Linden Lab – Page 146

May 7, 2013

TOS Change As Clear As Mud

There’s much angst around regarding Linden Lab’s updated terms of service and part of that angst has been caused by Linden Lab not being clear about what they claim to be being clear about. The blog post, seems straight forward enough:

“When you log in to the Second Life Viewer today, you’ll be asked to accept an updated Terms of Service. As with any legal document, it’s important to read in its entirety before accepting, but we wanted to highlight one of the changes we’ve made in this update: to better protect Second Life users against fraud, the updated Terms of Service make it clear that trading of Linden dollars (L$) on exchanges other than the LindeX, Second Life’s official L$ exchange, is not authorized or allowed.

As the official exchange owned and operated by Linden Lab, the LindeX is the best place to buy and sell L$ for use in Second Life. It consistently offers the best rates for both buyers and sellers, and by limiting L$ trading to the exchange we operate, we are better able to protect users against fraudulent activity.”

That to me sounds like Linden Lab are limiting trading of Linden Dollars to the Lindex, that the likes of Virwox are not allowed and that if I do trade on Virwox, I’m doing something that is not allowed and in breach of the terms of service. However the relevant section of the new Terms Of Service makes no reference whatsoever to trading on third party exchanges being forbidden:

“5.3 There are other exchanges that are operated by third parties on which Linden dollars are exchanged.

Third party exchanges are not authorized by Linden Lab and Buying or Selling Linden dollars on third party exchanges are not authorized transactions. Third party exchanges are wholly distinct from both the LindeX exchange and Linden Lab and they have no affiliation with Linden Lab. We do not endorse or otherwise guarantee the legitimacy of the Linden dollar transfers offered on them, and we are not liable for purchases of such Linden dollars. Buying or Selling Linden dollars anywhere other than the LindeX is done so solely at your own risk. If you Buy Linden dollars that are traced to unauthorized credit card activity or other fraudulent activity, we will recoup these Linden dollars from your Account. The only authorized exchange is the LindeX.”

This suggests that if I purchase Linden Dollars on a third party exchange, I do so at my own risk, which I always thought was the case anyway, but nowhere does it say it’s not allowed and that is rather an important discrepancy which Linden Lab should be looking to clear up because I don’t want to trade on a third party exchange at my own risk and then find my account is in jeopardy because Linden Lab consider it a breach of the Terms Of Service.

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May 7, 2013May 7, 2013

The Dick Van Dyke No Show – Part 2

There’s a great episode of Family guy called PTV, basically Peter sets up his own television station after the FCC censor all sorts of things after someone has a wardrobe malfunction at the Emmy awards, Peter is aghast at the censorship, which includes Dick Van Dyke having Dick and Dyke blanked out. So where Family Guy treads, it seems Linden Lab follow.

The above may sound familiar to older readers, it’s from this post of mine from March 2011. Eventually the issue was fixed, however it’s back, well partially back, if you type Dick Van Dyke on the Second Life forums, you now get Dick Van **bleep**. Now you might feel that only having part of Dick Van Dyke shows there’s a small chink in armour of the Second Life forum word filter, alas a small chink in the armour would actually be a small **bleep** in the armour, as Perrie Juran discovered when he typed the following:

“Going back to Andrew’s explanation, what it amounts to was that there was a tiny chink in the Viewer that has now opened up into a big gaping hole. The Server is doing it’s job correctly, the Viewer is asleep at the wheel.”

An innocuous looking statement discussing the issue of prims not appearing in the viewer. However what now appears on the forum is:

“Going back to Andrew’s explanation, what it amounts to was that there was a tiny **bleep** (eta: I don’t believe that c.h.i.n.k. got bleeped!) in the Viewer that has now opened up into a big gaping hole. The Server is doing it’s job correctly, the Viewer is asleep at the wheel.”

We’re back knee deep in the silliness of word filters and the silliness exemplified in the Family Guy episode. The worst thing about word filters like this is that they highlight the negative context some words can be used in, whereas if they left them alone, nobody would bat an eyelid.

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May 7, 2013

Tyche Shepherd’s Private Estate Survey For April 2013

Tyche “Statto” Shepherd has some really interesting reports going around right now and I think I’m going to have to poke her about using some of them, but the results of her private estate survey for April are in. As usual I won’t report all the findings, you can find them in the link. There isn’t anything eye catching in terms of changes in land holdings this month, the grid has shrunk and at a faster rate than in March but one interesting point to note is the change in class of Servers, there has been a leap, a rather significant one, in class 8 hardware.

Now remember this is a survey, not a census, so there are margins of error.

The key points I will highlight for this survey are:

Private Regions down 158 regions (0.8% since last month)
Total private regions now stand at 20,324
Estimated monthly tier income – US$4,091,000 +/- US$51,000 (Down around $45,000 or 1.1% on last month).
Top 20 landowners own 38.3% of private regions (Up 0.8% on last month).
Top 20 landowners pay 30.7% of private region tier (Up 0.4% on last month).

Nothing earth shattering in these figures, although the decline in private regions was higher during April at 0.8%, when compare to March where it was 0.3%.

Whereas the top 20 landowners holdings are up slightly, the Top 10 are down slightly, very slightly at 0.1%.

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May 5, 2013

From Tier To Eternity

You will hear it being whispered in darkened corners of Second Life. Shadowy figures are abroad, they may even be coming to a mainland sim near you and with them they carry no tier contributions, but they will be in the possession of mainland parcels.

There’s something amiss and according to the whispered reports, there has long been something amiss. These shadowy figures are allegedly taking advantage of a rumoured exploit and getting for free, something that others pay through the nose for. I should be outraged, for some reason, and I’m not quite sure why, I’m not.

One reason perhaps is that some people will inadverently be taking advantage of this loophole. I’ll give an example, I’m frustrated that Linden Lab have made no moves to address the tier issue, tier remains too damn high. I have taken steps to downgrade my land holdings. During the course of this I started to unload some mainland parcels, then I decided to check my group contributions in case I had tier donations above and beyond what was needed. I found that I didn’t have enough tier donations in one particular land group, I found myself 2 metres under. Now 2 metres is neither here nor there and it may have only happened as I unloaded parcels owned by that land group due to losing land in tier bonus, or I may have long been 2 metres under and not realised it. I had more than 2 metres of tier available, so it was easy to put that right.

Another reason I’m not outraged is that even if Linden Lab send round the tax collectors and plug this hole, they won’t shift a damn inch on their tier pricing. The shadowy figures aren’t likely to pay for their tier, they are more likely to abandon, so the net result would be nil.

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May 5, 2013

Are The Foreign Language Forums As Vicious As The English Speaking Forums?

I will shortly be embarking on a much needed holiday to Majorca, to prepare myself for this I decided to delve into the Spanish Forums to polish up my reading skills. I don’t need to do this, the part of Majorca I’m going to speaks fluent English, indeed during my holiday I will pop along to a place called Paguera, which is largely full of German tourists but where I know from previous experience, despite not knowing German at all, the bar staff will be able to speak English too.

When I read the Spanish forums, a cursory glance suggests they are helpful, indeed I see references in some posts to English speaking blogs, such as Del Blog De Strawberry Singh. Now if someone pointed me to a Spanish speaking blog, my limited Spanish would leave me lost.

However what I really wonder is, are these foreign language forums as vicious as the English speaking forums? I see posts in the English speaking forums that make me wince, someone posts for help and they receive abuse. I’m no angel when it comes to forums, indeed some of my past history of forum responses in the old days makes me cringe, but I do wonder if the foreign language forums have their trolls, trouble makers and unhelpful folk or whether they are more supportive.

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