Breedables Needs A Food And Accessories Category

I recently posted on issues with breedables food being moved to a category outside of breedables: Common Sense Required Regarding Incorrect Category Decisions. When I wrote that post there were examples of breedables food in the breedables category, whilst other breedable food had been moved to another category or unlisted from the marketplace.

Since then, things have changed. More breedables food has been moved out of the breedables category and planted under the Animals category. This goes some way to addressing the issue of fairness but does absolutely sod all in the common sense stakes.

There is some logic to the moves, there is no category for breedables food and accessories. The marketplace team don’t like people listing items in the top level of a category, that’s what sub-categories are for but the answer here is to create a category under breedables for items that are related directly to breedables, rather than moving items out of the breedables category altogether.

Food is often directly related to breedables, if you don’t feed them they don’t prosper, you can’t usually use food substitutes, it has to be the right food and it’s food that is directly related to breedables, not other animals, so it should be in the breedables category.

The same goes, albeit to a lesser extent, for interactive items. Where an item only works with a certain breedable, it should be in the breedables category. However there are areas where breedable related items do not need to be in the breedables category.

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The Newspaper Industry Needs Micro Transactions

On my lunch break today I decided I wanted a coffee, then I decided I wanted to read a newspaper whilst drinking my coffee, so I popped to the newsagent and purchased The Times with cold hard cash. As I sat there reading my newspaper I also pondered recent debates about newspaper sites going behind paywalls to monetise their offerings and keep the quality of journalism high. I must admit that I find the political slant of many newspapers in the UK, be it left of right, annoying because they don’t stick to the editorials for their favoured political leanings, they include it in news stories too, but that’s a different issue for a different day.

The newspaper industry in some quarters bemoans the rise of blogs and self publishing and I have some sympathy with them here, my grammatical skills pale into insignificance compared to a well qualified, well trained, well experienced journalist. I don’t possess their literary skills. However instead of criticising bloggers and self publishers, they should be looking at the bigger picture, the simple fact of the matter is that I can’t pay for an online publication in the fashion I did today for a physical copy of a newspaper and that’s why online publications are in some quarters, finding it difficult to go forward.

The newspaper industry is crying out for a micro transaction system and they should take a look at how Second Life have achieved this as the template for moving forward. In Second Life, once I have my Linden Dollars in my virtual wallet, I can spend those Linden Dollars as I see fit. I don’t have to signup for subscriptions that I’m not going to use and I can purchase items on a whim, without having to enter my credit card details again and again and again.

The signup is a block to many online ventures, Second Life loses people at signup, people dither and then decide to move along. However the beauty of the micro transaction system in Second Life is that once I’m inside it, I have choice and ease of purchase.

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Second Life – The Early Days

Second Life is already older than ten, but the forthcoming tenth birthday celebrations will mark the tenth anniversary of Second Life moving out of closed beta. Taking a look at the old forum archives, one can see that Second Life was a very different place than it is today, but some issues, have been here all along and some new features, are actually similar to old features.

Back in the early days the term resident wasn’t in popular usage, the term was “Lifers” ….. I’m glad they got out of that habit! Residents were also given incentives to build places for people to have something to do, with an appeal from Hanley Linden on behalf of the public works project:

Second Life is seeking a few imaginative residents to help design, construct and test sports sites for team vs. team competition. We’ll pay for the land and objects. If the resulting game is successful we will reward you with a huge Linden cash bonus.

The billing model was very different, with incentives for people prepared to live near each other and a tax on objects, as explained by Hunter Linden:

Previous to this release, the taxation scheme for objects was that each shape received a fixed charge of L$3/week regardless of size or position within the world.

With this release, the per shape charge will be variable, based on the size of the shape and its height above ground. Small objects or those near ground level will generally enjoy reduced taxes, while large objects or those high in the air will be taxed more.

 For example, under the old scheme, a default shape created near the ground would be assessed L$3/week, whereas under the new plan, it would be assessed L$1/week. Similarly, a maximally scaled (10 meters) box raised to 20 meters above ground would be assessed L$3/week under the old scheme, but charged over L$30/week under the new plan.

Hmm, in some ways we’re heading back in this direction because the new mesh accounting system for objects makes more complicated shapes more costly in terms of land impact. Hunter also talked of land taxes:

Land taxes now have a discount awarded for land located close to other land owners. The discount is based on the percentage of resident-owned land near the center of the chosen parcel, and can reach as high as 50% (this number will be subject to tuning during the beta). In other words, if you buy a plot which is completely surrounded by neighbors, it could be as much as 50% cheaper to buy and maintain than a plot sitting alone in the countryside.

Yes a very different model there but one designed to make people grasp the fact that this was a shared experience. Stipends were at L1k a week, although the system was complicated by limits on how much people could go into debt via taxes and there had been an issue with people hoarding their Linden Dollars.

There’s an early chat log from a town hall meeting, where the main focus seems to be on sims designed for fighting. Also, note that whomever copied that chat log was a friend of Governor Linden, as Governor Linden comes online during it!

Then as the official opening got closer, Philip Linden posted an FAQ, with a long time favourite of Second Life users over these last ten years being a concern:

Will there be too much ‘lag’ as a result of launch / lots of new users?

Hopefully not. We’ve been substantially reducing lag and increasing simulator performance with incremental releases, and have many more improvements in the works. Additionally, we will be adding simulators so that the number of members/simulator remains roughly constant.

We’re still talking about lag but there have been many imrovements over the years.

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Common Sense Required Regarding Incorrect Category Decisions

There have been numerous reports of merchants being bemused as to why their item listing is removed from the marketplace for being in the wrong category. Sometimes it’s clearly an issue that the item is in the wrong category and sometimes it’s not so clear.

The Dwarfins Marketplace store has suffered a blow due to Dwarfins food being removed from the Marketplace due to it being deemed to be in the wrong category, the wrong category in this case being breedables. This is a rather odd move being as the breedables category has food for Meeroos, Amaretto Horses and Ozimals.

However it should be noted that Fennux  and Snuffles food can be found in Animals/Animals & Pet Supplies/Animals Feed & Water Supplies. This sort of inconsistency is not helpful and really there should be some common sense applied in these situations. The Animals & Pet Supplies category is not suitable for Dwarfins items, being as they aren’t pets and as breedable animals do not belong in the animals category in the first place, it seems silly for Linden Lab to agree with whomever flagged Dwarfins food.

Now it has long been suspected that Linden Lab only respond to flagged items, they are not proactive, they probably don’t have the time to be proactive but a cursory glance at the breedables category shows breedable food items in that category, ergo breedable food should be left there.

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New World Notes Approaching Tenth Birthday

Whereas Inara Pey , Daniel Voyager and Nalates Urriah are bringing us the skinny on the lowdown regarding Second Life’s tenth birthday (even though Philip Linden and Steller Sunshine hit eleven this month) I’m going to look forward to a Second Life related birthday of a different sort. On April 22nd Hamlet Au’s New World Notes will hit its tenth birthday. As far as I’m aware there will be no events, no booths, no sponsorships and the cake is a lie, but never the less, love him or loathe him, it’s an important milestone.

Thanks to the wayback machine, we can look back at some of Hamlet’s early musings, from a time when New World Notes was incorporated within the Second Life website and even had its own forum. Early Hamlet is rather interesting, because you can get a sense of being ready to expect the unexpected:

Because what is happening now in the Beta test of Second Life is very much a social experiment in the making. Literally, “making”: thousands of volunteers are already in there now, buzzing around in Linden Lab’s servers, shaping their world out of thin air. From a default canvas of wide oceans and rolling hills, they’re cramming the place with coffee tables, exotic swords, sunglasses, ride-able rockets, electric guitars, readable books, soaring Japanese pagodas– pretty much anything you might imagine, and a lot more you wouldn’t dream of– to create a playspace as vast and varied as creativity and enthusiasm allows.

Nobody knew what would happen, what would be formed, of course we have a better idea now, but that potential for creative space is nicely summed up there, so are the dangers of user created content because it’s certainly true that things you wouldn’t dream of, have been created, but that is part and parcel of the beauty and beast of Second Life.

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