Open apology to Merwan Marker and the Second Life community

First off I would like to dispel the rumor that SL Exchange has "changed hands". It has not. SL Exchange (otherwise known as slexchange.com) is a service offering of my own legally-registered sole proprietorship, and it has been since its inception. I am the owner or lessee of all the hardware, software, data, and services utilized for operation of SL Exchange.

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Merwan Marker is no longer an agent of SL Exchange, and this is the subject of my apology.

I cannot go into details of what happened or why I chose this path without compromising Merwan's privacy. What I can say is I handled the situation poorly. So poorly that I committed what some would call blackmail (though my act does not technically fall under the definition). I was hostile and downright unfair. I look back on what I did now and I honestly have no idea why I did it that way.

Merwan, I deeply regret the way I went about this. We should have had an open dialog, gentleman-to-gentleman. I am sorry.

Cubey, I apologize for putting you in this awkward situation that should be mine alone to manage.

SLers, I am sorry that my actions and the subsequent rumors have caused some of you to question your participation in the services SL Exchange offers.

Upon realizing my errors, I have attempted to make what amends were possible. Everyone involved has been paid in full as promised, and I have removed a potentially profitable service that was Merwan's original idea from the website. I can only hope that this might mend some of the bad feelings.


For those of you who have uncertainty about the future of SL Exchange, be assured that we will continue operations. Cubey Terra has accepted my offer to join the team and bring his keen sense of style to the overall experience, and I am continuing my work on improving and expanding the site.

I sincerely hope that this post answers people's questions surrounding this controversy. I will monitor the thread to make clarifications and answer any questions I am able to answer.

I have a question about the funds donated to the tsunami relief fund - I donated all my profits for more than a week by using the built in donation pages. I want to be assured that the funds I, and others, actually made it to their destination.

I only ask this because I have been questioned about my donation.

yay now we are dealing with normal people.


Also I would like to announce that merwan is one of the top bidders for slexchange.net & .org

just kidding.

i would also like to appologize to you apoth and cubey yall have both been nice to me and only treated me with kindness. cubey has put up with my psycho bable a few times while asking him about things and apoth i have hit you up for free stuff how many times?? it was kind of dirty for me to turn my back on you the way i did even though we were not best of friends ever i do feel like i have betrayed you too and i want to thank you for putting up with me. I kind of felt like slexchange was just a knock off of me and the partnering site. thats why i have held a grudge

im sorry if this post hurts anyones feelings or upsets them but please let me have my views.

So is that an apology or self-interested slander of someone because they are too nice?

I owe you an apology for thinking that you are a opportunistic, manipulative egomaniac. A very wise person once told me that if someone looks too like they are repeatedly harping that "someone stole my idea but what the real issue is that billy posts too much" they must be up to something and not just bitter because someone was better at promoting their competing service.

just kidding.

Thanks for jumping from the thread where I asked why it appears that my reason for trusting SLexchange (one of the putative founders) was ousted clandestinely. You address neither my stated concern nor that of another of your merchants instead you just do some hand-waving saying all is well.

You don't know why you did what you did and you comitted superficial blackmail and were hostile and have something that prevents you from answering questions that you deign not to answer? That even further lessens my faith in the credit and operation of SLexchange.

In the few times in life when perception of me or my associates have been called into question the solution that I found to be most satisfying was to be wildly open about the circumstance as people are far more able to extend trust to an entity when they feel they know the whole story. But that's just me.

Good luck Apo! I hope you and Cubey will have one blast

Good luck,

I dont think that I will be using this service anymore though.

Woah, sounds like somebody's been bitten by the greed bug and shafted those around them because of it. It's a shame you had to do this to Merwan who I'd have to say was the single most visible aspect of SL Exchange. He pushed the service, he marketed it, he's the reason many people got involved. And now, from what you've said, you've basically screwed him over.

Your apology sounds like nothing more than wishy-washy nonsense really, trying to salvage some respect from a community where you've shown no respect for one of its shining members. Not great PR is it, but still it's all yours now, so no doubt you've cemented the position you wanted.

As for Billy's comments. *sigh* You pretend that all your angst towards SL Exchange on the forums (oh and the registering of alternative domain names for SL Exchange and trying to sell them) was all because of Merwan. You are such a piece of work, you really are.

UGH.

Fucking ruthless!

Not sure how you can look at yourself in a mirror, dude.

I mean, gimme a BREAK. You're a good programmer Apotheus, but SLExchange got where it is because a lot of people liked Merwan. He really put a lot of his reputation on the line.

Hmm, so someone who always acts nice and is a good, standup person must be up to something evil. Yeah, those people give me the creeps.

I like merwan, and I have nothing against SLExchange. I mean, hey, maybe the guy went a little nuts with the promotion aspect, but honestly I expected that from him -- the unbridled enthusiasm. I won't condemn Merwan for being happy about what he was doing.

Anyway, I'll continue to use SLExchange, Gigas, or whoever -- it doesn't change my attitudes about how webcommerce meshes (and in my opinion, supercedes mostly) in-world retail.

hehe, that is a good song Should listen to it sometime It is by Frou Frou

Ahh well. SL will just offer this service and cut Apotheus out of the loop.

Karma baby! What goes around will most definitely come around.

The AmeriCares donations are being handled by Stroker Serpentine. I talked to him last night and I believe he will be taking the funds, converting and sending them to AmeriCares shortly. If you need further confirmation I suggest you contact him directly. Gwyneth Llewelyn also has some donation items available, and I will find out the status of those as soon as I can.

Well said.

Maybe I am missing something, but nothing has been said as to why Merwan is no longer with SLExchange... why all the name calling and animosity? What am I missing?

Your website took donations for a charity and now you are asking us to contact someone else regarding the money which you took. Something smells fishy.

Thanks for your post Apotheus. Indeed the funds have been transferred. A total of 31K was raised through the SLExchange website, and subsequently sold on GOM.

The recent changes at SLE just added some confusion as to who to contact about closing the account and withdrawing funds. That all has been resolved. Thanks to Apotheus help.



TOTAL USD RAISED: $$2950.70!!


Kudo's to the SL community!!

Look for a post in a couple days concerning the donation acceptance by AmeriCares.

I have no idea what went on here behind the scenes, but I know Merwan is a great guy, and if he somehow got screwed over on this I'll be more than happy to spread the word to not use SLexchange.

And billy, jesus dude, could you make a lamer, more self-serving and offensive post?

And the plague of greed continues onwards...

I want to start trying out SLExchange as a way to help members of my projects sell their goods worldwide. But I find Apotheus' post confusing as well. As a sole proprietorship, that means the existince of the business "SLExchange" has no existence apart from it's owner. No board of directors overseeing business decisions, nothing but the owner's word. Which makes that word very important.

Apotheus, can you please be more explicit about what happened? If you made mistakes in judgement (we're all human, so that's understandable), can you explain exactly what they were, reassure us all that it won't happen again, and describe actions you are going to take to guarantee that?

I'm not casting stones...I just would simply like to know the whole story before I put my trust in SLExchange and the trust of my project members.

Greed is GOOD!

Indeed there are two sides to every story. I will be talking to Merwan IW and then I will decide if I wish to continue using SL Exchange.

What MJ said