September 2021 SL Web User Group summary

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, September 1st, 2021.

These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found embedded at the end of this article (my thanks to her as always!), and the following is a summary of key topics / discussions.

Web Properties Updates

• Back-end work is still on-going and has taken up a lot of time through August.
• The updated SL logo has been added to further web pages.
• New User sign-ups:
  • The e-mail validation check on the new user sign-up pages has been improved.
  • Error messages for selected names that are unavailable have been made clearer
• Land updates:
  • The bug that required Show in Search to be enabled when selling land has now been fixed.
  • There have been some repairs to broken links in the e-mail sent to those obtaining a new Private Island.
  • The land auction page has been fixed to correctly show the highest bidder on a parcel, and further translations of the page have been added for localisation.
• Marketplace improvements:
  • The ability to single-click empty a shopping cart has been implemented.
  • The meaning of a number of Marketplace error messages have been made clearer.

Mobile Update

• There are some bugs with the iOS update LL had hoped to roll-out to the test group in August. These are being ironed out, so it is still internal to the Lab.
• The Android version is still awaiting the iOS version progressing.

Marketplace Related

• For some reason, some Marketplace merchants are using the Bulk Redelivery option introduced in August to re-send copies of demo versions of goods to people. At least one Jira has been filed on this, and LL will be fine-tuning the capability.
• While it has been this way for years, the question was asked as to why payment details must be provided when opening an MP store. The response was that primarily, it is to prevent bots taking out MP stores.
• It was suggested that flags should be added to allow users to report items that are not as advertised (e.g. “Item Not As Advertised → Misleading Listing Terms” or “MP listing flag Item Not As Advertised → Item(s) Not As Described”. These were seen by LL as potentially useful flags.
• Item variations (e.g. multiple colour options for clothing items) is still a feature LL plan to add to the MP, but the work on providing / implementing it has not yet started, so no time frame as yet on when it might surface.
• There are no plans to allow multiple MP stores under a single account – apparently the MP just isn’t set-up to support this.
• As an alternative to multiple stores under an account, a request was made to allow goods in stores to be categorised by the store owner. A feature request Jira on the idea was requested.
• The request was made to allow users to prioritise / rank the items they add to their wishlists so others can see the items they are really interested in.  Again seen as a Jira request.
• A “recommended for you” / “you might also like” feature based on a user’s purchase habits on the MP is something that is unlikely to be implemented, as the MP infrastructure is not geared for this.
• The ability for creators selling limited quantity items to publicly show the number left has been previously asked for in meetings – a feature request Jira has been requested.
• BUG-231142 “Questions and Answers’ tab for marketplace product pages” is a feature request received and accepted by the Lab. Reed Linden requested MP store owners consider it and perhaps offer feedback on the idea at the next WUG meeting.

MP Reviews and Flagging

• A request was made to allow creators to disallow reviews on things like demo versions of products to prevent bad reviews on the strength of people not understanding a demo may have limited functionality, etc.
  • While it is acknowledged that some bad reviews can be left that may be unwarranted (and can be flagged as such), disabling reviews for items really isn’t an option, as this could be equally abused by creators (by blocking reviews on the basis that they do not like what has been written, however valid. There is also the fact that reviews are at best subjective: just because a creator may not like  / agree with critical views, does not necessarily mean they are “bad”.
• A separate suggestion was made to allow the possible automatic removal of 1 and 2 star reviews. Essentially, it one receipt of such a review, the creator could respond via their own comment and the user leaving the original comment would then have 7 days to respond. If they do, the review remains, if they don’t the review is removed.
  • This was also seen as a potential means for unscrupulous  creators to game their reviews, and thus not something LL would consider.
• When dealing with reviews, it was suggested by LL that if there are better / alternative flags creators could use to highlight abusive / off-topic / unfair reviews, this would be a better option. Request for possible additional flags should be made via Jira.
• A suggestion was made to better denote creator responses to review comments, such as through a border around them or having them appear in a different colour, so as to make them easier to spot. This was seen as a useful suggestion, and a Jira on it has been requested.

In Brief

• Premium Plus remains on hold.
• Two-factor Authentication (2FA) is still being worked on.
• BUG-216465 “Viewer web widgets not HTTPS ready” was apparently fixed in an August update, although the bug report was still open at the time of the meeting.

Congratulations to Keira, Welcome Back to Reed

• This was the last Web User Group meeting to be led by Keira Linden, as she is transitioning to take over management of the Support Operations team – congratulations to her.
• As a result, Reed Linden has returned to the Web User Group and will again be leading in from the October meeting – so welcome back Reed.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, October 6th, 14:00 SLT.