Basic Members....would you be willing to pay a SMALL yearly fee?

Yea that seams to be the problem with SL. People complain too much about this sorta thing, yet they also complain about the griefer problems it causes. I think SL residents are a little spoiled IMO. I used to hop from MMO to MMO till i came to SL, and I never seen this kinda open'ness in any of them. Not even THERE.COM allows the world to be so open that it invades privacy and allows griefers to take over. SL needs to have a more stable community and development team.

It's Not just the client files that are cousing problems for us, but those who refuse to change or think it's better if it's free. I don't meen to offend anyone but i think some stability would be nice right now. It is not possible to run a stable community if you allow such things to go on like this. We need to work together. I am also aware that this post probably counters my last post in this topic, but like i said "I would be willing to pay if they show me some service, which they have not.".

It seems they are moving that way when they hinted that Live Help would be restricted to premium and up a while back.

A better system would probably be to give everyone a quota of "live interventions" every month based on their payment status/tier, and handle the rest through offline trouble ticketing. It would stop people from burying customer support with trivial questions over and over, and still make sure that everyone gets a chance at live help.

Abuse reports are more troublesome though, everyone that gets griefed or has another valid complaint about another resident's behaviour, should be able to file it. Then again, far too many land owners don't bother to make sure there is someone around to handle potential problems. If I'm being griefed in a store, the store owner should really be taking care of it. If I'm being griefed on a rental, the landlord should be dealing with it. I can certainly understand that LL no longer wishes to do someone else's job for them.

Maybe it would make sense to restrict abuse reports to the owner of the parcel only, or any owner/officer in the case of group-deeded land. It would effectively make abuse reports only about problems that land owners can't solve themselves and where Linden intervention is needed.

Are you sure? Yesterday a friend told me that he verified... I asked if he was going to buy land he said no... he did it so he could READ the forums.

Surely you mean 'post' to the forums, no?

No... I couldn't even READ the forums as an unverified account, he said.

Search is being unhelpful .

There's a thread in Linden Answers somewhere about it. The reason why unverifieds were not allowed to access the forums was due to spam. At one point there was a little glitch that allowed unverifieds to access the forums, but that was fixed. The ones who did get forum access during that time, kept it.

The shop owner or landlord is most likely already a Premium account and also paying tier fees to: Linden Lab. After paying to be a Premium account and paying tier fees it's rather bothersome that there's an expectation that Premium accounts now have to step in and perform the function of a Liaison (that's an imposed social tax).

Abuse Reports filed by free accounts should be ignored by Linden Lab as the person filing the report is not a paying customer and should not expect any service regarding their complaint.

The current structure raises the question: Does LL even know where their money comes from? A company that does not know who their paying customers are and also fails to service them does so at its own peril.

bump for rational thought!

Anyone using SL is part of a privileged class of people no matter what part of the world they live in. SL isnt a RIGHT, it is a LUXURY.

Get over your white man's guilt, Susie. No Premium/tier paying SL customer owes anything to the poor Nepalese. If you want to help them, there is a lot more you could do other than giving them free access to SL.

Linden Lab has offered free basic accounts as a means to an end: Proof of Concept. They have succeeded despite ongoing grid and database issues.

If you own a shop and a griefer decides to show up, there is really no need for LL to intervene. You can eject them, you can ban them, you can solve the problem. Of course it's easier to tell people to go bother LL instead.

Which is actually the same thing I said. Tenants on a private sim aren't likely to be premiums, they're not paying LL to provide customer support so they should turn to the sim owner instead to deal with problems, or everyday support regarding their land.

Paying and non-paying customer aren't quite so clear-cut when it comes to SL.

Is someone who pays their tier entirely from in-world profit a paying customer or not? They're paying tier every month, but that money comes from people who buy L$ off the LindEx.
If someone buys $195 worth L$, someone else can pay for their island. Is the one spending RL money so another can meet their tier without spending anything worth more or less?

(Edited to add that it's not quite the point here that someone who can earn $195 in-world obviously spent a great deal of time and effort and work to get there and doesn't deserve to profit one way or another)

I think there is a terrible misconception that floats around these forums...

LL makes ZERO money from Lindens that are sold on the LINDEX. The Lindex is a traders tool that LL provides. All L$ traded is between users. Lindex is the mechanism.

edit: I posted the wrong quote earlier...but both were from Kitty..

edit2: I was completely wrong! No surprise to some, I'm sure see the correction and my apologies below.

A common griefer behavior is after having been ejected and banned from a parcel is to return and linger near the edge while continuining to be disruptive. At that point a Linden is needed to escort the person out of the sim.



The sim owner is a 3rd party, they're not LL staff. As LL sold the sim they have an obligation to provide support. It's LL's world... we just live in it.



Anyone who has the words "Payment Info Used" in their Profile is a paying customer of LL. Whether they paid for a Premium account or simply paid 30-cents as part of the transaction charge for purchasing Linden dollars on the LindeX they're now a customer.



It does not matter what the source of the profit is, only that they've paid their tier fees to Linden Lab. Also note, anyone purchasing Linden dollars off the LindeX makes them a customer of LL.



As a private sim can have only one owner that person would be considered the customer. Again, LL makes no consideration of where the US$195 came from. Only that it's paid on the part of the customer.

For every completed Buy transaction on the LindeX Linden Lab collects US$0.30-cents as a transaction charge.

For every completed Sell transaction on the LindeX Linden Lab collects 3-percent of the total amount as a transaction charge.

LL also makes money from the sale of new currency being injected into the economy from sales by Currency Linden.

I definitely disagree with the concept of Linden Labs ignoring Abuse Reports OR requests for help from the free accounts. Firstly, even the free accounts have the right to report if someone is harassing them or griefing. IF they were on my land and were being harassed, I'd like them to be able to report it to LL, if I'm not available to handle the situation!

Secondly, this would not encourage players to become paying customers. It will have the opposite affect, in that it will encourage those players to go elsewhere to pay and play. I've seen this happen one too many times, and in fact have left places that created a divide in the issue of support for premium accounts vs no support for free accounts.. and I was a premium account. It's bad enough to have the 'Verified' and 'Unverified' issue, because it doesn't build a community, it divides it.

And no, not all griefers are free, unverified accounts and the upswing in griefing isn't just because of the unverified accounts. It's also because the world is growing and too fast for the Lindens to keep up with. Right now, I do think they need to limit the growth some, but only for as long as it takes for them to increase the staff, the stability and the ways people can pay for their accounts.

I don't think the $10 a year is good idea.. that would slow it down too much, but I can see going back to the $10 sign up fee for new signings. It won't affect the old unverified's but it would slow the growth and to some extent reduce the people coming back after being banned five seconds after the banning. It won't END griefing. Nothing will, and to say otherwise will just give the griefer types the extra drive to prove you wrong.

Well, I am a jackass...thanks for the correction.

I am shocked that LL is selling so many L$
december 2006: 109,144,902 L$

Is that correct?

Kitty, My apologies.

ok so let me get this straight

payment info used = LL customer
Payment info on file = not customer
no payment info on file = not customer

Flawed logic. As stated in a town hall there is recognition that quite a few of the current accounts are alts. Alts are therefore linked by a paying account in many cases. So by the logic above and what I am hearing others saying is my one alt that is left with no payment info cannot have a say in things? So what do I get a percentage of a vote or something?

Also in refference to griefing reports being made by "customers" only. I have no problem with that. Let's get a gaurentee something will be done. I've done everything to stop griefers and nothing short of nuking my neighboring sims will stop griefers. Also what about my no payment info provided alt...can he not file a report now?

Also another thing to think about is some people don't want to post thier payment info specially after the account fiasco that recently happend with the user database. I personally would have only one paid account except I bought land with this account (as it has become my main account) AND this account was made during the $10 required registration period.

If this was WoW or something yes.

Currently, there is nothing public that even comes CLOSE to SL. There's no where else to go and the earliest I've heard competition even come out as a public beta is end of summer 2007.

If you start new rules now, they will be norm by then and from what I know, are comparable to with the other similiar platforms will be offering.

One time account fees are popular with the forming games, because of all the arguments presented already. A form of liability, a means to authenticate and in one case... if you are found to be griefing beyond a doubt, you will be fined. Each time, the fine increases. I love that idea. So someone says they griefed on accident, 5 bucks big deal. Keep doing it and it's a charge of +5 each time. 10, 15, 20, 25, etc. Anyways, that's aside from the point.

There's currently nothing out there to compare and people won't leave.

People complain en masse everytime LL doesn't do or does something they love or hate, yet, we are 18,000+ strong at peak times.

It's absurd to claim that just because someone at one time tossed LL a penny (most of that 30 cents goes to credit card charge fees) they're entitled to a lifetime of unconditional support.

At the same time you claim in other paragraphs that paying customers of an in-world buisness owner are not entitled to any support whatsoever from that resident because for some unknown reason it's LL's job to do that.
It's not LL's job to clean primlitter from your store, that's your job. It's not LL's job to go look for a lost poseball on a private sim by a tenant there either, that's the sim owner's job.

Where SL differs is in the sense that for the most part the people who are paying the bills are indirect customers. If someone rents, they're not paying tier, but part of their money will end up with LL and the person renting is very likely to be putting more money into SL than their landlord is. You can't privilege one over the other because SL needs both to keep on running.

Basics who buy L$ aren't paying customers, they're just not. SL is a service and services come with regular payments (premium and/or tier) and once you stop paying you're not longer subscribed or entitled to that service.
However, for reasons mentioned above, basics buying L$ are invaluable to SL and that's why they should be treated on a level that is comparable to paying customers.

No worries, it happens and you're right that it is a common misconception .

As far as Supply Linden sales go, from what I understand of it, LL sells just below market value which acts as an downward push for the exchange rate (more L$ for less US $).

If you buy L$ then that's a good thing, if you sell L$ it's obviously a bad thing .

Anyone (with access to a credit card or not) is supposed to pay the $10 one-time fee to make that alt. You can't pay that fee without having payment info, so any alt that doesn't have payment info isn't quite legal.

Now, you would be crazy if you paid that $10 when everyone can create dozens of alts without paying anything and LL has shown that they don't really care, but you can't complain that something you were supposed to pay for, but didn't, might not get any support .

Actually I attempted to pay with my alt (even expected it but might be a catch 22 which caused it not to legally) and it never asked for my info during creation. I had intended to post my CC info on record for nothing else then emergency reasons but after the account problems I have thought otherwise. LL's automated system determines if you need to provide payment for an alt and it never once attempted payment.

How about this:

Make unverified accounts free for a year.

Renewal costs $5. Payable by CC, or by selling enough
L$ on the LindeX to leave $5 in the holder's account.

(I say a year because shorter periods of time encourages
the practice of creating disposable alts and trying to transfer
assets to avoid paying.)

If, after 12 months, someone can't/won't pay $5 (roughly
L$1350 at the moment) to renew, they probably aren't going
to miss SecondLife very much.

At the least, it'd help LL better identify which avatars are
ripe enough for the compost heap.

LL's automated system is a checkbox that asks you if it's your first account or not .

See this is where I agree. I have no problems with paying IF I see action but what I see is this: I get home from 8 hours of work on Monday to find out by IM the griefer me and 40 others have been abuse reporting daily is attacking our land once again. We call up a linden and have them come over again only to have the griefer long gone by then. Never mind the griefer uses alts (both free AND PAID), uses the same gun & jetpack (we are high in the air), attacks the same way, using the same weapon, or even fired on a linden. He's still here, still attacking, and still holds control over our land. Even land bans are not working since this thing can fire clear across the sim with alrge particles. This is day 10 of the siege.

I have tons of other issues where it has taken months to resolve issues or even get a linden out to go "dam why hasn't this been address before." >_< The problems are nothing works and noone pays for things where nothing works and even timely fixes are all most of us are asking for. They aren't happening and nothing is done so nothing is paid.

Not when I registered. When I registered Krazzora it caught it lickety split and when I made my last account it did not ask that or provide a check box (I mean come on I was EXPECTING then charge.). I don't want to get into symantics about it but obviously it has, is, and does happen one way or another. It's still an issue many will ask/demand and saying "opps to bad" won't cut it.


Now what I think should possibily happen is as someone else mentioned the reinstating of the $10 charge which would be great! But as with all accounts the old ones would be grandfathered.

That's odd . I created my alt in late August and one of the first questions was whether it was a first account or not.

(Edited cause I can't read apparantly )

yeah I was in a catch 22 I think as the first accounts were at one address and later I moved when I registered the last one so it assumed I was a different person with the same name.

EDIT: I think also I did this right at the start of the free accounts.

I make no such claim other than a person who spends money to purchase Linden dollars from the LindeX is, in fact, a customer of Linden Lab. A small customer, to be sure, but as money has passed from one hand to the other, they are now a customer of LL.



Again, I make no such claim. In-world businesses can provide as much or as little customer support as they wish, however, the customer is not always right and can only be provided with support up to the point that additional support exceeds the value derived from their account. Keep in mind: customer (a person paying for the product and/or service). I, nor any business owner, is not _required_ to provide any support at all.



There is no such thing as an indirect customer. If I get five dollars from Bob and turn around and use the five dollars to pay the paper boy at no point does Bob now become a customer of the paper boy. Bob is not entitled to read my newspaper, make claims for customer service with the newspaper, etc. Money either changes hands or it doesn't. When money doesn't change hands the person is known as a "prospective customer" meaning "they might buy in the future" (emphasis on might).



Again: money has changed hands. They paid a transaction fee to purchase the Linden dollars, using the LindeX, from Linden Lab.

A customer is a person who pays you in exchange for a product and/or service. Though a person might use your product and/or service, unless they paid for the product and/or service they are not a customer.

Indirect customer in this case I think is meant as end receiver. Example would be where "middle men" are involved. LL is the company, the "land baron" is the "middle man" and the person paying the rent is the end user. If there is a problem that person is paying for the service (via USD or L$) and does not necessarily go to a linden directly (But can).

As for the LindeX comment the charge is actually not one charged by LL so much as the CC company. It's the same cahrge GOM charged for the same service. Linden Labs has always held (someone else correct me if wrong) that the L$ exchange had little to do with SL other then to help give you piece of mind using thier name instead of going through EBAY or GOM. If they were to take responsibility for the market then they woul dhave alot more legal responsibility to it and and it's relation to the end buyers and sellors. It is just an added bonus by using that service they can see "hey this info is good" and decides to post it on your account for your benifit.


EDIT: I post this merely as a reasoning legal for what LL or any company could say as to "paid accounts" that only use the exchange. I tried my best to leave my person opinion out of this one post.

I believe the "no unverifieds posting" policy came later than your join date.