Category: Web User Group

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday June 4th, 2025. These notes form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary, with sections of this summary times stamped to the relevant points in the video for those wishing to refer to the audio. My thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available.

Table of Contents Meeting Overview General Work in Progress Project Zero (SL  in a Browser) Update General Discussion Date of Next Meeting

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 and 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.

General Work in Progress

[Video: 1:51-7:18]

• Marketplace: work is continuing on making the Marketplace more responsive, both with product listings and with using Marketplace search options & the category responses.
• Downloads page:
  • Work is being put into adding further language translations.
  • The current drop-down for viewer system requirements is going to be updated to point to the main system requirements page, rather than being a separate listing.
  • The addition of Firestorm buttons to the page, and there are no plans at presents to do the same for other TPVs.
    • The reason given for this the volume of users running Firestorm compared to other TPVs.
    • The flipside to this is that including Firestorm on the official download page both gives the impression of “official endorsement” of Firestorm & further funnels users towards that TPV over others.
• Project Zero: updates are being made to make it easier for people who still have time available on their Project Zero use to get back to their session (also see below).
• Work that had been going into the back-end infrastructure is now nearing completion, and should free-up resources.
• SL Wiki:
  • As noted at the SUG meeting, LL are planning to move away from using the mediawiki platform for the SL Wiki to a new service.
  • Some SL Wiki pages have been ported to Readme.com as a test, but no formal decision as to which platform will be used has been made.

Project Zero (SL  in a Browser) Update

[Video: 8:26-10:44]

• The URL for Zero will be changing to web.secondlife.com.
• The current page link for Project Zero at the top of the secondlife.com dashboard page is to be replaced by an actual button.
• The link to Firestorm Zero has been removed.
• General web page design improvements.
• Largely non-visible changes to the join flow for incoming users.

General Discussion

Please refer to the video for details on the following.

• [Video: 12:11-17:09] A discussion on the CasperVend Sales and Coupons options – who uses them and how.
  • Those at the meeting indicated they tend to use both in several ways (e.g. as a means of providing a discount; as a means include a shared item that is bundled across multiple products;  for event sales; for individual item sales in-store, etc.).
  • It was suggested that LL contact the Mainstore Release Discord group to gain broader feedback.
• [Video 17:36-28:15 – text] Marketplace unavailability: a comments was made about the Marketplace reporting to be “under heavy load” and thus inaccessible to users.
  • This appears to have been the result of the same kind of DDOS / aggressive and improper crawler bots issue has has been affecting the SL Wiki, and steps are being put in place to prevent it recurring.
• [Video: 28:24-32:10] SL Wiki: syntax highlight is broken (see: [⚠️ URGENT] SL Wiki: syntax highlight is broken *and* in-world access via viewer is down…). This impacts most pages with function pages with example code.
  • This was apparently the result of an update to the version of MediaWiki LL are running, and fixes are in progress.
• [Video: 32:17-39:51] A questions was asked on why the main image on a Marketplace listing no longer “zooms” when clicked , and why is there are large amount of whitespace between the image and the options on the right side of the listing page.
  • Juniper Linden indicated that previously, the main image was a modal view of the original image uploaded by the merchant, and the “zoom” was simply displaying it at its original size; now the image is displayed directly within it listing at its original size.
  • The image upload size limitation is still, but the hope is to eventually remove it, and simply have a zoom for very large images.
• General comments on:
  • The Maturity rating seen on the top-right of Marketplace listing pages (directly below the maturity rating drop-down and search button) taking to “wander” as a browser is opened beyond approx. 2140px. This is to be addressed.
  • Web Maps, including: “Unable to locate the region” pop-up with maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/” and Web map can’t find region in URL without trailing slash – in short, there have been no changes to Web Maps since the last round of recent updates.
  • The above led to a general discussion on Map features (web and in-world).
• [Video:54:51-end] A general question: if people had a single poker chip per year to get something in SL fixed, what would they place it on? Responses included: Secondlife.com dashboard refresh; conversations floater overhaul; shape keys; a complete fix for animation constraints.
• Overlapping with the above were comments on the state of the Events listings (particularly people posting one event multiple times and how to report them), with and agreement from Kali Linden that it is a mess, and could really do with a ground-up rebuild (resources allowing); in terms of reporting, that is to be referred back internally for feedback on the best way to do so.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, July 2nd, 2025.

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday April 2nd, 2025. These notes form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary, with sections of this summary times stamped to the relevant points in the video for those wishing to refer to the audio. My thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available.

Table of Contents Meeting Overview General Updates Since last Meeting Project Zero / Firestorm Zero (SL  in a Browser) Update SL Viewer Work Firestorm Zero General to Both AI Content on the Marketplace In Brief Date of Next Meeting

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 and 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.

General Updates Since last Meeting

[Video: 0:00-0:50]

• Some clean-up of the What’s Next page – but no re-integration of the Destination Guide as yet (The DG situation is further discussed between 17:32-21:33].
• Fixes for spaces within Map links, with more fixes for incorrect spaces in links still to come.
  • Requests were again made to be able to search maps.secondlife.com by region name, which is apparently a little harder to implement than had been thought.
• Minor fixes to the Marketplace:
  • See Mature Content link was not working as expected.
  • Translations updates and added.

Project Zero / Firestorm Zero (SL  in a Browser) Update

[Video: 4:59-17:00]

SL Viewer Work

• Recent work has been focused on stability and performance.
• Work has resumed on the new viewer UI for the Project Zero SL Viewer, and the first iteration, featuring very small changes should be released “pretty soon”.

Firestorm Zero

• A core focus has been on the Firestorm version of Zero (Firestorm Zero, launched in March), running through bugs and issues reported with that. Some issues include:
  • People purchasing time and having issues launching a session.
  • People being locked-out of Firestorm Zero after a session (or even during) – most likely as a result of Cookies being corrupted, thus requiring Cookies to be cleared from the browser & the browser restarted.
  • It’s also been suggested that using a private / incognito version of a browser works better, as this should clear all Cookies on exiting.
  • Note: I have experienced multiple “locks-outs” (one both “public” and “private” browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Brave) and have found that clearing / resetting Cookies within the browser does not work, and it requires LL to bang on things (indeed, as of this moment, I cannot access Firestorm Zero!). If you encounter the same, please file a report.

General to Both

•  It was acknowledged there there is a degree of confusion around Project Zero and Firestorm Zero, and the fact there are differences between them:
  • Project Zero is effectively the official viewer, offered on a limited capacity basis, with the focus more towards incoming new users / returning users.
  • Firestorm Zero is the “paid” service utilising the Firestorm viewer and focused more towards current users.
• Some aspects of this confusion might be seen in:
  • The link found at the top of the Second Life Dashboard (Launch Second Life in a Browser) will launch Firestorm Zero.
  • The fact that at the WUG meeting, people conflated issues of logging in to Project Zero which were likely due to the limited capacity / new user focus more than anything else, with a discussion on specific issues those attempting to use Firestorm Zero were experiencing.
• As a result, Sntax Linden noted that there should be more / better differentiation between the two.
• Shortfalls with both Zero and Firestorm Zero were (again) noted as:
  • Lack of ability to directly upload (mesh, textures, etc.) to your account.
  • Lack of ability to save snapshots, etc., to a local disk.
  • The noticeable latency in camera movement (and similar) for those more distant to the host computer running the viewer. [It has been hinted that this could be address by relocating host computers for Project Zero / Firestorm Zero in additional Amazon GameLift end-points such as Éire.]

AI Content on the Marketplace

[Video: 36:20-End]

A feedback request to Add marketplace policy regarding AI generated content sparked a request for clarification on what people would like (e.g. disclosure of the use of AI generated content / listing images; outright banning of anything related to the use of AI tools; filtering out content made purely with generative AI (as opposed to content which has been created by someone and which happens to use some AI elements), something in-between; limiting some forms of AI content, etc.).

• Within the meeting, disclosure (e.g. clearly indicating a item uses AI generated content / the listing images are AI generated, etc.), was preferred by most.
  • It was noted that using purely AI-generated images (e.g. created using Midjourney) as a non-representative means to promote / sell content on the MP is already against policy (misleading advertising) and so can currently be reported.
  • Kali Linden indicated LL are looking to add reasons for flagging content, and something along the lines of “violates LL policy” might be considered, to make such reporting easier.
• It was acknowledged that those using generative AI tools (e.g. Meshy) for content on the MP probably are not going to self-identify through marking check-boxes etc.
• It was also noted that some people using generative AI images for advertising on the MP are not doing so with intent – but rather because it is the New Shiny for them to play with, and so some allowance should be made for this.
• There’s also the issue with people who may take images of their creations and then heavily post-process them to the point where they are no longer fully representative of the item it promotes – so what should be done in these cases? Or with those using art pulled from the physical world?
• Part of this conversation inevitably rolled over the idea of AI “companions” / bots and an expressed desire to “ban everything” about AI – including bots, despite there being nuances – such as with the latter (e.g. in-store CSRs, more dynamic role-play NPCs, etc.).

In Brief

Please refer to the video for details on the following.

• [Video: 1:32-4:44] General discussion on the Second Life booth at the 2025 Games Developer Conference, which some at the meeting felt to be underwhelming based on the photographs posted to social media, etc.
  • LL also appear to have received feedback from the SL creators who attended the event, and it appears lessons are being learnt for future possible events / appearances.
• [Video 17:32-18:50] Further  discussion over the lack of a visible-by-default chat bar in the official viewer.
• [Video: 22:03-35:15] Discussion on use of the in-viewer browser vs. using an external browser – most preferred the external browser option.
  • However, most browser-based shopping stats the Lab has for the Marketplace point to the viewer’s internal browser being primarily used for purchases.
  • Sntax Linden noted that as the internal browser is the only option for accessing the web from within Project Zero / Firestorm Zero, LL do want to improve on it – such as making the responsive MP not only work on small device screens, but also work better within the in-viewer browser.
  • Traditionally, the in-viewer browser has been avoided due to concerns of general security (e.g. clicking on phishing links and opening them within the in-viewer browser). This led to a discussion on ways to block “bad links”.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, June 4th, 2025.

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday March 5th, 2025. These notes form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary, with sections of this summary times stamped to the relevant points in the video for those wishing to refer to the audio. My thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available.

Table of Contents Meeting Overview MFA Enabled across Web Property Log-ins What Next? Page Refresh Viewer Download Page Refresh Marketplace Project Zero and SL Mobile Project Zero SL Mobile In Brief Date of Next Meeting

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 and 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.

MFA Enabled across Web Property Log-ins

[Video: 2:56-3:14]

• Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is now enabled for all Second Life web properties.
• Those with MFA logging-in to the majority of SL web properties (e.g. the dashboard, Marketplace, Project Zero, the Destination Guide, etc.,), will be asked to supply a token from an appropriate authenticator the next time their current token expires.
• As with the viewer, tokens will generally be valid for 30 days, the exception being should you clear cookies from your browser, in which case you will also have to supply a new token on logging in.

• This work should harmonise logging-in across most of the popular SL websites.

What Next? Page Refresh

[Video: 3:15-3:38]

• The What Next page, accessible via the Dashboard menu has been refreshed.
• The new look include new tabbed sections, more relevant video, and the style in keeping with the overall web properties style refresh.
• However: at the time of writing, the Destination Guide – present under the drop-down previously available when hovering the mouse over the What Next? menu option – is absent from the page.
• This means that currently, the Guide can be accessed using its dedicated URL – https://secondlife.com/destinations.
• This prompted a discussion later in the meeting on where the Destination Guide should go – e.g. as its own menu item.

Viewer Download Page Refresh

[Video: 3:15-4:03]

• The viewer download page has been updated to the new Dark Theme, and includes a refreshed look which now includes links to the SL Mobile viewer pages on the Apple Store and Google play.

Marketplace

[Video: 4:09-7:25]

• Responsive product listing pages were enabled on Wednesday, March 5th, 2025.
  • This should mean product listings should be displayed in a responsive manner, depending on whether you are viewing them on a large monitor or Tablet / Mobile device.
  • Not all of the Marketplace is responsive as yet, so expect this to be an iterative implementation.
• The Marketplace legacy pay-out page has been “put back”, and work has been carried out some optimisations to the Account History page, with more to come.
• Coming Soon: Improvements to the Mobile / Tablet versions of MP Search, which are “pretty stripped down” at present.
  • This is being actively worked on, and the iteration of further responsive MP pages will come after this work has been completed.
  • The approach is to start making “small, incremental improvements to your Marketplace lives.”

Project Zero and SL Mobile

[Video: 28:00-46:13]

Note: Project Zero is the code name for the viewer-in-a-browser experience:

• Website: https://zero.secondlife.com/
• Information / background: Second Life in your browser: a new initiative from Linden Lab.

Project Zero

• Numbers able to access the service are still limited, with the priority (for want of a better term) being given to users signing-up to Second Life over existing users.
  • If the service is running at capacity, the “endlessly spinning” loading circle should now eventually time-out and display the message below.

• • Whilst the number of concurrent users able to use Zero is low, when combined with the session limit and the fact the service s available 24/7 it should still mean that “several thousand” users per day are be able to access it.
  • The ratio of slots for existing users and those for new users is also subject to adjustment up and down.
• LL are curious as to why existing people are using the viewer in a browser and the type of device being used. Those at the meeting responded in terms of:
  • Curiosity, better performance than on their own machines, testing (including trying it on different devices), logging-in via a tablet device to offer support to customers.
  • Devices used ranged from desktop PC through laptops to tablets + mobile devices(!).
• Feedback on experience varied in feedback:  avatar loading was seen as better; region crossings / teleports (and associated failures) were seen as about the same for some, improved in terms of success for others.
• The fact that many appear to be using Zero from a tablet seems to have surprised LL, with Sntax Linden (project lead) curious as to how people were managing sans and UI overlay (in my case, multi-channel wireless keyboard and trackball both switched to BT mode and linked to tablet).
• Feedback was also taken on whether people would prefer using Project Zero over the Desktop experience (screen resolution, etc., adjusted). Responses were varied.

SL Mobile

• The Lobby function has been extended to Premium Plus subscribers and to (some? iterative deployment?) Premium members.
  • Lobby appears to be included with iOS version 0.1.534 and Android version 2025.2.543.
• Requests have been made to be able to simultaneously log-in to SL Mobile whilst also being logged-in to the viewer (and vice-versa).
  • This is something for which LL has an awareness, and the Lobby function is seen as a possible first step towards it by allowing communications ,etc., to occur prior to the world loading-in.
  • However, overall, making it possible to be logged-in from both Mobile and the viewer simultaneously does have some significant technical challenges, due to the way client / simulator interactions are managed. For example, a client must have an avatar physically present in SL in order for chat, IMs, etc., to work, and the system doesn’t support having an avatar effectively in-world twice.
• Philip Rosedale asked for people’s preferences for SL Mobile, if they are only given a binary choice, either:
  • Have SL Mobile fully render the 3D world and use it to interact with the world through it much as they would with the viewer? Or:
  • Have it as a “communications companion” with chat, IMs, Groups, etc., prioritised and without the associated world rendering etc (e.g. pretty much as the iOS Mobile project had originally been initiated under Oz Linden)?
  • Those at the meeting, while a small sample, leaned towards the latter (rather ironically, given that during the development of the iOS Mobile option, there were multiple calls for it to offer world rendering as a priority in order to be useful).
• As an extension to the above conversation, some at the meeting indicated they’d actually prefer some means of chatting / responding to IMs via their account dashboard.
  • As per the notes regarding being simultaneously logged-in via Mobile and the viewer, whilst the Lab are aware of the desire for a web-to-in-world chat capability, it would require a substantial re-engineering effort given chat + IM communications are predicated on the avatar being logged-in to a location in SL.

In Brief

Please refer to the video for details on the following.

• [Video: 7:30-9:18] Marketplace Styles (aka variants):
  • Styles is the ability to list multiple versions of a single items in a single Marketplace Listing (e.g. different colour versions of the same sweater, together with a demo and any fatpack (if offered)).
  • As I’ve previously noted, this was reported as something planned for deployment at that start of 2023, but has since seemingly fallen off the table.
  • Kali Linden indicated that the Web Team still want to implement Styles, but the work essentially lost its management sponsor before it could be seen as completely ready for deployment.
  • Threfore more the subject is mentioned, the more likely it is to receive the necessary management support – this being the case: Brad, Grumpity, whomever! give us Styles on the MP! 😀 .
  • Also, if you would like to see the capability implemented on the MP, upvote the feature request.
• [Video 10:00-11:47] maps.secondlife.com:
  • Further requests for the service to be searchable by region name – described as having “a chance” of being elevated in priority.
  • The issue in using map data with tools like Mapbox was again raised – also see this issue.
• [Video: 15:42-20:20] A general discussion on on things like style cards, lists of items, etc., new starters can get to assist them in customising / clothing their avatars.
  • This included the idea of the Lab providing a “Starter Pack” that could include things like a basic AO, leading to a broader discussion on the use of AO, their availability and importance to news users, the weakness of the Senra wearable AO system, building the AO system into the viewer, etc.
  • No conclusions drawn.
• [Video: 20:34-25:56] General discussion on web properties and issues / possible updates, including:
  • The status of Place Pages (in short: a means to promote in-world locations user have created, introduced in 2017 as a “beta”,  then launched shortly thereafter – and basically left to wither on the vine.
  • (Again) aligning maps.secondlife.com functionality with that seen within the in-viewer World map.
  • Giving the dashboard page (and associated pages – transaction history, etc.) a broader facelift. Kali indicated this requires the input of two teams, and will likely be a longer-term top-to-toe redesign.
  • Reducing the amount of sub-menu nesting evident in some web properties.
• The last 15-ish minutes of the meeting (approx: 47:00 onwards) formed a more general conversation on MP reviews (particularly “bad” reviews), dashboard chat capabilities and what else might be possible, such as making notecards viewable without being logged-in – which led to mention of having Inventory accessible through the web), search the MP via date ranges, etc.
  • Kali notes that a feature request to add the date listed (/updated) added to an item’s listing has been accepted, and will likely be implemented (see also the Chrome Marketplace Enhancer extension).
  • Adding a tab to listing where creators can drop their log files / update notes into a listing.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025.