SL Marketplace Reviews & SLetiquette

 

    We do a lot of buying and selling and trading and misplacing in Second Life®. When we buy products in-world we just buy it and go, buying either via a vendor or as boxed item. That's the end of it. If there is a problem with our purchase, we contact the creator and ask (or demand) a replacement, a repair, a fix, or our money back. 

Good luck on that last one. All sales are final is the general rule in SL. 

        That is also true of purchases made on the Second Life Marketplace™. The difference is we can give reviews and ratings on most of the products we've purchased on the MP. We can rate our purchased item and say if it is good or not, if it was or wasn't "as advertised", and even vent our frustrations and disappointments.

    Like in all things SL and RL, there is a way to do things, and there are many ways not to do things. You should always try to be fair and as impartial as possible when rating and reviewing. There is an accepted protocol to making a review, an etiquette, and for SL it is called SLetiquette (or SL Etiquette).

    It is a code of conduct that most people seem to sadly ignore (both in SL and in RL too). That's because it is not really an enforceable code, it is more of a suggestion on how to be a decent person. Good manners: Not everyone has the same definition of what good manners are. Some people were brought up in a barn. Some people were not. 😜

    I decided to make a general post on this topic in relationship to the SL Marketplace: Buyers & Sellers and Reviews. These are of course not rules, not laws, just my personal opinion on how people should behave, or misbehave - albeit, with grace.

[Buyers / Reviews]

    Before leaving a review on a product that you purchased, if there are issues with the product, you should contact the creator directly in-world before you leave a low rated review. 

    Do not review and rate a product based on your personal wish-list. If the product isn't what it was advertised as, you will of course make that part of your review. It is unfair to include in a lower scored review something like, "It is ok. I'd have preferred that it could be modifiable or included a color change Hud." 

    The product was listed as not modifiable, and it did not have a color change Hud listed as a feature. That is what you wanted, what you'd have preferred, and what you wish for - not what the product was advertised as. It might not have been exactly what you wanted, but it was exactly what you should have reasonably expected. 

    Be fair in your reviewing of products. Be accurate. If you have a problem with something you purchased, contact the creator first, and then do a review. That is fair. If you don't get satisfaction from the creator, rate and review the product appropriately. Don't just write, "It sux! This creator sux!"

    If you do make a review, you can delete it later and make a new one, if you change your mind about it. But remember: If a comment/reply is made to your review, you will not receive any type of notification; If you expect you will get one, you have to remember to go back and check the review. 

[Sellers / Reviews / Replies]

    An MP Store Owner (seller) is notified by e-mail when someone posts a review/rating on a product they purchased in that seller's MP store, or when a comment is made to an existing review. These e-mail notifications can be turned off by the seller, however. Most sellers leave this enabled. 

    As a store owner you should always respond to a negative review. This is more about potential new customers than it is about the single reviewer. You want to address any issue that was claimed by the reviewer so that others will see that the issue was dealt with, or that the reviewer is not reliable or reasonable. 

    Even if a review is upsetting and unfair, always be professional and detached when you reply to it. You can use a generic reply, like "Please contact me so that we can resolve your issue." or write something more specific: "Hello! Thank you for your purchase. I am sorry that it wasn't exactly what you wanted, but it is exactly as I described in the listing."

    However, you must remember that your reply to a MP review will NOT be seen by the reviewer unless the person happens to go back and check their own review; They are not notified when a reply comment is made to their review. It would be best if you contact the person directly in-world to dispute a review or to answer a question or suggestion. You can also ask that the person delete the poor review and make a new one. 

    If you block/mute anyone in-world, that person cannot purchase anything from your MP Store. Not a single thing! So, be very careful when you block someone. Make sure there is an overriding reason for blocking them, not just the one bad review they left. 

    If they are harassing you, or worse, sure, block them. If they offended you one time, eh, get over it. Later, perhaps they will buy more things from your store. Or someone might buy them a gift from your MP store. Count the money and say under your breath, "What a jerk." 😏

You can say that and still be a good SL Person. You can! Or, at the very least. I can. 

*grins*

    That's my opinion. Take it or leave it. But as always, I hope that you will have a great day InSL and InRL!

Best Regards,

Markham Weatherwax

SS Galaxy, A Long Walk, and Minor Ghosts

Travel & Coffee and Occasional Gas

     If you want to see what really creative and innovative people do in SL there are literally thousands of places you can visit and explore. Some of those places are well known, while a vast majority of them are relatively (or completely) unknown. There are people who design and build amazing places, design entire Sims, or multiple Sims, but very few people know about those places. And then there are places that used to be well known but almost no one visits them anymore.

    One such amazing place is the SS Galaxy: The Queen of the Sagittarian Sea. It was once, and maybe still is, the largest single build in Second Life®, spanning 3 Sim Regions. It is an enormous cruise ship that was at the time a very popular destination in SL. 

Designed by virtual architect Bill Sterling in 2007, the SS Galaxy was and is an amazing creation! Fully 650 meters in length, 110 meters across, using over 32,000 prims, and 8 decks tall. It had a full staff, a mall, and lots of activities. The ship was 3 Sims long, and there were 2 additional Sims that were part of the SS Galaxy land. 

It was an ambitious enterprise - and a truly amazing experience for those who visited and stayed in the heyday of the SS Galaxy.

    The ship was closed down in 2015. It was eventually (albeit reluctantly) taken over by Linden Lab and converted to, what they called, a museum. It is preservation: It remains mostly the same as it was before LL took it over. It would have just disappeared from the Grid but there was such a great outcry by SL users at the time, that LL decided to take it over and preserve it. Not take it over as an ongoing business, but to preserve it, as it was. 

The SS Galaxy was closed for several reasons, chief among them being repeated "griefing" attacks. Part of the actual ship was damaged in one such attack. That damage had to be repaired, and the Sim where the damage occurred needed to be "rolled-back" to a previously saved Sim state. It was quite the gossip of the day back in 2015. Linden Lab was not very helpful to the Sim owner concerning the griefing issues and Sim rollbacks, so I think the most compelling reason for the owner to close up the ship was the realization that Linden Lab didn't consider his ship a special case. 

    For 8 years the SS Galaxy "sailed" the seas of SL, never moving, but moving the hearts and minds of many SLers. At the time of its closing, it had dozens of long-term residents and staff, and a fully loaded schedule of planned events and activities. 

Linden Lab did not continue the business, which is completely understandable. That they agreed to keep it preserved on the Grid for all of these years is commendable - but I suspect they keep it there mostly because they simply forgot about it.  

There are tons of Linden "we forgot that was there" places all over the Grid. Tons! I know. I've seen them. Many times. *laughs*

Linden Lab did move the SS Galaxy from where they had originally moved it to in 2015 over to the western coast of the Bellisseria continent in 2020. They dropped anchor there and went back to forgetting about it again. 

    The SS Galaxy is still an experience to explore. It is so nice to see how people took the effort and the time to design and build an amazing prim-based ship of that tremendous and almost crazy size! It was amazing and incredible at the time it was created, and it remains an impressive construct even in this day and age of Mesh everything.

Most of the residential cabins are empty of furniture, or only have partial furnishings. The majority of the event spaces and rooms are still furnished, however. The little dance club is still there, the wedding venue, the ballroom, the spa. Things still work in a great many of the areas. The elevators work, the dance balls work, the food tables have food, and the swan rides and the Mini-Golf, those work too. Some things are gone, like the zipline ride and the skeet shooting, but you can still use the pool, the exercise equipment, and the water tube slide. 

[At the Gym / Sauna / Spa]

[The Domed Wedding Pavillion]

[Mini-Golf on Deck]

The SS Galaxy is a place you can actually still do things. It is worth exploring on a lazy day out. You can spend hours wandering down the ship hallways, looking in every room, seeing the differences in cabin sizes, and running around on deck. Take a dip in the pool. Slide down the water chute. Dance a while in the ballroom or the boiler room club down in the bowels of the ship. For sure try your hand at a few holes of mini golf! 

    I do recommend taking a friend or your partner if you are going to explore the long hallways of this ship. I do, because it can be a little eerie, a tad disconcerting, or perhaps even scary for some of you cats out there. When I did it alone my mind filled with remembrances from movies past, specifically The Shining. I fully expected to turn a corner and see two little girls standing there, waiting for me to... hmm... I guess run away. 

[No, they didn't really show up]

*coughs*

The SS Galaxy: [SLURL] * [InSL]

    I hope that you will take the time to visit this amazing ship and see all the wonders that used to be wonders in SL. The sheer effort and expense and time it took to create the SS Galaxy warrants your admiration, and at least a little of your attention. See it while you can, because it could very well not be there one day. Like in all things in real life, and in our Second Life too, it can all change or disappear without notice. Time flies, and sometimes it sinks too. Enjoy it while you can. 

Best of luck, and best of times, and my best regards,

Markham Weatherwax

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Cars, Skull Caverns, & Other Haunted Places

Travel & Coffee and Occasional Gas

    I travel many long roads in my exploration of the Second Life Grid™. I drive down good roads, bad roads, broken roads, and undocumented roads. I walk the open paths, the hidden paths, following them to remarkable places, or desolate and abandoned bare ground. Down into caves, falling into caverns, running away when something tries to eat me, and sometimes suddenly finding treasure. One never knows what will happen when they travel the grid. 

    There are many vehicles in my inventory, rezzable ones and wearables ones, and out of all of them my favorite by far is a little Morris Cooper, or mini-coop. I love it because it is very easy to control, can go at a snail's pace or speed right along, and brakes automatically. It can also roll backwards on an incline unless you apply the parking brake. The engine makes noise, the driving and reversing animations are very realistic, and the car itself is very customizable. It gives me that real feel; That adds to the overall experience on a journey of exploration. 

My Mini-Coop was created by a marvelously inventive and creative man by the name of Veloce Berton. He created a cornucopia of amazing fun things, and my little Mini-Coop was one of those creations. He builds many add-ons and accessories for the Dinkie line of Avatars, and much more. At his store, Wee Wonders nearly everything is completely free. 

Wee Wonders [SLURL] * [InSL]

    I don't drive everywhere, of course. I teleport to places too, and walk, and fly, and ride horses, and swim underwater. But sometimes I feel the need to take a long drive, and when I do, I like to drive roads I have not driven before - Or, at least, have not driven in a long time. 

Things change in SL so very quickly that a road you drove down just 2 months ago will have very dramatic scenic changes; New landowners, places that were there are gone now, and a coffee shop is no longer a coffee shop, but is instead a laundromat. Or what was once a beach on the water is now a Haunted Cavern.

DarkDharma Haunted Skull Caverns has been around for a while, but I cannot recall visiting it before. It is a long and deep cavern system that is spooky, scary, and more than a little disconcerting. Things crawl out of cracks and huge creatures show up to come after you. Bats fly, and cobwebs choke the very air itself in this dark and dangerous place. 

It is a safe place, though. No worries about your health - at least in SL. It is not dangerous like what is directly across the road. 😉

 

[DarkDharma Haunted Manor and Haunted Forest]

This is NOT a safe place. Your SL health is at risk here. Damage can be inflicted, and your AV health level can drop. It is not a place to just casually wander into and around in. A spooky dangerous manor, a creature infested forest, and probably skeletons belonging to some of your former friends. How delightful! 

Heh heh heh

If you have the spirit, go for it and walk into this haunted experience and look behind the couch cushions. I am sure you won't be disappointed. This is the house the Addams Family wishes they had. 

Skull Cavern and Haunted Manor & Forest [SLURL] * [InSL]

***

    There is a lot to do in Second Life®, not just simply shop and spend money - or play games to make a few Linden Dollars. You can explore and find wonderful creations, amazing designs and landscapes, entertaining or relaxing venues and special locations. The Virtual World of Second Life® is rich in experiences. It is sometimes not easy to find truly good places (or good people) because the grid is so vast that it is nearly unfathomable. The trick is to keep looking. And then look again. 

To many of us, Second Life® is not a game. It is our Second... Life. We live it.

Don't waste it. Live it.


Best regards and hopes for a wonderful SL Day!


Markham Weatherwax