The Second Life Business Bureau
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AWM Mars
Scarey Dude :¬)
Join date: 10 Apr 2004
Posts: 3,398
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05-04-2007 05:46
For the most part, there are 2 ways of viewing situations... those on the wrong side, and those on the right side.. at the beginning BOTH parties, individuals, companies, organisations believe they are on the right side (otherwise there would be no dispute or one is using bully tatics). To use an unbiased mediator prevents bully tatics, smear campaings, ill feeling to perpetuate into slander etc. If a company/business allows itself to exposure of belonging to what appears to be some form of open chamber of commerce, and have its disputes aired in 'public' and risk being shown as a scammer, then it must be confident in its business ethics in the first place. The same is also true for anyone using the system to complain against its members. What the system must do, to remain unbiased, is to show results of mediation, that will appear transparent and fair to the vast majority (truth in the saying, you cannot please all the people all the time). The trend of habitual complainers through this form of mediation, will flourish results of those trends, either against the member or members of the public and can be identified in the case of a smear campaign, or bad business ethics. If you expect this service for nothing, then your only recourse is to deal direct with LL (GL with that recourse), to have the backup when needed to mediate (assuming there is no capping on disputes handles) for what is less than 25L$ a week, perhaps could not be seen as a finacial penalty, but the seeds from which a business can potentially grow from potential confidence of its customers, knowing that they must be of a certain standard to be able to maintain those ethics, or risk loosing its status. I would call it an investment if your motives to indicate in the long term, you have the right approach to customer service. The longer road must be to rely on word of mouth, rather than a central resource, a standard acheived.
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*** Politeness is priceless when received, cost nothing to own or give, yet many cannot afford - Why do you only see typo's AFTER you have clicked submit? ** http://www.wba-advertising.com http://www.nex-core-mm.com http://www.eml-entertainments.com http://www.v-innovate.com
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Annie Malaprop
Registered User
Join date: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 82
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05-04-2007 11:35
From: OliveEue Sholokhov We function by membership and we do make referrals to ONLY SLBB members. We have never received a complaint on ANY member in the SLBB, and have been able to help recover over 72K Lindens.
Many of our members do thousands of USD transactions monthly and no complaints!!
Sorry, but this bit threw up red flags in my head, all with the words "EXTORTION" and "BLACKMAIL" in big, bold letters. ...And that was before I read further and discovered that you are charging L$1000 just to join and, as is clearly implied in the text above, be protected from smears on your site. How does the ability/willingness to pay L$1000 in exchange for a "good reputation" guarantee that a company has any ethics at all? It may be that this is a legitimate effort to provide people with a way to verify that an SL business is trustworthy. If that's the case, then you're going about it in absolutely the wrong way. First of all, why have membership at all? Is this the BBB or a Chamber of Commerce? That membership set-up immediately disqualifies you as an objective source of information, since there is a clear conflict of interest. If you want to be a Chamber of Commerce, that's great, but don't pass yourself off as something else. If you want to be the SL BBB, then don't have membership. You can always ask for donations to cover site fees, etc. If users find your services useful, they'll donate.
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Maggie McArdle
FIOS hates puppies
Join date: 8 May 2006
Posts: 2,855
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05-04-2007 11:56
From: AWM Mars For the most part, there are 2 ways of viewing situations... those on the wrong side, and those on the right side.. at the beginning BOTH parties, individuals, companies, organisations believe they are on the right side (otherwise there would be no dispute or one is using bully tatics). To use an unbiased mediator prevents bully tatics, smear campaings, ill feeling to perpetuate into slander etc. If a company/business allows itself to exposure of belonging to what appears to be some form of open chamber of commerce, and have its disputes aired in 'public' and risk being shown as a scammer, then it must be confident in its business ethics in the first place. The same is also true for anyone using the system to complain against its members. What the system must do, to remain unbiased, is to show results of mediation, that will appear transparent and fair to the vast majority (truth in the saying, you cannot please all the people all the time). The trend of habitual complainers through this form of mediation, will flourish results of those trends, either against the member or members of the public and can be identified in the case of a smear campaign, or bad business ethics. If you expect this service for nothing, then your only recourse is to deal direct with LL (GL with that recourse), to have the backup when needed to mediate (assuming there is no capping on disputes handles) for what is less than 25L$ a week, perhaps could not be seen as a finacial penalty, but the seeds from which a business can potentially grow from potential confidence of its customers, knowing that they must be of a certain standard to be able to maintain those ethics, or risk loosing its status. I would call it an investment if your motives to indicate in the long term, you have the right approach to customer service. The longer road must be to rely on word of mouth, rather than a central resource, a standard acheived. no one is doubting the validity, at least im not, of this service. i think its wonderful. however, if not monitered fairly, it can lead to a witch hunt. my chief concern is the fact that they will post the complaint without allowing the buisness is question the right to work it out with the dissatisfied customer. as i stated, that in itself is very one sided. i myself, an avid shopper, has had no bad shopping experinces, just some bad choices. for something like this to succeed, it needs to be fair all around. as it was posted previously it can lead to a ratings thing, and push smaller legitimate buisnesses off the map.
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There's, uh, probably a lot of things you didn't know about lindens. Another, another interesting, uh, lindenism, uh, there are only three jobs available to a linden. The first is making shoes at night while, you know, while the old cobbler sleeps.You can bake cookies in a tree. But the third job, some call it, uh, "the show" or "the big dance," it's the profession that every linden aspires to.
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Elinah Iredell
Registered User
Join date: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 269
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05-04-2007 12:00
When I first came to sl I thought about starting an sl bbb since we didnt have one and someone said we needed one, but in the end I decided that I didnt want to spend all of my time mediating problems that I probably could not resolve to satisfy anyone and also all the negativity of listening to problems all the time would not be much fun ... kind of like working in the customer service complaint section of a business all you do is listen to complaints all day and deal with angry people and rarely is anyone satisfied, the main thing this does do is warn others against a business... While I think her website is a great idea I do see an obvious ethical dilemma this new sl bbb has if one of her paying customers gets a complaint. Perhaps she should attempt to make money from this system a different way ?
Elilnah
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AWM Mars
Scarey Dude :¬)
Join date: 10 Apr 2004
Posts: 3,398
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05-04-2007 13:53
From: Annie Malaprop Sorry, but this bit threw up red flags in my head, all with the words "EXTORTION" and "BLACKMAIL" in big, bold letters. ...And that was before I read further and discovered that you are charging L$1000 just to join and, as is clearly implied in the text above, be protected from smears on your site. How does the ability/willingness to pay L$1000 in exchange for a "good reputation" guarantee that a company has any ethics at all? It may be that this is a legitimate effort to provide people with a way to verify that an SL business is trustworthy. If that's the case, then you're going about it in absolutely the wrong way. First of all, why have membership at all? Is this the BBB or a Chamber of Commerce? That membership set-up immediately disqualifies you as an objective source of information, since there is a clear conflict of interest. If you want to be a Chamber of Commerce, that's great, but don't pass yourself off as something else. If you want to be the SL BBB, then don't have membership. You can always ask for donations to cover site fees, etc. If users find your services useful, they'll donate. Surely the first rule of ethics, is practice what you preach? As I said in my post, the dealing between the mediators, and both parties must appear fully transparent and fair to the vast majority. If the Mediators always found in favour of their members, then the vast majority would perhaps perceive it is a 'members only club' protecting its members above all. However, as I said, Transparency is the key. The best result is a win win situation, any method deployed to acheive that must be encouraged. So often greivances are the result of the 'MIS' syndrome - miscommunication, misunderstanding or misinformed.
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*** Politeness is priceless when received, cost nothing to own or give, yet many cannot afford - Why do you only see typo's AFTER you have clicked submit? ** http://www.wba-advertising.com http://www.nex-core-mm.com http://www.eml-entertainments.com http://www.v-innovate.com
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Hydra Zenovka
Font of Wisdom
Join date: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 97
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05-04-2007 15:13
what about this for a business model: no fees for businesses who may or may not be listed. Instead, the fee is paid by the consumer when he/she wants access to the ratings/complaints database. That way there is less of a conflict of interest in regards to who holds the purse strings. This is a model like "consumer reports" in RL
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Annie Malaprop
Registered User
Join date: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 82
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05-04-2007 15:44
From: AWM Mars As I said in my post, the dealing between the mediators, and both parties must appear fully transparent and fair to the vast majority. If the Mediators always found in favour of their members, then the vast majority would perhaps perceive it is a 'members only club' protecting its members above all. However, as I said, Transparency is the key. The point I was trying to make is that original post very strongly implied that "member" companies are immune and that they should join for that reason. Perhaps it was just badly written and the website isn't actually intended for extortion purposes, but it was enough to send me running in the other direction. It also seemed from what was posted that transparency isn't part of the plan.
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OliveEue Sholokhov
Registered User
Join date: 4 Nov 2005
Posts: 36
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05-05-2007 00:46
Ok, there were several questions posted, and my apologies for not getting to them sooner.
Maggie your question, where does the money go, it goes for rent, so that we have a place for people to file complaints, a place to hold board meetings once a month, a place to hold other meetings than board meetings.
We have mediation services available, which we pay for, whether you are a member or not we will mediate it.
We have not had the issue to date of serial complainers, once we receive a claim we investigate it on both parties, to make sure it is a legit claim and not someone just angry with someone else. We validate the claim with transaction histories, and other proof. I have received claims that had no validity to them and they do not get processed.
The guarantee is that we investigate the claim, we make sure it is a legitamate claim, such as somone selling empty prims out of their vendor, or someone selling free items and charging a visually impaired person 3 x as much.
The board of directors, Munich Express (BMW), Christian Cisco Systems (Cisco), Simone Stern (Simone Designs), Allison Selene (Beatenetworks), Jon Desmoulins (SL Marketing and SL Public Radio),Kenan Keen (New Life Adoption Agency), StaceyLynn Bergman (Creative Creators), Rosalie Millgrove (Statements By Rosalie) Oliveeue Sholokhov (Founder & President of SLBB) and Temporal Mitra(Temporal Industries).
To date, none of our members have had complaints and to date we have 107 members and 99 companies on board. As I have said earlier, we are at the infant stage, but have EXCELLENT board members to advise me. I did not need a board but I choose to have a board to make this organization completely transparent.
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Maggie McArdle
FIOS hates puppies
Join date: 8 May 2006
Posts: 2,855
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05-05-2007 02:32
From: OliveEue Sholokhov Ok, there were several questions posted, and my apologies for not getting to them sooner.
Maggie your question, where does the money go, it goes for rent, so that we have a place for people to file complaints, a place to hold board meetings once a month, a place to hold other meetings than board meetings.
We have mediation services available, which we pay for, whether you are a member or not we will mediate it.
We have not had the issue to date of serial complainers, once we receive a claim we investigate it on both parties, to make sure it is a legit claim and not someone just angry with someone else. We validate the claim with transaction histories, and other proof. I have received claims that had no validity to them and they do not get processed.
The guarantee is that we investigate the claim, we make sure it is a legitamate claim, such as somone selling empty prims out of their vendor, or someone selling free items and charging a visually impaired person 3 x as much.
The board of directors, Munich Express (BMW), Christian Cisco Systems (Cisco), Simone Stern (Simone Designs), Allison Selene (Beatenetworks), Jon Desmoulins (SL Marketing and SL Public Radio),Kenan Keen (New Life Adoption Agency), StaceyLynn Bergman (Creative Creators), Rosalie Millgrove (Statements By Rosalie) Oliveeue Sholokhov (Founder & President of SLBB) and Temporal Mitra(Temporal Industries).
To date, none of our members have had complaints and to date we have 107 members and 99 companies on board. As I have said earlier, we are at the infant stage, but have EXCELLENT board members to advise me. I did not need a board but I choose to have a board to make this organization completely transparent. ty Olive,  . but i woud be remiss if i didnt point out that in or original post, it appeared one sided and in favor of the complaintant. ty for clearin up and answering my questions.
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There's, uh, probably a lot of things you didn't know about lindens. Another, another interesting, uh, lindenism, uh, there are only three jobs available to a linden. The first is making shoes at night while, you know, while the old cobbler sleeps.You can bake cookies in a tree. But the third job, some call it, uh, "the show" or "the big dance," it's the profession that every linden aspires to.
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OliveEue Sholokhov
Registered User
Join date: 4 Nov 2005
Posts: 36
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05-05-2007 06:32
YW, and I'm glad you did, this is how we grow and become something better!
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Temporal Mitra
Registered User
Join date: 13 Jul 2006
Posts: 142
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No free rides...
05-17-2007 12:26
From: Maggie McArdle ty Olive,  . but i woud be remiss if i didnt point out that in or original post, it appeared one sided and in favor of the complaintant. ty for clearin up and answering my questions. Maggie, on the contrary, I am a mediator/arbitrator for the SLBB, and also a board member. I sat in as the mediator for a case in which one of our board members was the complainant, against another company. No one from the SLBB attempted to sway me in any way...nor could they have...I hold to my own core beliefs on what is right and equitable. In this case, I ruled that the complaint that the SLBB board member brought, was unfounded and without basis, and the SLBB duly reported that on the case resolution on the website. To my way of thinking, there are very simple ethics that should be practiced in Second Life business dealings, as I have always done in my own SL businesses, well before there ever was such a thing as the SLBB. You do what is right, end of story. I wont change those values for anyone, and will always make my own decisions, not on the basis who the parties are..but the particular merits of the case I am called upon to mediate. cordially, Temporal Mitra
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Temporal Mitra
Registered User
Join date: 13 Jul 2006
Posts: 142
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05-17-2007 12:32
From: Annie Malaprop The point I was trying to make is that original post very strongly implied that "member" companies are immune and that they should join for that reason. Perhaps it was just badly written and the website isn't actually intended for extortion purposes, but it was enough to send me running in the other direction.
It also seemed from what was posted that transparency isn't part of the plan. Annie, on the contrary, I am a mediator/arbitrator for the SLBB, and also a board member. I sat in as the mediator for a case in which one of our board members was the complainant, against another company. No one from the SLBB attempted to sway me in any way...nor could they have...I hold to my own core beliefs on what is right and equitable. In this case, I ruled that the complaint that the SLBB board member brought, was unfounded and without basis, and the SLBB duly reported that on the case resolution on the website. The resolution was not edited in any way at all, it was stated just as I reported it. To my way of thinking, there are very simple ethics that should be practiced in Second Life business dealings, as I have always done in my own SL businesses, well before there ever was such a thing as the SLBB. You do what is right, fair and just...end of story. I wont change those values for anyone, and will always make my own decisions, not on the basis who the parties are..but the particular merits of the case I am called upon to mediate. Personally, should there ever be a case of a member of the SLBB practicing less than totally ethical business practices I would be the first in line, demanding that they be removed from the organization. I believe in the goals of the SLBB, and expect my fellow members to hold themselves to a higher standard than the rest of the SL business community. Why? Because we are the ones that specifically SAY we will do no wrong, and if we do, we should be judged more harshly than those that never made the claim to do things the right way. The same reason that a minister should be held to a higher moral standard than his flock should be. He should be the epitome of honesty and moral behavior, if that is what he espouses publically. cordially, Temporal Mitra
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Desmond Shang
Guvnah of Caledon
Join date: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 5,250
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05-17-2007 14:16
From: Temporal Mitra Annie, on the contrary, I am a mediator/arbitrator for the SLBB, and also a board member. I sat in as the mediator for a case in which one of our board members was the complainant, against another company. No one from the SLBB attempted to sway me in any way...nor could they have...I hold to my own core beliefs on what is right and equitable. In this case, I ruled that the complaint that the SLBB board member brought, was unfounded and without basis, and the SLBB duly reported that on the case resolution on the website. The resolution was not edited in any way at all, it was stated just as I reported it. To my way of thinking, there are very simple ethics that should be practiced in Second Life business dealings, as I have always done in my own SL businesses, well before there ever was such a thing as the SLBB. You do what is right, fair and just...end of story. I wont change those values for anyone, and will always make my own decisions, not on the basis who the parties are..but the particular merits of the case I am called upon to mediate. Personally, should there ever be a case of a member of the SLBB practicing less than totally ethical business practices I would be the first in line, demanding that they be removed from the organization. I believe in the goals of the SLBB, and expect my fellow members to hold themselves to a higher standard than the rest of the SL business community. Why? Because we are the ones that specifically SAY we will do no wrong, and if we do, we should be judged more harshly than those that never made the claim to do things the right way. The same reason that a minister should be held to a higher moral standard than his flock should be. He should be the epitome of honesty and moral behavior, if that is what he espouses publically. cordially, Temporal Mitra With all due respect sir, that's not quite sufficient. For purposes of illustration, ethics is often simplified into two scales: good/bad -vs- right/wrong Let's consider morality. Even with the 'big issues' - abortion, death penalty, gun control, &c &c - there are moral people on both sides. Who is more moral, the person who sides with 'greatest good' or the person who sides with 'never do wrong' no matter the cost? The answer is neither. Everyone's flavour of 'right, fair, and just' is most certainly different, and most certainly different from 90% of people in the world. Without a framework (such as law) derived from the community, none of us are anything more than just another voice. "You do what is right, fair and just...end of story. I wont change those values for anyone,"... We are *all* wrong some of the time. It's very important that we examine our values frequently - unless, of course, one holds oneself as infallible. * * * * * At very least, one's values should be transparent and visible. For instance: say a business has big, ugly signs and a new residential neighbour moves in next door. That neighbour then goes to you with a complaint about the business and its practises, and then erects some ugly signs of their own next to their cottage. Do you side with "be reasonably decent to the new neighbour" or do you side with "it is their land and it is their right"? What of the neighbour, who has no business and thus a business countercomplaint can't be filed? I trust that you will take these as very constructive comments, as they are definitely meant to be. Sincerely, Des.
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 Steampunk Victorian, Well-Mannered Caledon!
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Maggie McArdle
FIOS hates puppies
Join date: 8 May 2006
Posts: 2,855
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05-17-2007 14:41
From: Winter Ventura a lot of businesses don't own land. In fact a lot of them are just a collection of vendors housed on land, trading percentages from sales, for "rent".
a "start up" in SL is often little more than a freebie box vendor, on some freebie space at a flea market or somesuch. (the vendor wall at GT HQ sandbox for example). A lot of businesses get their starts that way.. and regardless of what you think, 1000L is a HELL of a lot of money for someone selling their first airplanes or whatnot.
Renting store space if the first big expendature.. and it's a huge gamble.. 60, 70, 100L a week.. the minimum advertisement is 50L in the classifieds. Will it work out? won't it? will I make enough this week to pay my rent on the space? is this mall a good one? or one that uses campers to inflate it's traffic?
it's true that 100L a month is chump change to you.. that's great FOR YOU. but there are people struggling to scrounge that 100L to pay their shop's rent. that $25 a week may mean the difference between showing a profit, or losing money.
It must be nice to be someone who can afford that much without blinking. 1000L is still a lot of money to me, even though I make enough to justify the expenditure.
"can afford" and "can justify" are two different things. I *CAN AFFORD* a DVD player and a TV. however, I can't justify that expenditure, because I NEED toilet paper and bus fare more.
again, my concern is the unprofessional way in which the SLBB has set itself up as a forum for airing dirty laundry against people. I'd MUCH RATHER see this group focus on mediating consumer/business disputes.. and protecting the good names of both sides, even when a "unsatisfactory rating" is in place.
Solve that, and you might get my support.
And to all of you who "beleive in" this group.. and can blink and lose 1k without missing it... how about putting up and forming a foundation to lessen the costs for smaller businesses? well said Winter..well said. as one who took almost a year to get my buisness started, 1000l is a hell of an expense, so when one belittles how hard many work to get started, it makes me rethink whether or not i want to belong to the same organization.
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There's, uh, probably a lot of things you didn't know about lindens. Another, another interesting, uh, lindenism, uh, there are only three jobs available to a linden. The first is making shoes at night while, you know, while the old cobbler sleeps.You can bake cookies in a tree. But the third job, some call it, uh, "the show" or "the big dance," it's the profession that every linden aspires to.
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