Category: Web User Group

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, March 9th, 2022.

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!). Again, the following is a summary of key topics / discussions, not a full transcript of everything mentioned.

February Work Summary

[Video: 1:23-4:53]

• The Marketplace variants project is now officially titled Marketplace Styles:
  • Most of the back-end infrastructure work to support different styles (e.g. different colour variants for an item in a single listing) is now complete.
  • The design of the front-elements (as will be seen by users) has now been approved.
  • It is hoped that prototyping will be available for viewing (e.g. through the Web User Group meetings) in the “next couple of months”.
• Search Relevance project is now seeing plans being put together, and some of this may be available for viewing at WUG meetings in April / May 2022.
  • [Video: 43:59-45:24] Work currently underway is to track the relevance of a given search result (e.g. “user searched for X and gained these results. User then took option Y in that list of results” – where if Y= the first item in the list, relevance can be considered high; if they take the 100th option, then that suggests the relevance of ordering is not as good as it could be). The idea here being to be able to feed this back into improving the relevance of search results.
• Premium Plus – an announcement is expected in March 2022.
  • The overall page of benefits has apparently been agreed (no details at present).
  • There are still some elements to be finalised (pricing?).

Marketplace Q&A

• [Video: 5:00-6:16] Could Marketplace order history be sorted by item cost (e.g. most expensive at the top)? – seen as a reasonable suggestion, and a feature request – BUG-231907 – has been filed.
• [Video 7:04-8:01] Sales tax: a reminder that as per the official blog post on the introduction of US sales tax, sales tax on applicable US purchases will be applied in accordance with local jurisdictional requirements (e.g. state-level laws, etc.). So if your state / jurisdiction does not charge for the sale of virtual goods and services, then LL will not apply it.
• [Video: 8:37-9:39] Marketplace Sub-Brands: following the discussions in the February meeting, a project is now being scoped based on the feedback given. However, the development of any project is unlikely to surface in 2022.
• [Video: 9:55-12:00] The question was asked if LL could provide the means for creators on the Marketplace to run collaborative sales / events – a shared page with links to items the creators participating in the event are including in it. This was referred to as an “interesting idea” and for a feature request Jira to be filed, preferably with some details on how this might work.
• [Video: 14:26-15:00] A request was made for further community categories on the MP. Again, a feature request as been requested.
• [Video: 20:52-22:10] A request was made for sellers to be able to disable customer reviews on the grounds it has become “normal” to see negative reviews. Whether or not this is the case, the majority of reviews are left in good faith, and while it can be frustrating to see negative reviews where the purchaser has failed to try a demo / not read supplied instructions, the view is that disabling reviews is not the answer.
  • [Video: 22:44-24:50] The suggestion was made in text later in the meeting to allow up / down voting of comments. However, unless carefully controlled (e.g. only allowing those who have purchased an item to up / down vote), then this is potentially open to abuse as well (e.g. a creator getting all their friends to down vote a negative review – or even one person down vote multiple times). As such, any implementation would require considerable forethought and design.
• [Video 25:09-26:07] Could MP store owner be allowed to include links between their stores and the social media platforms they use? This has been tried in the past, but has not worded out. While there is no objection to trying for a better mechanism again, there is currently no work planned in their area. Again, specific ideas welcomed via feature request Jiras.

In Brief

• The wiki has (after all) bee updated to HTTPs, and the syntax highlighting issue for the LSL pages has been addressed.
• The Destination Guide is on the Web Team’s roadmap to receive and overhaul / face-lift, but no ETA at present. One of the aims of this work is to make it easier to find places that actually have people in them.
• There was some discussion on the “new” look for Search, with some criticism for the places summary not showing traffic (a location must be clicked and seen in the expanded view to get traffic numbers). However, whilst experienced users find this useful, new users found the traffic reference confusing, and so it was purposefully placed in the expanded view.
• It was again noted in the meeting that LL are looking at the new user experience from “top to toe” – from sign-up through getting in-world to customising an avatar, to finding things to do and people with whom to interact.

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022.

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!). Again, the following is a summary of key topics / discussions, not a full transcript of everything mentioned.

January Work Summary

[Video: 2:00-6:15]

• Destination Guide:
  • A face-lift for the look of the Destination Guide.
  • Back-end infrastructure work on the DG to make it “easier and more effective” for the Lab to maintain, and to lay the foundations to build now functionality going forward (e.g. improved support for TPVs); restructuring of widgets; improvements to place rankings.
  • These updates should be deployed during February.
• Marketplace variants (e.g. different colour variants for an item in a single listing):
  • Infrastructure work is now in progress.
  • Work has also started on designs for how listings will work.
  • No date / time-frame for when this will be delivered – but possibly Q2 2022.
• Part of January’s work has been focused on OS and code updates to keep everything up-to-date.

Search Improvements Project Update

• The third-party team who will be supporting the work to overhaul Search is now on-board with the Lab.
• This means the project to overhaul Search has now started, and is liable to run for the next 6 months or so.
• As previously noted, the aim of the work is to make Search functionality / results more meaningful / relevant.

Marketplace Q&A

[Video: 7:27-20:49]

• The idea for this is to have an Amazon-style Q&A section on Marketplace listings similar to that seen on Amazon, where questions on a product can be asked and answered either by the creator (or their store managers) or by those who have actually purchased the item.
• Views against this included:
  • Some Content creators have external social media groups or in-world groups to address questions, etc., so a Q&A section just adds to these channels.
  • Some creators feel they are dealing with enough “spam” and “crap” (words used), and a Q&A section just adds to it.
  • Some creators use alt accounts for different brands they run, and don’t keep their alts active beyond creating listings, so they “are not going to see Q&As”.
• A suggested alternative was to have amore of a “live chat” feature or a link to contact the creator so that people can talk directly to a creator / store manager.
  • This would appear to suffer many of the “cons” noted above: what about stores run by alts that are not logged-in? A “live chat” capability forms yet another channel of communication; it requires always being logged-in to the MP, etc.
  • It could also potentially be an abuse vector.
  • It misses the potential for a Q&A section to double as a form of FAQ – common questions asked are right their in front of customer’s eyes (if they choose to read them).
• One creator at the meeting did point out it could be very helpful to newer users, in allowing them to ask questions without the need to try and find whatever alternative channel  – in-world group, Discord channel, etc. – that might be available for questions.
• It was pointed out that the facility could be made optional: if a creator doesn’t want to have a Q&A section included in a listing (or even an entire store) they could opt to do so.
• Given the number of unfavourable responses voiced at the meeting, the idea is being taken “back to the drawing board”.

Marketplace Sub-Brands

[Video: 21:03-40:52]

• Rather than having to use alts to manage listings for their different brands, allowing creators on the Marketplace to have additional stores linked to a “primary” brand name, allowing them to manage all their brands from one account.
• This would be a much larger project to implement, requiring some substantial infrastructure changes (e.g. the MP is built on the assumption there is one one store per MP account). As such, requests for such a capability have previously been turned down.
• There was some confusion in the meeting as to what the difference would be between “store” and “sub-brand” and how they might be used.
• There were also what amounted to two different use-cases:
  • Some would like the capability to run multiple individual stores from just the one account, rather than having to run different store through alt accounts (e.g. a store for their horse-related goods, a store for their motorcycle products, etc), with the option to link between stores if they wanted, and with ease-of-access to the stores from one Marketplace account dashboard.
  • Others expressed more of a “department store” style approach with a “flagship” brand, and then sub-brands for products below it (equating to the different departments in a store), allowing them to “break up” their existing store without the risk of losing existing reviews and feedback.
  • A further suggestion what to provide a means for creators to link their alt store accounts to a “main” account, if they so wish – although this does not solve for those wishing to split their existing stores..
• Both of these approaches were seen as valid, but left the question on how best to approach them. As such, Reed Linden requested time to take the ideas back to the Lab for internal brainstorming + further discussions at future WUG meetings.

In Brief

• [41:36-42:35] LL are targeting 2022 Q2 (April-June) for the deployment of Premium Plus. Content, cost, etc., will be announced at the time of launch.
• [48:02-48:50] Despite fees on Event listings, there are still what amounts to adverts appearing within the events listing. Currently, Events are not subject to any work, and so this is still something to be dealt with. However, events are due to be overhauled “in the near future”.
• It was re-iterated that LL have largely stopped supporting the SL wiki, other than core pages of information relating to things like LSL functions, policy, etc., and there are no plans to move it to HTTPS.

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, January 12th, 2022.

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!). Again, the following is a summary of key topics / discussions, not a full transcript of everything mentioned.

2022 “Roadmap”

In the 2021 year-end review blog post the Lab issued in December 2021, several projects for 2022 were mentioned, some of which fall wholly or in part under the Web team’s responsibility. Reed Linden used this meeting to discuss some of them, as summarised below.

Premium Plus

• The Lab has a full list of features and options they would like to include in Premium Plus. However, what is actually delivered (and I assume when / how it is delivered) is still subject to a number of factors.
• Because of the above, Reed could not offer definitive statements on what “will” be included, only hints to what might be present when the option is rolled out, such as:
  • The potential for a higher amount of free tier than Premium’s 1024 sq m.
  • The potential for specific Marketplace options to the available to Premium Plus subscribers.
  • The potential for reduced upload and other fees (Name Changes?) for Premium Plus.
  • The potential for a high-than-the-current Premium weekly stipend.
• Also, because the final list of what is to be released is potentially still subject to change, final pricing has yet to be agreed, although it will be higher than the current Premium subscription fees.
  • The current plan is to introduce Premium Plus as “single level” offering at a set fee level (presumably monthly, quarterly, and annual, as per the current Premium). However, functionality has been provided to allow the Lab to offer further levels of “Premium” options, should this prove to be wanted.
  • However, Reed also indicated that Premium offerings might and in an unspecified future become à la carte, allowing users to pick and pay for the options they want.
• The introduction of Premium Plus will not see any “downgrading” of current Premium subscription benefits or any changes to the current Premium subscription fees.
• A major question still to be answered by the Lab is how are upgrades / down grades handled (e.g. a user goes from Premium with grandfathered stipend (L$500) to Premium Plus then back down to Premium; does their stipend revert to the current L$300 a week, or go back to the grandfathered amount?).

Search Improvements

• The “next few quarters” will be focused on an overhaul of Second Life Search, with the aim of “making it work “the way we expect it to work, with all the little features we all as good Internet residents have come to expect from a robust and well rounded search engine”. This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Making the search filters more universal and offering more options for searching for things (e.g. such as being able to search for a region through Search → Places in addition to via the World Map).
  • Improving both the relevancy and the ranking of Search results.
• To achieve this, the Lab has hired in specific experts in Search systems to carry out the work.
• Specifics on precisely how changes will be made and implemented are currently unclear, as a lot is dependent on further metrics gathering on the way Search objectively functions and then working with the incoming expects to recognise where and how things can be improved.

Marketplace Variants and Performance

• Described as the “big ticket item” for the Marketplace in 2022, is listing variants
  • This will introduce the ability to have variants (e.g. different colours of an article of clothing) within a single listing – perhaps the single longest-running request for Marketplace functionality, reaching back to beyond the days of Pink Linden.
  • The focus for Quarter 1 2022 (January through the end of March) is on putting in place the back-end support for this, including ensuring all of the required infrastructure is in place to support the functionality.
  • Work will then switch to build-out the user-facing aspects of the capability, with the expectations that new features could start surfacing for users in late spring / early summer, with work then continuing.
• It has been noted that Marketplace performance can be very variable, depending on overall usage at any given time, and it is hoped that time in 2022 can be allotted to making some performance improvements.

In Brief

• Another aspect of work that will be continuing through 2022 is the revamp of SL web properties to bring them more into line with the flat design seen within the web search pages, splash and log-in pages, etc.
• Opening grid-wide experience capabilities to users is still under consideration, as is allowing larger script sizes – although technically, neither of these capabilities are the remit of the Web Team.
• Marketplace:
  • There appears to be some confusion over the current status of commenting on reviews left on the Marketplace after recent changes. It keep things before, at present, only the seller of an item can leave a comment (reply) to a review of their item; all other changes were rolled back.
  • Marketplace Q&A option: as noted in a couple of past meeting summaries, it has been suggested LL provide a facility where questions concerning products on the MP can be asked and responded to by the seller or those who have purchased the item (similar to the “Customer Questions and Answers” section of many Amazon listing pages).  Precisely how this should look and be managed is to be a topic for discussion at the next WUG meeting.
• Events (including searching events and how they are presented on the Event page) is also something that has been earmarked for possible work during 2022.
• Date of next meeting: Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022, starting at 14:00 SLT.

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, December 8th, 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 – Past Month

• Search: most of November was focus on the Search facelift that launched on November 22nd – those interested can see my own thoughts here.
  • LL are aware of criticism the new look has received, both performance-wise and in the design. The latter drew the comment, “we like it, so we’re keeping it.”
  • Again, as a reminder, this was a cosmetic update, the underpinning Search engine was not touched or altered as a part of the work – see below for notes on functional updates.
• E-mail preferences changes: part of November was spent preparing for splitting the receipt of Group notices away from general IM receipt via e-mail when off-line. See the official blog post here, and my own notes.
  •  This change comes into effect from Wednesday December 15th.
  • There was a bug within the Change Email Settings page whereby re-enabling the receipt of Group notices would disable the receipt on IMs via e-mail. This is said to now be fixed.

2022 “Roadmap”

Whilst not a roadmap in the strictest sense (as no specific order was assigned to them), the Web team was looking to implement (or start) the following projects in 2022:

• Search: an attempt to overhaul and refine the way the current web search engine works.
  • The two watch-words for this project are to make Search more useful and to return more relevant results.
  • This work is to be undertaken with a 3rd party SEO specialist company, rather than being handled by LL themselves.
• Web Properties facelift: a facelift of all of the Lab’s public/user-facing web properties.
  • The two watch-world for this are to make all web properties more user-friendly and mobile friendly for tablets and smartphones.
  • This is seen as a major project to run through 2022.
  • This work will include the Marketplace, which is going to see “a lot of changes”.
  • Presumably  – and this is purely my personal take on this – the facelift work will see more utilisation of the Flat Design approach seen with the Search front-end and in things like the Second Life landing pages.
• Infrastructure updates: 2022 will include various infrastructure projects aimed at better leveraging the tools and capabilities that are now available to LL via Amazon.
• Premium Plus: the hope is that Premium Plus will be revisited and launched in 2022. Any questions on what it might look like, fees, etc., will not be answerable until the option is available for deployment.
• Other projects: there is the potential for other work to be carried out in 2022, some of which may not be user-visible, but the details on other work for 2022 are still in a state of flux, and updates will likely be given at WUG meetings through the year.

Place Pages

Reed Linden asked the question on what would people like to see Place Pages actually do, and what would they like to get out of them.

• It has been accepted by the Lab that as they stand, Place Pages are under-utilised and with a genuine raison d’etre for their existence, having been left hanging since their introduction in 2017.
• There is functionality within Place Pages that might be better leveraged to help people find out more about specific locations within Second Life, but it is acknowledged the capability requires tuning and a more clearly defined purpose.
• Some of the suggestions that were put forward included:
  • Allowing more than the current 3 screenshots + hero image.
  • Better integration between Place Pages and web Search.
  • Allowing Place Pages to be filtered by Maturity Rating and also selected options such as “private island”, “mainland”, etc.
  • Better promotion, so that people actually understand Place Pages exist and can be used as a promotional / informational tool about locations in Second Life independently of Search.
  • Offering the ability to provide information on events / activities, etc., allowing Place Pages to become more of a general web presence for locations in-world (which was actually part of the original promotion for Place Pages when they first launched).
    • This might be seen as something between a simple listing of events and a blotter-like feed of information and updates, possibly with ability to have it displayed as media in-world, removing some of the the need for script-intensive event boards.
  • Displaying historical  / predictive information on a location – e.g. how many have visited in the past week / month / how many are present at the moment, when the best times are to visit and find people there, etc.
  • Providing the means to include links to other social media / platforms utilised by a venue / business (e.g. Twitter, Discord, etc.).
  • Possibly de-coupling Place Pages from public search – useful for private groups who wish to have a central place for information that can be used purely by Group members, without it necessarily being surfaced through Search, etc.
• It should be noted that currently, updating Place Pages is not a planned project from the Lab – Reed is simply seeking feedback on directions the capability might be taken should it become a focus for overhaul / update.

In Brief

• Marketplace Q&A “forum”: Reed is still mulling the idea of where and how to place a means for the Web team to take and address Marketplace-specific questions / feedback.
• Multi-factor Authentication: the work is focused on rolling the current capability across key web properties – including the Marketplace – and getting it into the viewer. This work will be in advance of any work to allow authentication using verified e-mails, etc.
• Dashboard Communications option: the suggestion was made that, in addition to the planned mobile app, LL should consider adding a capability to the secondlife.com dashboard that would allow users to communicate with Friends who are currently in-world.
  • This is something LL are apparently in the process of discussing, together with providing the means for users to access things like Group functionality  / options via the web. And even – maybe – providing some level of inventory interaction via the web.

Next Meeting

• Check the SL public calendar.
• The core topic will likely be on the use of sub-brands within Marketplace stores vs using alt accounts to manage multiple brands / stores. That is the pros and cons, how it might work, what people expect of it, etc.

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, November 3rd, 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

• Search: The front-end of search has been given a facelift which among other things, is designed to make web search returns easier to read. This should be deployed in the next couple of weeks.
  • Note that the actual search algorithm has not been altered at this point – so search results, relevancy, etc., should not change.
  • A further overhaul of search which does include tightening the algorithm and improving results / relevancy and general performance will be initiated in the New Year, and will apparently utilise third-party expertise external to LL in an attempt to get a “first class” search implementation.
• Marketplace has continued to see bugs being fixed – although no specific details on which bugs.

SL Mobile

• It was reiterated (as per Mojo Linden’s comments at the end of October TPVD meeting) that while development work has paused, LL are not “giving up” on a Mobile solution.
• The pause is liable to last “a number of weeks”.
• There is a “lot going in” and the Lab is “excited” about what will hopefully be forthcoming, and is very aware there has been a degree of disappointment that nothing has been publicly released thus far.

In Brief

• Some MP store owners are stating they have seen between a 30% and 50% drop in sales in the latter half of October, LL start they have not seen anything to indicate an across-the board decline in MP sales volumes – in fact, they have seen the reverse.
• The next batch of new Premium Last Names will be made available at Christmas.
• Bug Questions – it was asked why the following were allowed to persist for “two weeks”:
  • BUG-231218 “Boolean search terms in Marketplace result in error page” – LL’s view is that the fix was available within a few days of the report being filed, and deployed shortly thereafter.
  • BUG-231307 “[Marketplace] – Favourite stores layout change now shows listings that are not active.” – again, a fix was developed relatively quickly, and is currently awaiting deployment.
• A bug that results in 0 traffic reports for regions that have received visitors is not the result of any changes to the traffic count algorithm, but likely the result of the database that handles traffic having had some issues recently.
• There have been complaints about MP listings / pages getting blocked by ad blockers. This is not something LL can control; those services providing ad blockers can change their own algorithms as they please, and LL cannot test for everything – a certain about of action on the users’ side will always be required.
• New Starter Avatars: although outside the scope the Web Team, it was reiterated that this is something under discussion, but not something liable to be surfaced in the immediate future.

LL / Zenescope / Epik / NFT Sweepstake

Also not the responsibility of the Web Team but Brett Linden, VP of Marketing was present at the meeting an commented on the recent NFT sweepstake, run in conjunction with Zenescope and Epik (see:  Zenescope x Second Life NFT Sweepstakes Official Rules).

• LL are very aware of the response,
  • Of the three social media channels use, responses on Twitter were primarily “negative”; Instagram was “positive” and Facebook “neutral”.
  • Should anyone be interested, I offered my own thoughts within Opinion: LL, NFTs and a “WTH?” moment in Second Life.
• The company had and is looking at the whole NFT situation “guardedly”,
  • They are aware NFTs are polarising.
  • LL has received multiple requests to partner with others to offer NFTs, but outside of the sweepstake have thus far “avoided every single one”.
  • As a whole, LL have “no plans” to get into the “NFT business” itself; the sweepstake was purely a cross-platform / partnership promotion, apparently in part to try to call attention to SL / LL given the general “metaverse” hype that is going on.
• In terms of Zenescope itself:
  • It was re-iterated that this is a licensed deal, of which the NFTs offered through the sweepstake do not form a central part.
  • However, Epik (outside of their EpikPrime marketplace) is the agency handling the IP for Zenescope to market virtual goods, etc., thought their presence in SL.
  • In terms of the Zenescope Metaverse, further roll-outs of content, etc., to enhance the experience will be made in due course.
• The end of the meeting includes a brief discussion on the Facebook / Meta name change and what it might mean for Second Life / LL (particularly the concern – also raised at the TPVD meeting on October 29th – that Facebook might buy Linden Lab, something to which my personal view is simply, “no, they won’t”; something I may elaborate on in a future post) and “metaverse” hype in general.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, December 8th, 14:00 SLT, with a core subject of Place Pages.

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, October 6th, 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 / infrastructure work is still on-going and has taken up a lot of time through August.
• A focal point of the above has been trying to make the Profiles system a little more robust, work that needs to be completed before the necessary changes can be made is support of moving profiles back into their own floater in the viewer (as per the current Legacy Profiles project viewer available through the Alternate Viewers page).
• Marketplace improvements:
  • A number of “small” fixes have been implemented through the past month.
  • New feature: the ability to move items from your Shopping Cart to your Favourites (and thence to your Wishlist).

Premium Name Changes

• A number of Last Names have been retired: Aviator, Caboose, Knickers, Orlando and Primless.
• New “seasonal” Last Names have been deployed for Halloween: Ghostly, Lecter, Pumpkin, Treat and Trick. These will be available through until November 1st, 2021.

Upcoming Work

• Once the infrastructure work has been completed, the web team will embark on a complete refresh of all web properties.
  • First in line for this is Search (search.secondlife.com), which includes in-world search as well.
  • The work will include both cosmetic improvements to how Search looks, and improvements to things like search results – relevance, etc.

In Brief

• No updates for Mobile in the past month.
• A reminder that multi-factor authentication is now active cross key Account options available through the Second Life dashboard.
  • See the official blog post and my own Second Life Multi-Factor Authentication: the What and How for more.
  • MFA will be rolled out across more properties in the future, and eventually to the viewer. MFA  via e-mail is also being looked at.
• A question was asked about having separate login names and user names, so the former need never be revealed. While not entirely ruled out, this would require some significant changes to the current log-in methodology and infrastructure (and likely widespread back-end changes across multiple services), ergo, it is not something that is likely to be undertaken in the immediate or medium-term future.
• The subject of having more general in-world meetings with Lab staff, rather than just the current specialised user groups (e.g. with a mix of people  from the product teams, the engineering teams, the land team, etc), in order to encourage greater attendance by users.
  • This is something that would likely be welcomed by users, but if taken up, unlikely to be a monthly event.
  • Several years ago, LL did re-instigate quarterly Town Hall meetings (to the extent of re-vamping a set of regions to host them), which were immensely people and featured both the CEO at some, and a cross-section of senior staff at others. These were popular at the time, and could be beneficial if reinstated.
• SL wiki updates (or the lack thereof in the case of many pages):
  • LL re-iterated that the policy is still to move more generic / maintained information to the Knowledge Base, and to focus just on maintaining those wiki pages of particular technical importance (and as the entire scripting portal and pages).
  • A problem with the Knowledge Base is that it is not as relevantly searchable as the wiki. There is also, frankly a vast trove of information on the wiki that, while useful, is becoming increasingly outdated or confusing appearing in multiples places and with different levels of information – a subject oft raised at Content Creation User Group meetings in relation to good building  / design practices, avatar-related information, etc.
  • It was pointed out that those with knowledge and understanding of capabilities, etc., can still apply for wiki editor access via support.
  • As an alternative, those who have specific updates that should be made to wiki pages, these can be e-mailed to Alexa Linden, who has headcount to help with wiki updates as time allows.
• E-mail notifications based on on log-in location: a lot of web services will send a log-in notification if an attempt is made to access your account from outside of your “normal” location. This is something that could be done with SL web properties, but would require scoping and work. A feature request has therefore been requested for the idea.
• A request has been made for “official” support for shopping events through the SL web properties. This would require careful work in terms of ensuring fair representation (including for non-shopping events) and how / where it would be presented, and as such a feature request has been asked for, although the matter will be raised internally at the Lab.
• Marketplace related:
  • Categories and sub-categories were raised. Again, those who feel there should be additional categories or categories that could be better broken-out by sub-categories, are asked to raise a feature request with specific details.
  • As per the September meeting: a feature request, BUG-231142 “Questions and Answers’ tab for marketplace product pages” has been received and accepted by the Lab.
    • This would essentially allow questions to be asked of a product that can be answered by (for example) the listing owner, their appointed store manager(s) or perhaps even a customer who has actually purchased the item.
    • If this were to be implemented, LL would consider some supporting tools – e.g. the option for listing creators to explicitly indicate if they do not want the feature enabled for some of their products, or automatically disabling the option on free items listed on the MP, etc.
  • Animated gifs on the MP: another frequent request. The short answer is that this is not on the roadmap, simply because of the infrastructure required to store the (invariably) large file sizes & make them available to product listings.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, November 3rd, 14:00 SLT.