SLEX Petition: Contract, ToS, Communication

Nice remark to try and skip the point of my post Ulrika, now, would you please answer to my questions?

... Nor answer a valid question

Very nice of you to invent facts to support your argument. You don't speak on behalf of content creators in Second Life. The truth is, I and many other builders continue to sell on SL Exchange because it's greatly beneficial to both merchants and shoppers.

Maybe you can repeat again how your plan all along has been to create a competing service? You've said that you're going to resume work on it after your boycott succeeds? Maybe you can address how this is not only a conflict of interest, but an unethical business practice?

These are great questions and I will answer them all, Cubey.

The plan for creating an open-source version of SLEX is on hold until this situation is resolved. Further, as stated in a previous thread, I will negotiate with you, the public, on a delay period before I begin working on it. So if the conflict with SLEX lasts 3 months and you agree I should wait another 3 months before releasing my code, I will wait out the complete 6 months. I would never ask people to make a sacrifice without doing the same thing myself.

Finally, if you feel that I should not even work on an open-source version of this software, period, I too will give that consideration. I am not a dishonest person and I am very serious about demonstrating my commitment to ethical business practices in SL, even at great cost to me.

All I ask is that you show the same commitment to ethical business practices. Why associate yourself with someone who is allegedly in breach of contract? What does that say about the ethics of your business practices?

~Ulrika~

I think it would say alot more for people to leave sle behind on their own rather than being lead off in some big dramatic scene. The remaining owner will take notice of the fall off of bussiness. It will mean more to him than seeing a bunch of merchants niave enough to simply jump on a bandwagon.

Aside from that, the fact that you, Ulrika, have mentioned plans for a similar bussiness really makes this all look like you're out for 1) benefitting your own endeavor, and/or 2) attention. I saw you posted somewhere in one of these threads you intend to "further educate" people inworld in the next day or so. Well please remove my name from your list of people needing education on this. I'm inworld to build and have fun, not receive spam.

Let's browse the listings of SLexchange:
Munchflower Zaius
Cubey Terra
Starley Thereian
Kimmera Madison
Vindi vindaloo
Amy Stirling
and more...

This is the result of 1 minute of random search in SLexchange. All those merchants are for sure between the SL most respected artisans. How come they are listing in SLex? Or maybe in your (quite biased in my opinion) eyes they don't deserve respect?

It is irrelevant how they choose to leave, whether it is en masse or independently. The point is that it should be done and I'm glad your recognize that.

Again, I have cancelled plans for the project to show my commitment to my ideals (it's in the post right above yours).

As for the educational campaign, I can point to your first paragraph and ask, how are people going to know to leave SLEX behind either en masse or as individuals, if they don't know there is a problem. While I think it's fantastic that your going to be having some fun in SL, I will be trying to get the word out so people can make the informed decision that you yourself said they should.

~Ulrika~

hehe further educate.

Mother must hold our hands and instruct us on the business world. In mother's eyes we are not capable of thinking for ourselves or putting together conclusions. If she did not educate us we would be lost since we can't figure anything for ourselves. The sun in SL would cease to rise every 3 hours if we were not kept from wandering astray.

I feel like this mother type figure is slapping me on the hand with a big ruler and yelling "Listen to me and don't argue!! No more of this nonsense!! Your mother knows what is good for you! When you become a mother you can make your own decisions" everytime I read her posts.

As soon as the alleged breach of contract is settled, I will be joining that list as well. Until then I cannot trust a company that stonewalls its users with my money. You are free to make up your own mind as well.

~Ulrika~

Putting it "on hold until this situation is resolved" doesn't clear you of conflict of interest. On hold or not, you're still a competitor.



If you really want to do the right thing, ethically speaking, you should pursue your project immediately, but withdraw from organizing and supporting the "boycott" attack publically. That would resolve your conflict of interest and allow you to continue your project.

However, your previous conflict of interest may cast a shadow over the project, and I predict that you'll have to deal with the fallout that you created.

The two people in this incident are working to resolve this. On an individual level, it's perfectly acceptable to consider the situation and act one way or another, as many have done. It's an internal conflict that has in no way affected customers, beyond your self-serving attacks. The facts of their dispute are private to them. Organizing an attack on one side or the other based on no reliable information is unjustified, unreasonable, and casts doubt on your sense of ethics.



I suspected it would come to this. Now that you've completed your attack on SLX, you have the taste for blood and turn your sights on anyone else who uses the service. Who's next, Ulrika?

Stop your attacks now, Ulrika, and apologize to everyone you've hurt in your attacks...while you still have some shreds of credibility.

Mmm. Sarcastic rhetoric, the weapon of the intellectual elite. Ha ha.

When I say "educate" I mean telling people there is a problem. The SL forums only accounts for a fraction of the SL population and there are certainly many people in world who haven't heard about this situation.

After they have been informed, it is up to them to make up their minds without the need for hand holding.

~Ulrika~

Do you honestly think you can question my integrity without me returning the favor? You are naïve.

The difference is, I will offer to cancel my project. Not delay it -- cancel it. What can you put up?

~Ulrika~

Again i'm waiting for an answer Ulrika

Ulrika, you are the only one here with an obvious conflict of interest, and the only one organizing large-scale, indiscriminate assaults on individuals. Questioning ethics is not a tennis match. If your ethics have been questionable, it doesn't follow that you should accuse someone in return.

It's up to you to clear yourself of the conflict by choosing one of two paths: either stop your involvement the attacks or cancel your project.

Nobody's forcing you to kill your project. The easier and more sensible choice is to simply withdraw from your attacks, and continue your project.

This doesnt answer my question.
You told that SL's most respected merchants have nothing to do with SLex, so i'm waiting to hear if the ones that do doesnt deserve respect in your eyes (and why do you think you can speak in behalf of such "most respected merchants" possibly).

Why?

It's so weak that you won't answer my question but I'll bend over backwards to answer yours.

~Ulrika~

There is no accounting for greed or stupidity. Every merchant benefited from SLExchange - I got my biggest sales there and I'm sure others did too.

However - only an idiot would leave money in there without knowing whether it will be around tomorrow or not.

I appreciate that people would rather bash Ulrika than actually think - well don't let me stop you or anything...

This is off topic. If you really want to semantically deconstruct my sentences and question my stance on your various interpretations, then do it by PM.

~Ulrika~

You haven't yet answered my questions, or most of the other questions here. And I consider your attack on me is just another in a string of random attacks, and without any more purpose than to say the equivalent of "I know you are, but what am I?"

I am officially boycotting anything and everything Ulrika says and does.

Eh, no Ulrika, your sentence puts down all merchants that list on SLexchange, so i think a quick rephrasing and a public apology to them might be in order.

Ahhh, but yes, it is relevant if your aim is to make a statement, and that is the aim, is it not? His loss of bussiness will speak for itself, and whether or not you do anything at all to help it along, there will obviously be people who feel the need to leave. As is, the whole "boycot" thing you have going as well as your having the audacity to post the same thing in SLE forums is doing nothing but making you look like a kid trying to create drama and draw attention. Whether or not you are that, I have no idea, but it is giving that impression a bit.

Btw, I never said anywhere that leaving SLE is what should be done, so you'll do well to not place words in my mouth. My items are sitting on SLE right now, as they will remain until SLE goes down, IF that does happen. I personally don't see where SLE's behind the scenes bussiness is ANY of my bussiness, and there is no way we'd ever really know what's going on. That site provides a convenient service, I like the site, and I'll use it, period.

How will people know to leave if they don't know there is a problem? Well obviously if they don't know there is a problem, then said problem doesn't effect them and doesn't really make it their bussiness. Your shoving it down everyone's throats isn't helping them when there's nothing hurting them to begin with. Infact, I've never been as close to muting someone on the forums as I have been to muting you, especially since all this started because I simply get tired of seeing it everywhere. But I still do not. It must be like driving by a horrible accident. You know you might see something horrible, but you still have to look anyway! Or maybe it's seeing everyone else's replies and knowing I'm not alone in thinking this is all rediculous, nor alone in thinking it's still okay to use SLE.

Image is irrelevant. Drama is irrelevant. What's important is that people understand what's going on so they can make an informed decision.

Frankly, my standards for businesses are higher than its convenience or likability. Because some people might share my standards, I feel that it is my obligation to inform them. I would want to be informed if I were the one who didn't know. Of the people I've talked to, many have said just that.

Ignorance is bliss is it? I don't subscribe to that. I'm of the school of thought that everyone should be well informed and free to make their own decision.

That's what this is about. A right to be informed and to exercise one's free will.

~Ulrika~

Very well said. I don't understand the attitude of "I am making money, so I don't care what goes on behind the scenes", especially in a site where you are trusting them to actually pay you for your sales, and customers are entrusting money to them because of the odd setup the site has of using an intermediate account to buy from (one of the reason I don't use the site). The integrity of the operators of any business is important in any situation when you are doing business with them.

I would certainly not want any portion of my sales, or money that I am spending on a site to reward someone who operates a business dishonestly. It is one of the reasons I won't rent a store space in the malls of a well known player - again, their standards of behavior don't mix with my own, so I have no desire to pay rent to said player, even if it would make me money. No retailer has to leave SLExchange, but if I had not known about this from the forums and I were selling on the site, I would have wanted to know so I could make a decision. Some turn a blind eye to things that don't directly affect them, and that is fne - other people look beyond that.

I've taken a break from this thread but i remain a bit puzzled. I admire the sentiment above but am a little taken aback by its fervor especially in this case where things are not black and white.

I've been an entrepreneur. Thankfully I didn't have problems with my co-founders, but it happens all the time. It gets stressful and emotional. It can get really ugly to watch as a venture capitalist and a founding CEO go toe to toe. But would I expect every customer to dump the product or service because two business partners were not nice to each other? No I wouldn't.

Marriage divorces can get really ugly too. But does an ugly divorce mean that both people are a$$holes? Horrible people? No it doesn't. You can't judge if you don't know.

I get the impression that Apoth handled things badly -- he admitted as much -- but both he and merwan seem to have asked to handle it in private, and I will withhold judgement and let them do that. People do stupid things sometimes. You can either judge them harshly without knowing the facts, you can forgive them, or you can wait for all the facts and then judge.

This whole thing came out smelling highly unpleasant, but I have held off because I do not feel that I have the facts to make a judgement.

Why the self-righteousness?