Earlier this week Linden Lab made changes to the transaction history page on Second Life accounts, this didn’t go down well with many a merchant. Indeed Linden Lab have decided to roll back the changes and revert to the old transaction history page for now : Update on the Transaction History Page
So what exactly was the problem, well the backlash started with a post on the Second Life Forum : THE WORST THING THEY HAVE DONE YET .. yes the title is all caps!
Now I have to MANUALLY total the days sales — no longer does it show the total.
Now I can’t download XLS files, only CSV ones.
And it takes a long time to load.
The time the page took to load was a minor complaint, the lack of functionality was another charge with users complaining that the reports always downloaded 30 days of data, this prompted people to wonder if the changes were incomplete.
There were also complaints about this over at SLUniverse :
The format has been changed and now tries to load every transaction for the last 30 days. You can only filter it for fewer days after they have all loaded. The transaction number is no longer visible. The only format to download the transactions is CSV; the program I’ve been using for nearly 7 years uses XML. I log in every morning to view my transactions to check my sales and expenses, and it no longer gives you a total.
The complaints prompted Ebbe Linden to post on the Second Life Forum thread :
In an attempt to improve we made a few mistakes and caused some misunderstandings as well. We rolled back the changes and will work on getting it right. The team is looking at feedback and will communicate a plan for how to get there.
There are a few issues with these changes, the actual changes were of course the major issue and it’s good to see Linden Lab paying attention and deciding to rollback the changes. However, why on earth did Linden Lab not inform people that changes to the account management page were live? I welcome the update from Linden Lab and the improved communication we’re seeing, especially with Ebbe posting on the forum. However the recent blog post on the update should be the second post about these changes this week, the first post should have announced the changes.
Some users questioned why these changes were needed in the first place, when there are other more pressing issues. Priorities are always a thorny issue, but in this case I do have some sympathy with that point of view, there was no pressing need that users are aware of to make these changes. Maybe LL need to make these changes, but if that’s the case, a little bit of explanation goes a long way.
Linden Lab are listening to their users on this issue and that is to be welcomed, the blog post on the update states :
We’d like to get some additional user feedback on the new Transaction History page so that when we make the changeover, the functionality best matches what Second Life users want and need. Once we are ready, we will post instructions on how to review the new page and provide feedback. We will not take down the old page until we have had a chance to review feedback and make appropriate changes to the new page. Check back on this blog for more details as they become available.
I have to say fair play to Linden Lab for holding up their hands and admitting that this didn’t go as planned and I do welcome the fact that they will now be seeking feedback, I think people should take this as a big positive and hopefully Linden Lab will take this approach more often with changes such as this. There are changes that are required where this approach will not work, but in this case, it is the right way forward.
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