfit's multilayered, but the fishnets are from Insolence, the boots are from Show Me On the Doll (back when they existed), the high-waist shorts are from 1-800-Bettie's, and the cropped jacket is from Somnia and was acquired during one of Hellbop's cart sales. And the forehead jewels are from the Arachnos skin set at Fallen Gods [it came with spider back-arms and the Arachnos skin as well, and it's no longer available].)

I'm awake, I survived, I was hurt, thought I'd die

This next bit's...odd.

I would state up front that this is complete hearsay. But it was hearsay from a direction I hadn't even heard rumors about before, and though I am dubious about the veracity of the source, I'm spending some time seeing if there's any way to verify what he said.

This also largely will not be quoting, for a few reasons:

• I didn't catch the initial statement that stunned me so much;
• I was in the midst of fighting enemies, because we're trying to push someone through a couple of arcs that she won't have the ability to get, if she ever goes off VIP status (which was supposed to happen two days ago);
• If this is at at provable at some point, I want to offer as much anonymity as I can, so there's no potential backlash on him;
• and he can't spell, to the point that if someone put a gun to his head, he couldn't spell clearly and legibly.

All that being said...this was the basic gist that started things off (according to this particular source):

The developers at Paragon Studios have been secretly skimming money from NCSoft in pursuit of their own, independent game, which they then planned to launch without NCSoft's help. NCSoft caught them at this and fired the studio, having given them multiple warnings for financial losses in the past. Paragon Studios is now in the process of trying to cover this secret, alternate game up, and blame NCSoft for what was a necessary, perfectly understandable decision, and additionally hopes to launch this second secret game as a new "alternative" that's been worked on since the mass layoffs and the slow death of City of Heroes.

Now, let me state clearly and concretely: I do not believe this is true, for more than one reason. And neither did many other players online at the time. Also, from the start, he was being a jerk. He refused to provide sources, accused us all of being mentally slow, and, in fact, seemed to consider that the lack of any proof of this allegation was, in itself, proof.

[Looking For Group] [GD]: u gotta look for yourself
[Looking For Group] [GD]: just like just did
[Looking For Group] Black Starbeam: Ok, so the lack of evidence is evidence?
[Looking For Group] [GD]: just like i just did
[Looking For Group] Black Starbeam: That's good to know.
[Looking For Group] [GD]: well later my topic is over go on with your cries

Which is deeply baffling if we try to think that through: from the first mention, to the outcry, to the consummate flounce.

I went looking for information to back any of this up. The first thing I found were .PDF files of the first and second quarter total NCSoft earnings. There does seem to be a significant dip in overall earnings between the first quarter, and the second quarter:

(from the City of Heroes album)

As we've discovered before this point, sales of City of Heroes--as well as total North American game sales overall--are a scant fraction of NCSoft's total net earnings. In the first quarter, North American sales was holding at about 5%, and sales specifically of City of Heroes was clocking in at about 2%.

This we knew.

(from the City of Heroes album)

Then we compare. Second quarter sales by region dropped to 4% throughout North America, though City of Heroes held its 2% total sales figures through the second quarter. What's more interesting to me, though, are the sales figures for other games.

Aion, for instance, dropped from nearly half of all game sales (42% quoted) to 28% in the second quarter. Guild Wars held at a scant 1% of total profits, with no anticipated increases, and sales in North America specifically dropped from 5% to 4%. At the same time, sales in Korea (where NCSoft is based), rose--though they only rose by a scant 1%.

Me being me (I really don't think things through sometimes), I contacted him to ask for the verification source. He...disagreed with me, let's put it that way. Things escalated slightly until this:

[Tell] →{Me}: Link or it means NOTHING.
[Tell] [GD]: wasnt trying to make it mean anything
[Tell] [GD]: all im sayin is look deeper
[Tell] →{Me}: I have been. Since this happened I have been. I've been reading EVERYTHING, from virtually any source, and NOTHING--and I do mean that, NOTHING--even remotely resembling this has come to light in all the searching I've been doing.
[Tell] →{Me}: And you won't provide any sort of substantive proof, so you look suspect.
[Tell] [GD]: no i dont
[Tell] [GD]: i said look deeper
[Tell] [GD]: go read for ur self
[Tell] [GD]: i did my home work so every1 else should too
[Tell] →{Me}: I have been! I am! I've been reading the financial reports, the game forums, the independent coverage, the blog coverage. I've been reading the Titan network posts. What "super-sekrit" only-you-know-about source are you TALKING about?
[Tell] [GD]: yeap i cant give out the info where i got it just know i talk to ppl that used to work with the dev's but if so just leave it alone

So, first we have this absolutely unsupported tripe on this supposedly "discovered" embezzlement scheme that pushed NCSoft to fire Paragon Studios as a team--rather than, oh, say, HAVING THEM ALL ARRESTED because embezzlement is a CRIME worldwide--and then I'm told that he can't tell me where he got this info because he "talks to ppl".

What an utter load of nonsense.

So, I left it there and went back to slaying vast swathes of enemies in bizarre little bases, but apparently, he just couldn't let it go:

[Tell] [GD]: bro i wasnt tryin to get ppl to beileve me ima just say this to u tho
[Tell] [GD]: if u working for me
[Tell] [GD]: and u making money
[Tell] [GD]: then y the hell would i stopu from making more money?
[Tell] [GD]: even if i got another new system to make money why not make more money from both!!!!
[Tell] [GD]: im not tryin to make u or anybody else believe me i dont have to show u proof like ncsoft or paragon studio have to show u
[Tell] [GD]: and 1 other thing if u look at the books like u said u did this game pulled in more revenue than GW1 now what make u think ncsoft think that GW2 gonna be make more than this game!?

Well, first, because Guild Wars 2 just launched. Second, because Guild Wars 2 is a box game--the box sales are important, and, because of the new launch, those figures aren't accounted for in second quarter. They'll likely show up in the third quarter figures.

Also, the biggest income with any game box set is two-fold--new sales of the box, itself, and later digital updates to content. It's not the same price comparison at all to an MMO with a monthly subscription fee.

I do agree that the Guild Wars original sales and profits are currently sinking, and sinking fast. But if they're trying to get folks to switch, it behooves NCSoft to keep Guild Wars active--at least, for the next quarter--because people will play that, see ads for the new game, and potentially jump ship. When they see the rise in overall profits from Guild Wars 2, they'll likely axe the original.

In between talking with friends and loves (on voice) and killing things in the game, my replies grew noncommittal. I won't lie. At this point I just wanted him to wander on.

But again, he tenaciously hung on to the tells between us for...well, no discernable reason other than that spurious need to somehow be "right":

[Tell] [GD]: like i said i can tell u a story but hell they showed me and yes they do talk to a person that works for paragon studio
[Tell] [GD]: but i mean hell u being a ass about it
[Tell] [GD]: come at me like a friend wanting to know
[Tell] [GD]: not some smart ass
[Tell] →{Me}: Dude, asking for proof--which you then dismissed as unnecessary--is far from 'ass' behavior.
[Tell] [GD]: well i'll put it in big words for u
[Tell] [GD]: COME AT ME AS A BELIEVER AND I'LL SHOW U PROFF

How can asking for any form of verification equate to behaving like a "smart ass"? Even more importantly, how am I supposed to believe this idiot implicitly if he has no form of verifiable proof, not even the "I read it here" type?

[Tell] →{Me}: That's more capslock words, but okay, how about this?
[Tell] [GD]: no
[Tell] [GD]: u good
[Tell] [GD]: leave it alone
[Tell] [GD]: no use going back and forth
[Tell] [GD]: bye bye
[Tell] →{Me}: I have been trying to figure out two things: 1, why did NCSoft fire everyone with no warning? And 2, is this the start of NCSoft gutting all their North American assets?

Because those have always been my big questions in this. Is NCSoft pulling out of North America entirely and concentrating solely on Korean and Asian sales? It could make sense from a financial perspective, and they wouldn't be the first game company to do that. But is it actually what's going on in this case?

And the answer to the first question is something I devoutly hope I get, at some point, too. Why fire everyone with no warning? What made the company do that to a game studio in their employ?

[Tell] [GD]: oh im sorry
[Tell] [GD]: thought u was gonna be a smart ass at me again
[Tell] →{Me}: What you've been saying is clean out of the blue, and nothing I've found out
[Tell] [GD]: yeah its not so much para were actually stealing from nc, more that they mismannaged there monies to such a degree that, realistically, they shoulda either cut down dev on new game so it balanced their books to keep nc happy, or
[Tell] [GD]: get rid of the 80 odd staff....for fucks sake CoH doesnt need that many

So now the story's shifted to being not one of embezzlement and theft, to one of resource mismanagement? And still no link. Plus, the "getting rid of" the 80 person staff--that wasn't a cutback, you moron. As far as I know, that was the total staff at the time of firing.

(from the City of Heroes album; sixty-seven of the Paragon Studios staffers)

Let's put this into perspective. In 2010, Linden Lab laid off about 35% of their total staff. This was largely viewed in a negative light, but the general perception--even among LL detractors--was that this was a sacrifice move to shore up failing assets and retain sustainability.

This still left the Lab with over two hundred people for customer support, coding, developing, advertising, sales and management.

Here's where things get confusing, though. This eighty-employee figure has been bandied about extensively in discussion; even I've picked it up. But the Wiki page for the company says they only have forty-six employees, and in the photograph from Paragon Studio's main page above, I count sixty-seven people.

So where's the eighty person staff figure coming from? I couldn't tell you. There could have been interns in the mix, new hires, temporary workers...or, as Miss Neome says, it could simply have been someone took the actual 67-person photograph of the staff and figured that looked to be about eighty folks.

And splitting this into two sections, because it's getting long.

and the night goes by so very slow (part II)

Picking up where we left off:

[8:19:15 PM] Fxxxxx Axxxx: And I'm definitely noticing some slight anger at users for constantly bashing him for doing what he could to get it out at *all*. [8:19:25 PM] Emilly Orr: We need people who are Lindens ON THE GROUND as opposed to in the ivory tower
[8:19:26 PM] Axxxxxxxx Rxxxxx: most of them don't KNOW that, though
[8:19:37 PM] Axxxxxxxx Rxxxxx: I know that NOW but didn't before reading that thread
[8:19:45 PM] Fxxxxx Axxxx: "Some other Lindens spend hours and hours in SL a week, outside of their job. They have a grip. We knew clothes would be a hit, but if I'd kept everything we needed to fix/build, none of the project would have been released.

I've said it before, and for some reason got mocked, but I am sorry I couldn't get it done, and so were the hardworking folks on the projects"
[8:19:46 PM] Axxxxxxxx Rxxxxx: they don't communicate, how are we supposed to know?

And that remains the single biggest failure of Linden Lab with SL: the lack of effective communication. As I've said before, they have a lot of social media accounts at this point; a blog; the entirety of the Linden forums; a web site; and the log-in screen on each game. Any of these avenues could be used to foster better communication. Few of them ever are.

[8:20:40 PM] Fxxxxx Axxxx: I imagine he's not too happy with the Lindens who just 'work' there.

Honestly, I'd be frustrated too. Someone has to come up with the taste profiles for dog food, sure, but someone also has to test it to see if they match the intent. Which gives us two options: either Linden Lab needs to stop making dog food, or they need to hire more end-result testers. Either way, they're limping along as they are.

[8:21:05 PM] Fxxxxx Axxxx: But that definitely comes across as, "I tried, I did, but you aren't all helping by saying how stupid and ignorant and horrible I am."
[8:21:09 PM] Axxxxxxxx Rxxxxx: I can *totally* understand that sentiment
[8:22:46 PM] Fxxxxx Axxxx: I also get Char is basically saying, "Look, stop blaming us, we open these Beta tests to everyone. It's not *our* fault the fucking clothing designers decided to NOT DO SHIT."
[8:23:10 PM] Axxxxxxxx Rxxxxx: And yea, totally get THAT too - if they were involved, they should have spoken up
[8:25:13 PM] Fxxxxx Axxxx I do feel he should have just removed rigging until the system could be properly used, but I also know how many people would have been pissed.

As Charlar noted in an earlier comment, yes. But it's also worth noting to bring up Tali Rosca's comments concerning mesh, the deformer, and the Mesh Around hunt I've been covering on this blog. She has a definite point, and it's one I wish the Lindens would have listened to. Because even my friends in the fashion community didn't hear about the call for standardized shapes. So what did the Lindens get to work with? 'Based on a random grouping of 500 avatars'--which 500 avatars? And I can guarantee there were no nonhumans in the group, no Tinies, no furs--that it was 500 twig-thin females that were picked "at random". Frankly, that sounds targeted, and not "random" in the least.

[8:26:15 PM] Fxxxxx Axxxx: No one listens to the Lindens, and while some of that is on previous experience, a lot of it is still just that people don't listen well, and they listen less when they get into a mob.

Which is always going to be the case. From the blog again, and Pussycat Catnap:

A -LOT- of bad alphas contribute to this feeling of alphas as cop-outs.

There are plenty of outfits in my collection now where from certain angles, if I use their alpha, I see empty space.

Things like a gap between a skirt and my body, making me look like a genie floating above the skirt, or gaps around the neckline of an outfit – so that in a camera angle from above there is space between what’s left of my chest and the outfit.

• - This can happen when using a standard size shape for a standard sized outfit; which just points to shoddy alpha-maps. Builders need to constrain alpha maps back to the spots that will poke through, and not to the entire space under the outfit.
• - Which in turns requires they have a known quantity to work with in terms of the shape underneath so that they can predict what will pop through.

While I agree with this, what's really going on with this perception? What she's saying, point by point:

• Designers are frequently crap for designing alpha layers. I saw this over, and OVER and over again for the Mesh Around hunt.
• The default position of erasing the entire section of body underneath any mesh item strikes me as somewhat lazy, to be honest. But also, is this what mesh creators are being told, that they MUST block out the entire body to make a mesh pair of pants, say? I'm flashing back to shoe designers, and how easy it is to distinguish between people who know exactly what the alpha layer should hide, and people who have no clue. I think the same thing's going on for mesh designers. Now granted, I've used alpha effects to get some fun alterations on occasion--things like blocking out my legs in a cybernetic skirt so I look like I'm floating, or erasing the back of my head if I'm wearing some headgear that ends far before the back of my head would. But those are novelty uses for alpha layers.
• Designers should use better alpha layer construction, but then we're back to--are designers being taught what makes a good alpha layer?

These are all points to ponder.

From the blog, and Maeve's comment:

Badly designed alphas don’t help customer confidence at all… something I wish all merchants would do is to make their alpha masks full mod/copy perms (not sure if trans is needed?) – so that residents who are capable can at least tweak an alpha for themselves in a graphics program. Surely this is no danger to merchants' IP in that regard (alpha mask only), but just a gesture of goodwill towards customers.

Quite possibly merchants aren’t aware of this need or potential.

And yah, a GOOD alpha mask allows for a "moat" between the edge of the mesh clothing and where the alpha itself shows on the AV – to avoid that awful invisible fringe effect.

This was something that perpetually frustrated me on the Mesh Around hunt, which means I'm going to be frustrated in the larger realm of mesh items, as well: bad alphas that were no-modify. While it's perfectly possible to mock out my own alpha layers, given a general idea of what's needed--I shouldn't have to just to wear clothes. All alpha layers should be modifiable for mesh items.

And Charlar in reply:

Your points about alpha layers are very true – it reminds me that we were working on some "best practices" docs with some residents just before I got axed. To be more specific, THEY were working on them and we were going to review and publish them on the wiki. Sadly I don’t remember the volunteers doing the work and can’t look them up now to see. I still think that would be really helpful in raising the overall bar for quality. Better artists/designers will still shine, but having the general state of mesh clothing improved will help with customer confidence.

While that's worth reading--which is why I quoted it here--there's a far more important statement dropped like a stone in the middle of this paragraph:

it reminds me that we were working on some "best practices" docs with some residents just before I got axed.

So--and testing understanding, here--the Linden who was responsible for mesh coming to the grid at all, who was stymied by the lack of Linden assistance and who felt (and likely still feels) that mesh was rushed out too early--was fired from the company.

And my biggest question is, why?

Finally, the last comment on that entry from Nalates herself:

The Lindens do listen. The problem is residents often do not understand a subject/issue. The residents often present insane ideas, fail to understand the costs (labor, money, PR) involved in what they ask for, and do more drama than rational thought. So, the Lindens don’t give us a lot of credibility for very good reasons. In many ways they are like parents we disagree with. They are going to do what they think is best all around.

They do read blogs, the forums, JIRA reports, and talk with various residents, both as Lindens and their secret Alts. They don’t read all of them and not everyday the ones they do read. They seldom respond to blogs and forum posts because of the drama. There are Linden haters that take every opportunity to spin anything a Linden says in the worst way. That tends to restrict conversation from Lindens.

In this case Oz Linden is taking in a lot of feedback on the Deformer. While I put this poll up in the hope of shifting his opinion, it may do more to shift my opinion. Mesh Clothes do seem to be fitting better than I thought.

I'd vastly disagree on that last point, but I think she's right on the rest. The Lindens read blogs, read the forums, interact in world (those few who actually log in, I mean)--and sure, it wouldn't be in their best interests to comment on most blog/forum entries unless there's a desire for direct feedback, but that doesn't mean improving their own communications--as a developing body--means nothing, either. The "official" channels are fairly useless for two big reasons:

• very few residents read those official channels;
• and Lindens post things in less than accessible places, where the bulk of residents who do read those official channels won't see.

Neither of these are especially good at fostering the impression that the Lindens actually listen to comments and complaints at all.

there was a wave over the house, there was fear choked in my mouth

Another day, another spam offer, but the one sent originally to this entry made an offer of "Gratis video nedladdning".

And that's when my brain fell out. What, pray tell, is "nedladdning"? Wikipedia to the rescue: "Nedladdning" is Swedish for "downloading". So...services that offer free video downloads? Um, yay?

Except I don't recognize any of the services mentioned, I don't trust them, and I'm not going to help a spammer spam people on my blog. Pfffft.

Another came in tagged to this entry (which, weirdly, has received more spam comments over the course of its existence than any other single entry, hands down) in Dutch:

Yahoo achieved without time and currently the entire "cost is still very perfect inevitably accompanies the proxy fight," the exact company said. Yet each of our board determined that the majority of other nominees were more qualified than Mr. Loeb on a huge director, Yahoo said. [Knockoff Belgian Louis Vuitton url redacted]

EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said he was confident the ministers to resolve their disputes on delivering more bailout funding. Speaking yesterday and appear in Saariselkae, Finland, Rehn said officials "will be used for this specific firewalls" [Knockoff Louis Vuitton scarf url redacted]

If they also earthquake tsunami that nuclear power plant accident, the occupants by using their homes as the danger to exist aeaeae (so so you have to leave the greatest places these products used to live). The use of on the market to live safely, we have clean and handle the key behind radioactive contamination, which is probably almost certainly a formidable task well. [Knockoff Belgian Louis Vuitton url redacted]

My.

So, if I'm parsing this one out correctly:

• Yahoo recently had a proxy fight on its hands, but won the right to continue operating under the company name, with the current management/ownership intact.
• It was determined by the ruling board, however, that there were several other candidates who were more capable than Dan Loeb to pile onto a huge director. (The huge director apparently is unnamed.)
• Buy our knockoff Vuitton stuph.
• Olli Rehn seems fairly convinced that more bailout funds for the European Union are forthcoming. This will help him in his bid to stack sub-ministers into a massive shield wall around Finland.
• Buy our knockoff Vuitton stuph.
• Japanese homes are dangerous after tsunamis, earthquakes, and nuclear plant meltdowns. (Yeah, that's a given.)
• To continue keeping the market open requires radioactive keys.
• Unfortunately, even after being cleaned, radioactive keys become a time sink.
• Buy our knockoff Vuitton stuph.

Did I get it right? Translation is always tricky.

Back to the Marketplace JIRA. This from Josh Susanto again:

Since I know I'm going to get banned anyway (as if the Lindens have nothing better to do right now than go around banning people) I might as well just post my own explanation here and you can decide for yourselves.

If you would all just start standing up and demanding decisive action instead of cowering in fear of bannings and suspensions while the Lindens continue to shuck and jive you out of countless sums of hard-earned money, they would have to do something to straighten out their own contractual end of things. YOU are their bread and butter, and it's time that they started acting like they know it.

While he's not necessarily wrong, I was more interested in the Tribes link. I went and looked. It's essentially an expansion of his "BORKED ITEM" Marketplace listing, but there's a few other cogent points. In his own words:

1. System failures appearing to be magic box problems immediately following the deployment of mesh to the main grid at the beginning of August 2011 were timed to disrupt a rush in sales of mesh items. Linden maintains that the problem was not related to mesh code, but has been less clear about the timing being mere coincidence. That the magic boxes continued to work just fine when attached to an avatar standing on Linden land suggests no code problem with the magic boxes themselves.
2. Further experimentation revealed that the problem was also not lag, as boxes also worked well in various heavily lagged sims, when worn as an avatar attachment. The prevailing pattern of observable information was that sims where boxes were advertised as rezzed all seems to have been borked, specifically.
3. After considering what this incident has in common with the incidents that followed, my current understanding is that an escalation of apparent box malfunction was manufactured in order to produce support for the Direct Delivery program; the next thing on the list after mesh deployment; thus the weird "coincidental" immediacy of apparent box malfunction after mesh deployment.
4. The idea that these malfunctions can be explained by an increase in sales after the mesh release is not supported by sales figures. In fact there was no increase in sales due to the mesh release; there was a decrease in sales due to the malfunction.
5. The attempted sneak deployment, I've already mentioned was not only unannounced, but merchants had been deliberately led not to expect it as I have already shown here. The rest of the DD deployments were announced as not to follow as originally planned, but gift orders for the annual birthday peak on 16 September were nonetheless disrupted, and there was some continued impact on merchant utility of listing enhancements, on merchant confidence in listing enhancements, and on the market more generally.
6. Subsequent code deployments also appear to be calculated to produce the maximum loss of merchant utility per merchant dollar invested by essentially the same means as the chronology targeting of the 14xxxxx borked cluster.
7. The Next Big Toy that Rodvik and Brooke will announce will be something to facilitate in-world commerce, and it will work flawlessly from Day 1.

So...Rodvik, of course, we all know, but who's Brooke Linden? Casual surfing before parting for egg dyeing (it's Ostara soon, of course we do that) revealed she's currently managing, or co-managing, the Marketplace as a whole...at least, I think. So hard to tell.

But point by point from the above:

1. If it's accurate that there's no coding problem specifically with the Magic Boxes themselves, can there be a code correlation between the implementation of mesh code on the grid and early Direct Delivery testing? I don't want to go too far into tin-foil hat territory, here, but could the code from one project negatively impact the code from another project on the live grid?
2. Was the Magic Box system always designed to be used as a specific avatar attachment? If so, what would happen when that avatar wasn't logged into the grid? Were all merchants who reported failures merchants who rezzed their boxes on their land, not wore them as attachments on their person? (Personally, that one can't be true, it just can't. It's ludicrous to believe the Lindens would design a system where the code only worked if worn on the avatar directly.)
3. The accusation that the Lindens manufactured this problem directly, with intent, is also on the ludicrous side; I'm no fan of Linden management, but even I think that's hardly possible.
4. Are there any statistics that have been released on actual sales figures, pre- and post-mesh introduction?
5. Why is there such a focus on September 16th, 2011? Am I missing something? Was there a release of sales figures for that specific day of which I'm unaware?
6. Where does he get this information from? How can any code be designed to produce the maximum possible loss of income, per merchant, when not all merchants have items in the affected 14xxxx cluster?
7. In the end, what Susanto seems to be expecting is for the Lindens--specifically in the form of Brooke Linden or Rodvik Linden--to announce that the Marketplace was a failed concept, and they're abandoning it. Concurrently, he also believes that Brooke and Rodvik Linden are working on a super-secret tool that will make in-world sales richer, deeper, and more profitable than Marketplace sales. Supposedly this will also cause a land rush and put more tier fees in Linden pockets.

Personally, I don't think any of these are accurate, in the least, and a lot of them rely on information I just can't find. But we'll see what happens.

you ruin everything, oh, you better go home

So today, roughly two and a half hours ago from the writing of this post, CommerceTeam Linden sent out an official response to the Marketplace snafu (what I've been calling in my head "the final nail in SL's coffin"). Some of the highlights:

• according to the Lindens, only a limited number of users are affected
• most of the problem is due to delivery issues, and they're forcing those deliveries, so really, that's not a problem
• if you're using a third party viewer, that seems to be your problem
• they've come up with an involved, and mostly uselessly unworkable, "solution" for people using Mac and Linux computers to get Direct Delivery to work
• once you delete something, it's gone from your Marketplace inventory, so yay, no problems there [pfffff]
• if you delete remapped product listings one by one, and don't bulk delete listings, you'll have no more problems [PFFFF]
• no one has to migrate their Magic Boxes to Direct Delivery until the first of June (which gives people two more whole weeks to get with the program

Or, in the words of a friend:

[7:07:29 PM] Hxxx Rxxxxx: Translation: "We've screwed this pooch, pretty damn badly, so uh, whups. We're going to need a couple of months to make it sturdy enough to not piss off more than 50% of our user base."
[7:09:46 PM] Emilly Orr: Yeah.

I've figured out why this entire thing is bugging me so badly. It's sort of a fifty-fifty issue; one side is clearly "last straw" oriented--there have been so many failures and so much outright bungling on the part of the Lindens to be effective at all--in a virtual world they own--that there's simply nothing left in me that wants to extend the benefit of the doubt.

But the other half is pure, undiluted outrage of the "How dare they?!?" variety. And that comes from personal experience. I know so many people in SL who are disabled, for whom Second Life is their income, because they literally can't do anything else. And it's akin to swallowing acid when I learn about anything that could potentially destroy the chances for survival of a sector of humanity that may already be living on that thin narrow edge as it is.

Because let's face it--if someone's disabled, and receiving roughly half of the average minimum wage fee anyway (and that's monthly, not weekly to start with), and they've actually discovered an ability they can turn into supplemental income...anything that mucks with that (the arrival of Zindra, the changes in official policy, the Marketplace...EVERYTHING) means sending them one more step towards serious consequences. For some of these people, it's not just "Damn, I can't afford that new Xbox" but "Oh hell, I can't pay my rent! Where am I going to live now?"

What they make on SL could be the difference between eating fresh produce and good protein, or eating Ramen noodles. Or it could mean the difference between eating, and not being able to afford food to eat.

What they make on SL could be the difference between getting that monthly bus pass, or being unable to leave the house for a month.

What they make in SL could be the difference between keeping a roof over their heads, and being homeless.

And right now, right now, that growing by leaps and bounds "limited number of users" is realizing that the months of erratic Marketplace behavior, the listings disappearing, the listings being unable to be changed, the listings being unable to be tracked in any meaningful way...now has pretty much imploded into nuclear-level uselessness. Loss of sales, complaints, delivery errors, the wrong makers being paid, the wrong customers being given the products, the products being delivered in multiple batches instead of one client/one product delivery...all the way down to the Lindens being deliberately vague on when things are going to be fixed, after a year of being vague about when things are going to be fixed...

...And some of these people are realizing there's no more that they can cut back and still make ends meet. Some of these people are scrambling to find the next thing to do that will allow them to pay rent, pay utilities, pay for medical insurance, pay for groceries. Because Second Life clearly is no longer that option.

I've ranted a great deal on this blog, about a great many things. In some sense, this is because this is venting space in my mind--though I have readers, I'm still primarily writing about what I want to write about, venting emotionally where I wish, without much regard for hurt feelings along the way.

But this. This strikes a deep, emotional chord in me. I'm finding I'm writing one of these entries, then literally going off to play Minecraft and kill monsters because I am so livid about what's going on. If I were physically standing in front of a Linden--any Linden--the first thing that would come to mind would be to slap them until my arms get tired.

Because this is amateur hour behavior. No big business that wants to remain a big business pulls this crap. There's a fair bit of "Just who do the Lindens think they are, anyway?" fuming, too, because my gods, have they learned nothing over the past two years?

Apparently not. And I still come back to the fact that even the rise of Zindra didn't piss me off to this degree. I keep having to pause to literally calm down because I want to scream and throw things. It's unconscionable to me that this is going on, at all, for any reason.

And I'm absolutely convinced we're not going to see a solution until well after June. (But oh, how I wish I'm wrong on that.)

everybody at the back of the line, it's midnight at the lost and found

Once more into the breach, dear friends, and it's a serious breach indeed--of ethics, of commerce, of trust, of understanding. We'll lead off with stephanie Leclerc, who's now so upset she's losing command of the English language:

Marketplace still open ?
With this bug, we can see some PORN product, on the PG Pages.
CommerceTeam Linden isn't a serious team at all.....
Second point, the merchant aren't informed on the Merchant Home.....
All THING THEY CARE it's this stupid Direct Delivery.
4 Days with this bug, it's really annoying.....
So they cause many damages, and like usually, they will take 1 Year to fix that.

And if the Lindens seriously do fail to fix this before 2013? People are going to have long since scrambled to find other means of support. And again, it's a domino effect--if a merchant leaves for other work, they'll leave behind their business, their sim, and their premium account. So no Linden payments for ads, no Linden tier fees, no Linden monthly premium account fees...If enough people do this there will be a serious dent in the company's financials.

Sera Lok again:

Just attached image (UNAVAILABLEseralok.jpg) of an item (https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Dean-Razorback-Electric-Guitar-18/1405954) that has a messed up listing. That's the other merchant's link, but it shows my image. I tracked down the item in my store inventory and saw that it was marked as "Unavailable," so I don't even know why it's been showing in my listings.(??)

Since it was already unavailable, I decided to delete it to see if it would remove the listing from my store. No, the listing is STILL there, and now I have NO access whatsoever to the listing because on my end, it is supposed to no longer exist. So apart from having an unavailable and now deleted item showing on my store page, it also shows the incorrect creator, price, etc.

I am also hearing of reports that some merchants think their product images are being "stolen," and shoppers who doubt the reliability of a seller because of the incorrect and strange information.

I'm absolutely and completely disappointed that the Commerce Team allows this craziness to continue without any informational updates (besides, thanks, we're working on it) and continuing to leave the Marketplace open in its current state and leaving the merchants open to be vilified, DMCA'd, and our integrity questioned because of YOUR mistake and unwillingness to take the problem seriously.

Why haven't you shut the Marketplace down already?

It's such a good question. Maybe they've finally decided this is the best way to kill user content once and for all. After all, if the Marketplace is unusable, they don't need to worry about people complying with the rules. Or owning sims. Or paying them money at any point.

Finally, the last (for now) comment on this JIRA, from Holgi Fall:

OK Lindenlab you dont close the store whyever but i will, i have now disabled all my items if i ever enable it again i dont know.. Good bye i can not make business with such a bad company who dont care about his users and the persons who bring YOU the money and pay your jobs

I doubt they are the first to leave, and I know they won't be the last. There have been several mini-exodus movements from the grid; I've covered some but not all. But this one? This one has the potential to be much, much larger.

I'd like to wind this one up with some quotes from recent blog posts:

"It is again in situations like this where Linden Lab do themselves no favours, something I've recently touched upon. There are times when silence simply doesn't work – yet all too frequently, silence is the main tool the Lab uses in dealing with a situation. It’s also an approach that reinforces the negative attitude many people feel towards the Lab, justified or otherwise.

"Linden Lab has channels of communication open to it – and where e-mail is concerned, it’s not as if they’ve not used that channel to reach out to merchants in the past. Given the fact that even now, three days after the initial problem was first noticed, some people are still only just finding out about the problem – and in some cases leaping to the wrong conclusion – an advisory posted to the blog and / or e-mailed to merchants would seem to be a practical step to take, particularly as we are now facing the weekend with absolutely no indication as to whether the matter will be resolved sooner rather than later."

That entire entry is worth reading, and yes, the Lindens have an amazing array of communication options open. They can use the Grid Status page to report changes (they've done that before, with embedded links to more imformation). They can send emails to all their business clients (they've done that before, too). They can send forth another sacrificial Linden to comment on code debugging on the official blog. They can link a "find out more!" info post as everyone logs in and sees the (rotating, but still) Message of the Day. Finally, they can use their own community forums, the SL Universe forums, or simply send out notecards in-world about upcoming office hours or "Town Hall" style meetings.

Instead...none of this is happening. And it's the silence paired with the intense confusion that is making everyone extraordinarily frustrated.

Something weirder in the works:

"Well this latest change I am NOT pleased with at all, why? Simple I got told by one of the Lindens themselves that the only way to work around the issue in my own case is to create a NEW account and start over from scratch if I wish to continue selling my items on Marketplace. Yes you read right, “start over” as in create a NEW account and transfer over all my product lines to the new avatar and using that new account publish everything from scratch back onto Marketplace."

This is the first I've heard of this; can anyone else confirm that the Lindens are saying this? Create an entirely new account just for merchanting on the Marketplace? What?

And will that fix the errors, or will it simply compound them?

"I've asked Linden Lab for an update to these issues, and will post their reply, when and if I get one."

And my instincts still tell me, if a former Linden doesn't have ways to break through the wall of silence, what chance do the rest of us have?

Finally, I'd like to point everyone to Darrius Gothly's take on the topic, which includes this paragraph:

"The one thing that sticks in my craw the most about this situation is the Commerce Dev Team’s belief that the Merchants ought to be fixing up these errors. I’m sorry but that is not our responsibility. I will grant you that finding and fixing the real cause of the error is probably going to be tough. But this was not an error caused by the Merchants, and as has been shown by several others, it’s not even possible for the Merchants to fix all the errors. However it IS possible for Linden Lab and the Commerce Dev Team to fix them, or at least fix most of them."

And yes, exactly. That's what they need to do.

And it's the one thing they seem extraordinarily unwilling to do, so...the question keeps occurring, why? Why aren't they fixing this? Why aren't they putting a halt on editing, at least, if they can't just shut Marketplace down until it's fixed? Why do they seem to be insisting that it's not their problem?

Because as long as they insist that it's not their problem--via keeping silent on the issue, or outright turning blame--the more faith will be lost with the world, with the company, and with the individual Lindens themselves.

(Is it any wonder I keep flashing back to that Search Engine Watch post about Linden Lab mucking with their business customers in Second Life? This just seems a vast and unnecessary continuance of the issues presented there.)

don't let the wolves in, pretty girls

If you ever really wanted to be a space marine...but found yourself just a wee too feline and girly for the big huge testosterone-ridden Space Marine Corps...now there's hope.

If you can call that hope.

(And also found in poking about the Marketplace--if you ever, for whatever crack-headed reason, want a badly misspelled tattoo--I've found one. You can thank me later.)

And in other tattoo-related news, scanning through the broken stuph on the Marketplace also led me to Blood Ink, and the fact that they have Nazi tattoos. In fact, because of the seeming prevalence of their swastika work, I went through their store. They list two hundred and eighty-six items on the Marketplace. Of those, over one hundred of them are patent copyright violations, and five are directly related to Nazi or SS symbology.

Do I even have to bring up the fact that neither of those are supposed to exist on SL according to the Linden rules? But then, I forget. The Lindens are currently ignoring their own rules and griefing the Marketplace on their own. Fun times.

WE MOVE ON.

[Oxxxxxx Sxxxxxxx]: this is a twisted service announcement: be careful when unboxing. Contents may be fluffy. It is important to keep the clawed end away from you at all times when unboxing. Thank you and happy hunting!

And back into the JIRA chaos, this time with brief breaks for tea and kittens.

We lead off with Angus Mesmer:

When I check an online shop, as I type this:
-Some listing have wrong names and creators, while the image is that of the product that is supposed to be sold in the shop.
>>1) clicking the Image and Name will send me back to the Marketplace homepage. Clicking the name of the creator sends me to what might be their actual shop, but is empty/does not contain the item whose name appears on the erroneous listing.
>>2) Clicking the Image and Name will send me to the listing, the image is that of the proper item, but the description corresponds to the item whose name appears on the listing. The "Visit Shop" link sends you to the shop owned by the person making the item whose name appears on the listing.

In those cases, the price is that of the wrong items.

The broken listings do not respect the General/Moderate/Adult ratings at all. Which I consider very bad. I am probably not the only person in this case. One of the wrong names was for a sex sofa. While using a General browsing rating.

Which I thought was one of the things the ratings system, and the fruitlessly arcane and ever-changing banned words list, was supposed to prevent.

Emmas Twin is the first to report the now-constant stream of complaint notecards from customers:

I have the same issue, I logged into game today only to receive a rather nasty im from someone accusing me of stealing her pictures with malicious intent and a threat to report me. After which I checked my listings and found this problem not only on this account but on my other account too and have had to remove all my listings. So annoyed, more for the fact I am receiving ims from irate merchants claiming I'm stealing their products.

As I mentioned earlier, those residents who don't read the forums, keep an eye on the status update, or are members of SL Universe aren't going to know what's going on, and their first instinct is likely going to be as Miss Twin mentioned: threaten first, figure it out later. This is going to cause a needless amount of stress--in fact, it already has--which could have easily been avoided with more testing, better coding, and taking the time to full integrate something before rushing on to the next shiny toy.

Because keep in mind, the Marketplace has been functionally broken for months, and instead of fixing those problems, the Lindens decided they wanted all new ones. Why? Still think I'm on target with the Lindens trying to drive us all away, so they can sell a mostly empty world to some bigger (or vastly smaller and clueless) firm, so that the problems of SL won't matter to the Lindens anymore. Because they'll have their money, and be long gone.

The d'awww of Scottish folding.

Moriko Inshan again:

I have again, for the third day in a row, checked every single of my MP listings. All appear fine, but as we have learned, that does not mean that my images, or products do not appear in a fellow merchant's store. I have not migrated to DD, and do not intend to do so until these very serious issues are resolved. The cut off date for Magic Boxes needs to be moved out from the May deadline by a few months are the very least. Personally, I do not feel it is safe to do any changes to any of my Marketplace listings while everything is in such a mess.

And if the Lindens won't shut down the Marketplace, you can always choose to employ Ms. Inshan's option, which is also making the rounds--telling your personal group not to shop on Marketplace, and telling your subscription customers the same. Which will, slowly but effectively, filter out until Marketplace will be viewed with dread and mistrust for simply existing.

This is also nothing the Lindens want. So why aren't they stepping in and being proactive about this, instead of standing around with the blinds drawn, and pretending everything's just peachy?

jouet Jestyr:

This matter is being handled very poorly by LL. If a commerce site like Amazon had this issue, they'd take the site offline until it was fixed.

The advice given by the commerce team doesnt work.

Close it down and fix it, please.

There's not a thing wrong with her comment. Any of the bigger services, who would stand to lose far more money, would close down their database in a heartbeat if something like this happened to them. The Lindens? Give out worthless advice to premium customers (thereby angering them further), refuse to do anything but tell us "We're on it" like a useless parrot nailed to his cage bar, and still never fixed the problems that people were screaming about before this, thereby breaking Marketplace in just about every way possible, save for a malformed internet address.

And I'm sure they're working on that, too.

The Chesterfield Hotel afternoon tea service.

hoohaa Anaconda:

I have spent the past few hours searching deep into the marketplace and what I am finding is beyond belief I have come across a few stores that have around 90+ products where not just 1 or 2 items are affected but every single item is affected there are literally 90 different creators listed in one store. Follow the Store links that aren’t supposed to be there and you will find an almost spider web effect of complete destruction. This has got to be fixed ASAP

But it won't be. I think we all understand this at this point.

customesculpties Leider:

This is the biggest mess ive seen in sl history

I think I can say the same, and that counts the OpenSpace debacle, the entirety of Ursula/Zindra, the ageplay explosion, and I'll even throw in replicating griefing objects and the "grey goo" attacks of 2006.

CouldBe Yue chimes in:

yay me, I only have one listing that has been screwed.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Satiated-Desires-Bondage-Pleasure/1419569 [The original item--Editrix] and this https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/P3-Let-It-Snow-Gold-PROMO-Priced/1411527 [The remapped picture over the text and title of a General-rated holiday dress in gold]

I'm sure the owner of the second listing is thrilled to pieces to have the item now rated adult and I'm not particularly happy that my adult item is now rated general.

You wouldn't think that LL would have ignored this for so long but apparently they're made of sterner stuff. I'm laying bets that everyone working on the marketplace has gone home for the weekend, stroking themselves over a job well done.

[edit to add more information] I tried to update my listing by replacing the picture, updating the maturity rating and unpacking info (the only things that I could see had changed.. well apart from all the relevance details - grrrr). When I submitted, I got this error

1 error prohibited this Product from being saved

There were problems with the following fields:

The Xstreet product ID '1325134' already exists. Please provide a unique Xstreet product ID.

Which you may remember from the XSL migration.

It did however replace the picture but hasn't updated the rest of the details (ie, it's still stuck in the general maturity rating, with the wrong unpacking details, maturity rating and relevance details).

Oh, indeed, lots of fun there.

Kitten and bunny!

Maxx Farella:

Before direct delivery became active my partner noticed in her top selling products screen that she had other merchants items in there. But her actual store listings were all correct at that time. As direct delivery became active I converted my items about 8 at a time and the process seemed to go very smoothly for me (to my surprise lol). I checked my listings after doing so and all seemed to be good so I now have removed all my magic boxes from in world. It was only a few days later as I checked through my store that I noticed the listings getting mixed up with other merchants items.

I am unable to edit or fix some of these items as they appear to be broken. I have replaced some of the wrong textures on my product so they are not showing some one else picture but I'm reluctant to mess too much with it as I am unsure what Linden labs are doing to resolve this issue.

It doesn't appear that they are treating this problem with much urgency unfortunately. The only fix I see they did do in the last maintenance was to fix the review count/ratings.

And I'm hearing this more and more often, now--that this isn't a new problem, it just wasn't affecting everyone yet. Now it is.

Gael Streeter:

We can not fix all the errors manually! This is technically impossible because some are not manually correctable!

And to reinforce why this is so shockingly bad, that's because this is what the commerce team is telling people to do, which means not only are they giving out wrong advice, but they're not even bothering on callbacks to change their tune. No one on Concierge that I've heard of has bothered to learn anything else about this issue.

The Duck & Bunny traditional tea service. (The entire post is worth reading, though.)

Sen Pixie:

I updated to DD, checked all my listings (which had all imported correctly), removed the MB items from the website, and promptly deleted my box. I followed the steps to the letter from the LL produced Youtube video. I then rechecked all my listings and all were fine.

Three days later, out of my 70 listings, I ended up with 20 that had incorrect images, 5 became unlisted, and 2 had items associated from other makers, placing those items in their store as well.

About 12 of those products with incorrect images were old enough that I only had *.bmp files on my HDD, adding another couple hours of work to an already time consuming "fix."

LL, I'm a programmer, I know things go wrong. However, to leave the MP up and running while such an egregious problem goes on is not only irresponsible, but opens you up to possible liability issues as you may be knowingly allowing IP rights violations to continue after you were the original cause.

Let's talk about that again, since it really does seem that the Lindens are wholly blind to this point.

Who knows who's actually coding, but let's just make a name up for the fun of it--say "Bukkit Linden" is the chief of Marketplace programming. He and his team have been working tirelessly to break Marketplace in every way possible, in between practicing their evil laughs in large, echoing underground chambers (before walking outside for a brisk stroll to find puppies to kick and babies to light on fire). One of their most inspired hacks to their own software resulted in copiable items being delivered multiple times.

Sleepy kitten.

Ph3ARMeeImmaHackzorz Resident went to the Marketplace, and ordered one item, a dress with custom shading and textures, as a gift for the girlfriend he hopes to get by showing her a picture of his bedroom and the large tub of pudding on the nightstand. It delivers to him. Then delivers again. Then delivers again. Then delivers again.

The next morning, he now has twenty-five copies of this dress. They're all transferable, even though the merchant's listing said no-transfer. Being stupid and evil-minded (a bad mix, to be sure), he coordinates with some of his hacker friends, and they tell him to join twenty-five freebie groups, and pass the dress out.

The dress proceeds to go the rounds. This wasn't someone acquiring this dress in an underhanded fashion. The Lindens gave out the dress. The Marketplace kept giving out the dress, resulting in multiple copies. And all it takes is one dishonest person...

Suddenly, SweetLilOne Shenandoah is seeing her dress everywhere. She tracks it down in groups. She tracks it down in freebie zones. Someone she's never even met is sitting in a welcome area just giving the dress out to everyone that walks within range.

Mismatched vintage china for an afternoon tea service (and all in truly excellent condition, besides).

How, at this point, does Ms. Shenandoah stop the copyright infringement? She can't get the dress back; it was a legal sale. She can't go after the hacker, because--even though he largely contributed to both the loss of her sales and her ensuing panic--he paid for one item, he got that one item, and it should have come with her originally set permissions intact.

But it didn't. Why didn't it? Because Bukkit and his team did everything wrong.

So who's she going to complain to? The Lindens? Like they care. The Linden legal department? Please, they laid off their law team. So who? Who is going to listen to her entirely valid concern, here?

My answer? No one. Not a single Linden. They're not even concerned.

Happy kitten!

I hope that helped as the ranting continued. More later. Have a nice day.

can't seem to make any sense of anything

Picking up where I left off last post, more tiptoeing through the JIRA ranting.

Between 1:36 pm and 1:58 pm on the 28th, CommerceTeam Linden changed the priority of the JIRA in question. (When you hit Watch you also get all edits and updates to status as well as comments.) At 1:58 pm, Sassy Romano changed it back, and left this comment:

No really, this IS a showstopper.
There is no workaround, it misrepresents products (go shopping in the supermarket, pick up a tin with a picture of baked beans on it, get home and open it to find inside is catfood. Happy?).
It has financial consequences because it's selling misleading items and damaging reputations.
It moves ADULT listings to GENERAL and the word filter doesn't have any effect.
TOTAL SCREW UP.

(An issue that could (or did) cause disastrous consequences. For example critical loss of data, critical loss of system availability, critical loss of security). I feel that this falls into the "disastrous consequences", "loss of data" if merchants start to fiddle since we don't know what the problem actually is. We can't sell stuff effectively and customers can't buy effectively so that's loss of availability.

She's not wrong, on any count. The tragedy is the Lindens don't agree.

Sera Lok, ten minutes later:

Agreed... unknowable amount of listings affected, listings that become messed up upon editing to create new problems (how many new borked listings have been created today?)... no way to fix or to unlist items because you CANNOT edit them... customers do not know if it is a merchant messup or system messup...

Customers will simply lose confidence in the system altogether and not come back and then merchant no money, LL no commission.

People are already losing due to Unicode and hanging deliveries...

Money lost over a few days is much less than money lost over a long period because merchants/shoppers have no confidence in this system left running as it is.

Selina Antra agreed:

This is absolutely bad. The marketplace needs to be closed down until this is fixed...I have looked in several stores and am leary of buying anything because it may not be what I am buying. Plus I do not know if I am getting any sales that are actually going to me.

Fix this ASAP, Please LL....Shut the site down until it is fixed so we can limit the amount of damage.

Unfortunately, the Lindens--by willful ignorance or direct intent--don't care about preserving their reputation, their customers' business sales, or patching the bad code they launched because there was zero quality control on the Direct Delivery project. (I'd also suspect zero testing ON the Direct Delivery project. I have no proof, but if anyone wants to confirm, my Gmail address is listed at the end of the left-hand sidebar.)

Shadowblade Prathivi:

Many of my products also have the mix up issue and I agree that Marketplace should absolutely be shut down until this is resolved. There is no point in leaving it up for our customers to get the wrong item that we have to fix when the customer complains to us about the issue that LL caused in the first place.

Unfortunately, LL isn't listening.

Sugar Bumblefoot:

I agree, they really just need to close it for the moment. I'm not touching my store or doing anything with it for fear it will mess things up further.
Xstreet worked pretty perfectly, once LL took over its been one problem after another. I get they want to improve things but why fix something that wasnt broken.
They seriously need to test things better before putting them out there.
The mix up with adult and general listings should be enough alone to shut it down for the time being.

Let me repeat that, because it sounds vaguely important:

The mix up with adult and general listings should be enough alone to shut it down for the time being.

Now, let me quote from something else:

Zindra arises, everyone gets booted to the Adult continent: six months later there are STILL massive problems in search with PG-only searches finding tons of Adult content; there are STILL massive issues on the mainland, both with merchants who never left (because the Lindens didn't think they were Adult enough, apparently) and with merchants who came back.

I wrote that back in 2009, and it still holds true today.

From the same entry:

No Adult content on non-Adult land (but just travel the mainland, anywhere, you'll find something that doesn't belong there within the first half hour, depending on where you go). No Mature content on PG land (but you see that everywhere too).

Remember when the Adult content restrictions came out on the official Linden wiki, LL set out very specific passages that confirmed maturity ratings and what they meant:

General

A region designated General is not allowed to advertise or make available content or activity that is sexually explicit, violent, or depicts nudity. Sexually-oriented objects such as "sex beds" or poseballs may not be located or sold in General regions.

General regions are areas where you should feel free to say and do things that you would be comfortable saying and doing in front of your grandmother or a grade school class. Institutions such as universities, conference organizers, and real world businesses may wish to designate their regions as General. Likewise their users (and others) may wish to employ Second Life's General search setting to focus and filter search results appropriately.

Some landowners and Residents desire a Second Life experience distinct from the activity that occurs in Moderate and Adult regions. Region owners who wish to host this sort of Second Life experience can (but need not) designate their regions as General.

If you are a region owner and you feel there is some ambiguity as to whether your content and activities are allowed in General regions, it's probably best to designate your region as Moderate.

Adult

The Adult designation applies to Second Life regions that host, conduct, or display content that is sexually explicit, intensely violent, or depicts illicit drug use. A region must be designated Adult if it hosts, advertises, or publicly promotes:

• Representations of intensely violent acts, for example depicting death, torture, dismemberment or other severe bodily harm, whether or not photo-realistic (meaning that images either are or cannot be distinguished from a photograph).

• Photo-realistic nudity.

• Expressly sexually themed content, spaces or activities, whether or not photo-realistic. We broadly define what is "sexually themed" to include any sexually oriented activities and conduct.

Groups, event listings and classified ads that reference these themes or content must also be designated Adult. Linden Lab will enforce these rules but cannot monitor all ephemeral content and conduct within Second Life. Therefore:

• Regions, groups, and event or classified ad listings that employ search tags plainly suggestive of adult behavior or content require the Adult designation, and will viewable only by Residents who have verified that they are at least 18 years old.

• Linden Lab will conduct proactive monitoring and rely on abuse reports that identify adult content or conduct that is promoted or advertised publicly. Where adult content or conduct on a region is publicly advertised or promoted, that region must be designated as Adult (or such content must be removed). We will re-designate such regions if adult content is not removed.

• Linden Lab may take into account whether apparent or reported adult content or conduct in a particular region serves only an extremely limited or passive function, or an important educational or cultural function, and therefore would be appropriate for all Second Life audiences.

• As with all reported activity in violation of our policies, we will actively review all reports of adult conduct and provide Residents with a channel for rebuttal.

Parcels that host adult activities or contain adult content must be on:

• The adult mainland continent, Zindra.

• A private region that has been designated by its owner as Adult.

Region owners are responsible for designating a region's maturity level. Occupants of regions will be expected to locate in a region suitable to each occupant's content and conduct.

Yet now, today, this hour, this moment, the Marketplace--still a wholly-owned subsidiary of Linden Labs--is violating every single one of these provisions where Adult and General content is concerned. Were the Lindens residents, they could be banned for this. Hells, the Lindens have sent letters to residents for less that did ban them--at least temporarily, if not permanently. And this is a much larger violation.

So what's their end explanation going to be? "Oops" really isn't going to cut it. (Though they could be honest and just send out a blog entry saying "Of course our rules don't apply to us, chuckleheads, we make the damn rules, and screw you anyway"...but that might be viewed as a tad bit hostile.

At this point, CommerceTeam Linden chimed in again:

We have identified that this issue was occurring before the Direct Delivery launch and continue work to address the issue. In the meantime, Merchants may address the problem in the following ways:

1. Delete any images that do not belong to the listing.

2. Upload any image(s) you’d like to associate with the listing.

3. Remove any Related Items that should not be associated with the listing.

Thanks for your patience.

Argus Collingwood in response:

The listings are in the wrong stores and may not be edited.

Yep.So I ask you--and more importantly, I ask the Lindens: how is a maker of X item supposed to edit the listing for Y item if it's not even showing up in their store? And how is the maker of Z item supposed to edit the other maker's items of X and Y if they're not listed under the right name? Can't you only edit things you're directly responsible for making?

Sassy Romano added:

@CTL, how does that stop someone else's listings appear on the merchants "shop" when someone does a search by merchant?
How does it prevent it happening again? What's the timeframe for the fix? Should merchants just wait? What's the cause of it? Will it happen again if someone goes through 100 pages of listings and corrects them all?

Still don't think there's been an answer from the Lindens to any of these questions.

And then FreeSpirit Simemring added a whole new glitch to the existing problem:

To further add to the MP mess - if you buy something from MP that is DD - you get the item delivered numerous times. I have one item I bought yesterday I am up to 24 of the same item. Lucky for the vendor it is copy - but it is happening with no copy items too. Bought yesterday and still getting the same thing delivered today. LL sort this shit out.. for vendors selling no copy/limited number items this is a disaster

Oh, dear gods, SERIOUSLY?!? So there you go--now the Lindens have implemented code that makes every single post they've ever made on why copyright infringement is such a terrible thing absolutely invalid, because hey, guess what? The largest copyright infringer on the grid is now Linden Labs! Because of this catastrophe, they're now stealing from EVERYONE!

Way to go, idiots.

More later.