New Jira issue: Don't automatically coalesce returned objects (to lost and found)

Coalescing objects is a powerful tool when used deliberately by a building (e.g. to "soft-link" a physical and non-physical prim).

However, it does not make sense to auto-coalesce returned objects into the Lost&Found folder. Automatic coalescing of returned object has the following undesirable consequences:

i) new users often think that they have lost items, since they do not appear by name in the Lost&Found folder (and often are coalesced with a totally irrelevant name - e.g. a whole house being listed as "tap"
ii) it is impossible to determine what has been returned without rezzing the items - also if a lot of items have been returned as a set of coalesced items, it is impossible to tell in which coalesced item a particular item might be
iii) it is impossible to seperate the items without rezzing
iv) recovering items typically requires finding a large empty sandbox with a lot of spare prims, as there is no way of telling how large, how many prims, or how wide an area a coalesced returned object might be

This all makes life extremely difficult for someone recovering from having a number of items autoreturned (either deliberately, accidently, or through an SL bug).

If you agree with the above please vote at http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2360

Matthew

I don't remember when return coalescing was introduced, but in case you weren't around then yet: return coalescing didn't used to exist, if you had 100 objects on someone's land and they returned them all, you'd get 100 items in your Lost & Found (which is what you want to go back to apparantly).

The reason return coalescing was introduced was to significantly reduce the cost of (auto-)returns on the asset/inventory servers by having the sim clump everything together and issue only a single return/upload. Since it was implemented as a load alleviation measure rather than an actual "feature" I don't think they'll return want to turn back the clock on that change .

Not to mention the screen full of spam you would recieve if you had many objects returned to you at once.

Yeah but how many times have I purchased an item a second time only to find that it was in one of these bundles? If they keep it that way, the least they could do is have it return as a folder in which you can query the folder to find out what is in that bundle.

But wait...that actually makes sense! LL will never agree to that....

What if your objects didn't linked together and they all get returned at once? If they are clumped together, you can still rez them and see them all in the same place as it was. But if it returned separately, there's no way you can rearrange them.

Aside from server load problem, there WILL be people who like them the way it is and start complaining to make them clumped together again upon returned.

Coalescing objects is actually a good thing. For builders it is an option to overcome link-limits. Returned coalesed objects only requires you to find a sandbox and rezz them. If you are not sure about the size and don't want to bother other building there, just rezz it on a box in the sky. Once you know what it is again, rename it in your inventory. I am glad it exists. Before you got returned hundreds of seperate 'Objects'. No need to say that is next to impossible to figure out what what is. Most where useless parts then anyway.

Lisa Lowe