The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday November 4, 2026. These notes form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. Pantera’s video is embedded at the end of this article, my thanks to her for providing it.
Meeting Overview
- The Web User Group exists to provide an opportunity for discussion on Second Life web properties and their related functionalities / features. This includes, but is not limited to: the Marketplace, pages surfaced through the secondlife.com dashboard; the available portals (land, support, etc), and the forums.
- As a rule, these meetings are conducted:
- On the first Wednesday of the month at 14:00 SLT.
- In both Voice and text.
- At this location.
- Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
- Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
Web Services Updates
- Second Life web maps
- maps.secondlife.com now supports searching by region name, and across all maturity ratings. Just enter a region name in the search bar.
- The caps API issue reported in my simulator user group update is known, and it is hoped this will have a fix in place in the coming week.
- This was apparently part of the fall-out from the Internet P2PShell vulnerability at the end of October.
- A problem here is whilst LL own the domain and the map service, some of the API are provided by third-parties and not directly under LL’s control. Further investigations are going on to see if these APIs can be handled in a more protected manner, or whether there needs to be some form of migration away from them to an alternate solution.
- A fix has gone in to hopefully resolve the issue of some snapshots failing to upload (to the SL feeds?). This is being monitored.
- Continued under-the-hood (i.e. non-user-visible) refactoring and clean up of the Marketplace. This should result in:
- Better visibility for the team when things fail, for fixing response / fixing.
- Better performance around automated jobs (PLEs, redeliveries, etc).
- Multiple security patches and cleaning-up to better deal with attempted AI generated exploits.
- Once aspect of the security work LL has been implementing throughout 2026 meant that when the P2PShell vulnerability surfaced, they were well placed to deal with it, and none of the SL services had to be taken down in order to avoid exposure, etc.
Marketplace Images
Question form LL: how do creator merchants on the MP go about making images for their listings (thought processing, editing, , what is included, tools used, etc.).
- General response:
- Many simply use the ad image they use in their in-world vendors + supporting images.
- The preferred tools were given as PhotoShop and GIMP for editing.
- Requests were made for:
- Actually embedding videos of products, rather than just linking to them – this appeared to be misunderstood, as a mitigating factor raised was that of “hosting” videos by LL – while what was being asked for was embedding of You Tube, etc., videos (which is still complex, but does not require storage on LL’s part).
- An ability to zoom / enlarge images.
- An agreed aspect ratio / format for images.
- Whilst somewhat separate in terms of responsibility: a better choice of aspect ratios for Inventory thumbnails rather than just 1:1 square, as many creators use the same image for both thumbnails and MP, and so feel limited.
- It was noted that support for GIF images is being looked at.
- Juniper also enquired whether creators would consider having a 3D preview option for their products (e.g. as with Turbosquid or the SL mesh upload preview tool) would be useful.
- This received generally favourable responses.
- However, the idea of only allowing 3D previews of products was not so positively received (do HUDs benefit from a 3D preview? do texture images – such as art pieces – benefit?); what about resellers who do not have access to the original asset? What would they display?
- Overall the feeling was that a 3D preview would be a powerful addition to the MP, but it should not exclude the use of 2D images, with the request being made for any 3D preview to include a wireframe view option as well, and something like a “data sheet” listing things like LOD models, Land Impact, etc., so that users who wish to can made more informed decisions on purchases.
- Some of this conversation got into the weeds, technically, on how best to handle things.
- Later in the meeting the request was made that – if a 3D preview option is to be provided – LL look at also providing an animation preview capability.
- Juniper emphasised the idea of a 3D preview was more for feedback purposes at this point than something actively being implemented, with the internal focus at the Lab being brainstorming how to make MP listings “better”.
General MP Discussion
These topics were raised during or immediately following as a part of the above.
- Variants and Styles: the ability for creators to have a single listing for all colour / size variants of the same item, rather than having to list them all individually.
- The idea of “Styles” or “Variants” – both terms have been used by LL for this – has been a long-running topic, and in 2021/2 a project was initiated to provide this, and by late 2022 it was indicated it could be deployed in 2023. Since then, it has emerged that the capability is not ready for deployment, and has consistently slipped down the list of priorities at LL.
- Juniper commented on the Variants situation as:
Variants is a big push we would like to do that of course, and part of our marketplace clean up is so we can work this bit by bit if we can.
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- The request was made to at least allow a means for creators to somehow group versions of an item together beyond just related photos.
- Marketplace Categories: a further request was made for the Marketplace categories to be overhauled (e.g. “hair” being classified as an “accessory” rather than a “body part”).
- It was also asked way Categories appear to the left of non-listing pages and as a drop-down selection in the page header area (where it also appears on listing pages). However, the latter is intended for searches and does not have the same granularity as the Category list in terms of sub-lists of items.
- It was suggested that rather than having hierarchical/static categories, the MP should have a more filter-like approach (as seen within other on-line marketplaces), allowing returns based on multiple selections (and which can be used with search terms as well) – as with the filtering on Inventory.
- Juniper noted that right now, there is an internal exercise going on to consider how categories might be improved.
- “Thank You” page and links: Following a purchase, the Marketplace displays a “thank You” page, which has hints and tips for shopping which, most notably:
- There is a link “How to Collect your Purchase” – which actually goes to a video covering purchasing L$, using the Marketplace, buying in-world etc., with only a small portion on how to find MP purchases in inventory. Given that people will have already gone through buying L$ and purchasing things from the MP – why not just have a clear, simple instruction directing people to look for their purchase in the Received Items area / folder of their viewer’s inventory?
- Whilst there is a link to return to the MP homepage, it is buried among other links – surely it should be promoted so as to be more obvious?
- More general:
- Juniper noted that work is going on to make redeliveries more robust. It was noted that the ability for creators to have their own items redelivered through the listing management pages appears broken for some.
- The view was again expressed that there are too many clicks required for a creator to get to their listings (currently: Creator name > My Marketplace > Merchant Home > Manage Listings – why not have Manage Listings under My Marketplace?).
- Requests was made for creators to be able to:
- Set an item as a Featured Item in their own Marketplace store.
- Have in-world store Groups to be linked to the creator’s Marketplace, so that Group members shopping at the MP get a discount.
- Various suggestions were made for LL to host “curated” limited-time sales events on the MO. For example: an invitation for creators to register for participation in periodic Marketplace Sales events (aligned with Shop and Hop?), limited to so many creators. Those who are successful have their item(s) listed a specific set of MP “Sale” pages generated by LL, with items automatically returning to their “pre-sale” price at the end of the event. Those successfully participating in one event are automatically excluded from the next.
- Having a creator set their entire store as having a sale was seen as a potentially easier option to provide than this particular idea.
- A request for a store’s banner logo to appear on all associated listing pages, not just the store page, rather than the small square logo to the right.
In Brief
- [Video: 47:04-55:25] The question on what information – such as Map-related data for use in terrain maps, etc., – is permissible for collection & how it might be collected was again asked.
- This is a question which has been subject to a game of pass the parcel around the various user groups.
- The concern is that it is not clear as to what is / is not permissible to be collected via bot, and the potential for bot systems to be banned (a-la Bonniebots)
- Ideally, having a dedicated API to furnish “allowable” region information such as terrain information (elevation, etc.), water height, region name, height of structures, etc., would be the preferred solution.
- It was again noted that not all of the API LL uses are under their direct control – although this might be changing in some way. As such, Juniper offered to take the request back to the office to try to have it discussed with all relevant parties and in line with whatever is trying to be achieved with API management in general.
Next Meeting
- Wednesday, December 2, 2026.
