Open apology to Merwan Marker and the Second Life community

Agreed.

The business could easily be worth zero in 6 months too...you have no clue so stop spreading this rhetoric ...its not helping a situation that you aren't even party to anyway.

I find this whole situation to be confusing and disconcerting to say the least. I'm sorry I can't add much more to the conversation. IMO this whole thing stinks of a collosal screw over with attempts to cover ones own ass with after-the-fact nicetudes.

Talen, IM me in world and I'll let you in how familar I am with the economics of electronic listing services.

You may be, but you aren't a fortune teller. As with everything in second life , one minute its here and the next its gone. The only constant is change.

I don't know all the ins and outs of this discussion but just as a very happy SLExchange customer with numerous pleasant and efficient dealings with both Merwan and Apotheus, I would say that their business disputes are their company's own internal affair, and don't require an abject public apology nor some Communist-style self-criticism circle opened up to the public UNLESS their service stopped or their product deteriorated. As far as I can tell, their service is still functioning and their product, providing access to others' products, is still intact.

If there is some interruption of service, then a short statement about internal disagreements might be in order, but I'm not sure why every struggling business venture needs to be dissected so minutely by every gossip and maligner in SL in this very risky and troubled game/metaverse environment (with all the "forces majeures" and "acts of God" like server outages, bugs, etc.)

Running a business in SL can be damn hard. Everybody should be prepared for fits and starts. From my own observations, both Merwan and Apotheus were very helpful to customers and maintained a pleasant public persona. They took up trouble tickets and fixed them quickly. To be sure, they stalled a bit to get the SLExchange terminals installed in the last few days but that's understandable if their partnership was collapsing.

I did note the two partners appeared to have a disagreement about whether or not land could be sold or rented except in an auction using their service. It's a high-risk venture for all parties and in the end the partner who thought it was too risky prevailed and it is now only possible to sell/rent land using "misc" or their auction which has few or one post.

Some said SLExchange would put malls out of business. Some disagreed. But what tripped up this innovative idea that took a lot of hard-work and ingenulity was the age-old problem of partner relations, which in this environment are very fragile, with all the limits on communications and means for expression, its sleepless nights, its picky work and its technical setbacks.

I could only wish the best for all these individuals who tried to create this service for SL and hope they can retreat to the privacy of their private business to sort out their compensation and ownership issues, and let the customers and the public at large present specific trouble tickets if they have an issue, and move on to crane their necks at the next SL car wreck

I am surmising that Apotheus made his original forum announcement because many players had questions about the status of Merwan's involvement in SLExchange. There was a notecard distributed in-world to SLExchange merchants several days ago regarding Merwan's inability to service any requests regarding SLExchange, as well as his inability to log into the site as an administrator. It was brief and to the point, and didn't leave much room for what was going on internally with SLExchange. I'm sure it made many people scratch their heads and go "WTH?" as it did me, since Merwan has virtually been the face of SLExchange since their SL commerce site went public last fall.

By getting involved with an online commerce facilitation service like SLExchange, one puts a measure of trust in the people who run it, since they have access to both goods and/or money of any of their customers or participating merchants. In light of the trust involved to make a service like this become an accepted part of the SL community, I can perfectly understand why this confusing and disappointing turn of affairs is being discussed on forums.

Except it's not being "discussed". It's being raged about, with enough heat and smoke to destroy any business, whatever the circumstances. But it's hard to tell because the necessary information isn't forthcoming, all sides haven't been heard from, and the issue is being hazed out by the bad feeling.

Perhaps this is a concerted effort by some people to pressure one of the persons involved into making an accomodation with the other person. If so, that's fair. But beyond that, there's nothing going on here that strikes me as constructive or conciliatory.

These two people ought to get together and negotiate a mutually tolerable end to this issue, no matter how tough it may be. It's obvious at this point that it's mutually desirable for both of them, one, because he needs to be compensated for his great effort, the other, because he needs to save the business. And others in-the-know need to be careful to encourage this and then let it happen.

After careful consideration, and out of respect for both parties in this issue, I've decided to step aside and quit the SL Exchange team. I wish the best of luck to both Apotheus and Merwan their respective endeavours.

I would really like to see a response to this question.

I know Merwan quite well and have in fact helped him with a couple of the SL Exchange endeavors, including testing of the website(you know this as i was in contact with you on at least one problem early on with the website) and in world terminals, and the SL Exchange in world build. I've watched him spend the vast majority of his inworld time over the last several months working on SL Exchange... everything from promotion to testing to customer support.

During all this time.. he always referred to you as his partner and it is very obvious to me that your definition of his 'employment status' is NOT what he was led to believe.

This is the issue.

In any business, your credibilty is important. I can tell you right now that a large percentage of your vendors put there wares on on SL Exchange because of Merwan's credibility. They trust him. If you don't believe this.. you have only to read thru this thread for the evidence.

In my opinion... he delivered for you admirably.

Yes you handled this badly. By your own statement... you felt there were problems long ago. Instead of addressing them with him, it appears to me that you misled him, used him to get this endeavor going, and when it began finally to pay off, shut him out cold with no recourse to address any of these 'problems'.

This pretty much destroys your credibility, at least with me.

This site, at full potential, could have in its possession millions of Linden dollars that belong to SL residents. I therefore think the issue of trust is vital... not only to the community but also to Linden Labs.

So now.. instead of addressing a few issues with your partner... you have a very large issue to address on these forums. We are waiting.

There are two reasons that SLX was unlike almost every other venture in SL: it crossed a "world" boundary, and took deposits in trust that could easily have been comprimised by the internal dispute. In other words, it was sufficiently novel, of considerable utility, and could have been an L$ liability to all its 150+ merchants and I don't know how many customers.

If Joe and Bob's Spinning Taco Stand has a partnership issue, it mostly affects Bob and Joe. This is most certainly not the case with SLX. If "Exchange Street" had absconded with the funds on deposit, there would have been a lynching and likely no remuneration from Linden Lab. I'm glad "he" didn't.

When I first heard of what was transpiring with SLX one of my (perhaps misguided) thoughts was "gee, I hope the depositors don't get screwed because that could undermine all the "trusts" in SL: SLX, GigasSecondServer, GOM, etc.". This is why I do think this a "global issue". As the late 1920s in the US showed, failure of a fraction of trusts in an unregulated market causes an effect that ripples through all such trusts.

I do not know the motivation of the "abject apology" cited, but as it was made - and publically - it became a community issue.

Applause!

I give much credit to Merwan for not stepping into the minefield of this thread. Considering how many "Excellent! " posts I've seen from him in the forums, he's very probably seen and perused through this mess. Sorry, too, that your personal/business relationships are being dissected and discussed by everyone.

Hope things turn out OK for you, Mer

Ulrika it seems hardly fair that you applaud the man caught in the middle's resignation as if he were the cause of it.

I know for a fact Cubey knew nothing about the whole merwan thing until it came out on the forums, and then he has been upset about it ever since.

Either that, or I have misconstrued what you are applauding about.

Chage, I think she is applauding the fact that he is showing charature in the face of the inevitable and removing himself as a focal point of any slanderous discussions that may ensue. That is my interpretation of the response just as a point of noting.

Shadow...The Ancient

Sounds like first person prospective. Hmm you must be able to read minds.

I love SLEXCHANGE and as both a merchant and a customer, I am sorry to hear of these issues. I must admit I've only exchanged one email with Apotheus when I had trouble registering. From thereon I've only really known of Merwan and thought he was the lead person in this business venture.

As there are two sides to every story and I only read that of Apotheus, I still would like to show my support of Merwan who was genuinely helpful and friendly with me when I set up my account. Overall he was very helpful and a great supporter of every merchants' sales. So I'd say he went above and beyond his duties if he wasn't a 'partner', not to mention a very involved and visible part of SLEXCHANGE.

Aside from SLEXCHANGE, I didn't know Merwan before hand, but whenever he sees me, he speaks to me and remembers that I am a member of the exchange. I value that.

I hope everything panns out. I enjoy SLEXCHANGE and best of luck to all involved.

Give it time you will realize that merwan already has posted in this thread.

Do you mean by the words of others or something?

This thread was started at 12:04 am today. The only post by Merwan today was in the thread - Three word thread reborn where he said

In your heart

So lemme get this straight...

We have a seven page thread in which absolutely nothing is ever revealed about what the hell is going on?

Yay! Ain't spam wonderful?

Well Billy I realize that you do not know me as I have not made your aquaintance in game and I have rarely posted in these forums. So therefore I have no need to defend your comment lol In fact with the way that I feel about Merwan, there is actually much truth in it ty ! for pointing out the obvious, I will invite you to the wedding

Not sure what you mean. I didn't see any posts from Merwan.

I think it was in a different thread under "Three Word Posts".

Billy was trying to imply that Merwan had posted here under an alt. The 'alt' is actually Merwan's fiance, and is not an alt at all, but Billy has some kind of hard on for 'exposing' Merwan because he's 'too nice', so there ya go. (Side note: Funny how people can be total pricks and never get called on it, but if you're a nice person, it's somehow suspicious.)

Go ahead. Speak for me some more.