This is how Linden Lab treats it's customers...

[Aleric Inglewood]

I know this is "off topic", so I'll keep it as short as possible.

After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a homestead,
and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take the sim
offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.

Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a FULL
sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count. Obviously I can't
afford that; so us little people have to resort renting homesteads
from strangers who own a full sim. The owner of that full sim
was paid by everyone who rented a homestead from him,
every month, in time. But one day he decided he wanted to quit.
Apparently he stopped paying Linden Lab, so they took all "his"
sims offline.

Now what is wrong in this picture? Should the 50 or so under-
renters be punished because of one? I had absolutely nothing
to do with this guy, except that he needed to own the homestead
in name, because of the completely nonsensical "rule" that
Linden Lab doesn't want to make homesteads available
directly. Well, fuck you too Linden Lab.

So one day I have a home, my own island where I live and
did built and work on for more than a year. Which is full of
objects of my dead partner that I can use but not Take Back
(no help from LInden Lab here either of course), and the
next -poof- offline. Not because *I* didn't pay, but because
LInden Lab doesn't give a shit about me, or my money.
Or it's customers.

[Tigro Spottystripes]

The money you paid LL wasn't for the sim, it was for the L$ you gave to
the guy that actually paid real dollars for sim directly to LL. You gave
away your game money, it's not LL's fault that you choose to do busyness
with someone that couldn't be trusted. Did you had a contract where the
guy promised to keep offering stuff for you to sublocate from him? I
wouldn't expect you do, and i'm pretty sure you don't have a contract
where LL promises to fill in for your landlord if he goes away.

There are situations where LL disrespects their customers, but your
landlord deciding to not rent a sim from LL anymore certainly isn't one
of them.

Post by Aleric Inglewood
I know this is "off topic", so I'll keep it as short as possible.
After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a homestead,
and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take the sim
offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.
Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a FULL
sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count. Obviously I can't
afford that; so us little people have to resort renting homesteads
from strangers who own a full sim. The owner of that full sim
was paid by everyone who rented a homestead from him,
every month, in time. But one day he decided he wanted to quit.
Apparently he stopped paying Linden Lab, so they took all "his"
sims offline.
Now what is wrong in this picture? Should the 50 or so under-
renters be punished because of one? I had absolutely nothing
to do with this guy, except that he needed to own the homestead
in name, because of the completely nonsensical "rule" that
Linden Lab doesn't want to make homesteads available
directly. Well, fuck you too Linden Lab.
So one day I have a home, my own island where I live and
did built and work on for more than a year. Which is full of
objects of my dead partner that I can use but not Take Back
(no help from LInden Lab here either of course), and the
next -poof- offline. Not because *I* didn't pay, but because
LInden Lab doesn't give a shit about me, or my money.
Or it's customers.
_______________________________________________
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[Darmath]

You clearly missed the entire point of Aleric's post to this list.
Either it was done deliberately or...

The pure simple fact is that Aleric feels aggrieved, and I feel some
sympathy for him/her on this point,
that due to an entirely elitist business policy he/she now has lost
"his/her" land. I say elitist because the policy is in effect this:
LL's is willing to accept the homestead price (~$100USD, i'm not sure)
from someone who can afford ~$300 USD a month. Yet
wont accept that same some from someone who can't afford that. It makes
no sense whatsoever. Indeed i'd argue that it would almost
contravene discrimination laws here in my country. What is the price of
a homstead from someone who can't afford a full sim not as good as from
someone who can afford a full sim? The last time i looked $100.00 USD
was $100.00 USD irrespective of who paid it. I guess not in the eyes of
LL's.

Aleric's gripe is that if LL didnt have the policy in place she/he would
have paid their money happily directly to LL with the consequence that
he/she would still be on the land that they had "occupied" for over a
yr, had much invested in and had some sentimental value to them.

That you feel that this doesn't actually disrespect users or customers
of LL's is a sad indictment on your logical abilities.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
The money you paid LL wasn't for the sim, it was for the L$ you gave to
the guy that actually paid real dollars for sim directly to LL. You gave
away your game money, it's not LL's fault that you choose to do busyness
with someone that couldn't be trusted. Did you had a contract where the
guy promised to keep offering stuff for you to sublocate from him? I
wouldn't expect you do, and i'm pretty sure you don't have a contract
where LL promises to fill in for your landlord if he goes away.
There are situations where LL disrespects their customers, but your
landlord deciding to not rent a sim from LL anymore certainly isn't one
of them.

Post by Aleric Inglewood
I know this is "off topic", so I'll keep it as short as possible.
After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a homestead,
and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take the sim
offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.
Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a FULL
sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count. Obviously I can't
afford that; so us little people have to resort renting homesteads
from strangers who own a full sim. The owner of that full sim
was paid by everyone who rented a homestead from him,
every month, in time. But one day he decided he wanted to quit.
Apparently he stopped paying Linden Lab, so they took all "his"
sims offline.
Now what is wrong in this picture? Should the 50 or so under-
renters be punished because of one? I had absolutely nothing
to do with this guy, except that he needed to own the homestead
in name, because of the completely nonsensical "rule" that
Linden Lab doesn't want to make homesteads available
directly. Well, fuck you too Linden Lab.
So one day I have a home, my own island where I live and
did built and work on for more than a year. Which is full of
objects of my dead partner that I can use but not Take Back
(no help from LInden Lab here either of course), and the
next -poof- offline. Not because *I* didn't pay, but because
LInden Lab doesn't give a shit about me, or my money.
Or it's customers.
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

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[Stickman]

Post by Darmath
It makes
no sense whatsoever.

It makes some sense. It promotes a reseller market, creating an
economy that otherwise wouldn't exist by requiring a middleman.

I won't say I agree with it, but I don't really consider it something
I need to make a strong decision on.

Post by Darmath
Aleric's gripe is that if LL didnt have the policy in place she/he would
have paid their money happily directly to LL with the consequence that
he/she would still be on the land that they had "occupied" for over a
yr, had much invested in and had some sentimental value to them.

Aleric is not the first person to have suffered land being swept out
from under them. I've had more than one set of friends that almost had
it happen to them.

Post by Darmath
That you feel that this doesn't actually disrespect users or customers
of LL's is a sad indictment on your logical abilities.

This is a problem that LL should have addressed already, yes. One way
it can be addressed by providing resellers, or those that purchase
land from resellers, with more information. Suggesting a contract
template between renter and reseller to protect each with some level
of protection might also be a good idea. A legal recourse to follow
when someone breaks their contract, either landlord or renter, is
better than impotence.

I don't know why LL doesn't sell Homesteads to the average resident.
It might be intentional, it might be a legacy policy that hasn't been
reevaluated and cleared up yet. But it's still possible to work within
the system and not get screwed over. There just needs to be more
education about the existing system.

My heart goes out to Aleric, and I hope this can be resolved
positively. It won't be resolved on this list, though.

Jack Linden's office hours might be the best place to bring it up (I'm
not sure). Thursdays at 11am.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Linden%20Estate%20Services/213/107/49

Submitting a ticket asking for a deferral on the actual deletion of
the sim ASAP is a good place to start.

Finding a new "Homestead holder" and talking with the old reseller to
get the sim transferred over is your best bet to salvage it. There's a
US$100 or L$28000 fee to transfer, but it's better than losing it.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Private_Region_Transfer_FAQ

Good luck.

-Stickman

[Gareth Nelson]

One way to fix this "problem" is for LL to enable tenants of
rented-out sims to directly take over payment of tier.
But of course, if any one tenant quits paying, there's still the risk
that the sim tier won't be paid, and I doubt anyone thinks LL should
offer the sim for free.

I did already reply offlist to this pointing out how offtopic it is
though, and pointing out that LL have no contract with tenants of
rental regions - tenants of such regions are thus not customers.

Post by Stickman

Post by Darmath
It makes
no sense whatsoever.

It makes some sense. It promotes a reseller market, creating an
economy that otherwise wouldn't exist by requiring a middleman.
I won't say I agree with it, but I don't really consider it something
I need to make a strong decision on.

Post by Darmath
Aleric's gripe is that if LL didnt have the policy in place she/he would
have paid their money happily directly to LL with the consequence that
he/she would still be on the land that they had "occupied" for over a
yr, had much invested in and had some sentimental value to them.

Aleric is not the first person to have suffered land being swept out
from under them. I've had more than one set of friends that almost had
it happen to them.

Post by Darmath
That you feel that this doesn't actually disrespect users or customers
of LL's is a sad indictment on your logical abilities.

This is a problem that LL should have addressed already, yes. One way
it can be addressed by providing resellers, or those that purchase
land from resellers, with more information. Suggesting a contract
template between renter and reseller to protect each with some level
of protection might also be a good idea. A legal recourse to follow
when someone breaks their contract, either landlord or renter, is
better than impotence.
I don't know why LL doesn't sell Homesteads to the average resident.
It might be intentional, it might be a legacy policy that hasn't been
reevaluated and cleared up yet. But it's still possible to work within
the system and not get screwed over. There just needs to be more
education about the existing system.
My heart goes out to Aleric, and I hope this can be resolved
positively. It won't be resolved on this list, though.
Jack Linden's office hours might be the best place to bring it up (I'm
not sure). Thursdays at 11am.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Linden%20Estate%20Services/213/107/49
Submitting a ticket asking for a deferral on the actual deletion of
the sim ASAP is a good place to start.
Finding a new "Homestead holder" and talking with the old reseller to
get the sim transferred over is your best bet to salvage it. There's a
US$100 or L$28000 fee to transfer, but it's better than losing it.
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Private_Region_Transfer_FAQ
Good luck.
-Stickman
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[Darmath]

Post by Gareth Nelson
and pointing out that LL have no contract with tenants of
rental regions - tenants of such regions are thus not customers.

True. But a premium account holder is a customer of LL. "And to say well
we dont want you $100 a month because your not a full sim owner" is a
slap in the face, period. FWIW i'm a premium account holder...whose now
returning to lurking.

[Joel Foner]

Quick note... if the $100 a month, if this is rent, is not being paid to
Linden Lab if you're renting. It's paid to another avatar... different
picture... It seems to me the slap in the face is a landlord who does this
to a large number of tenants without notice, actually.

Joel (also going back to lurking)

Post by Darmath

Post by Gareth Nelson
and pointing out that LL have no contract with tenants of
rental regions - tenants of such regions are thus not customers.

True. But a premium account holder is a customer of LL. "And to say well
we dont want you $100 a month because your not a full sim owner" is a
slap in the face, period. FWIW i'm a premium account holder...whose now
returning to lurking.
_______________________________________________
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[Carlo Wood]

Sorry, but you are ignorant.

A running sim is being paid for. That money is paid to Linden Lab.
It doesn't matter if that money was first paid by a grandmother to
her grandson, then double by gambling in the casino and subsequently
paid to some random stranger on Xstreet who give L$ for it, which
then were paid to some untrusty game-landlord who gave the game
money to yet another random stranger on Xstreet for which he recceived
real dollars which then finally are paid to Linden Lab.

Namely, if the guy actually using the sim doesn't want to pay for
it, the sim can't run. The fact that it runs means someone pays
for it and you can bet on it that that comes from the wallet of the
person using it (living on it).

So, in this case the sim was running a year aka $100 per month.
Now the sim isn't running anymore and this income of LL stopped.

The renter then offers to continue renting it for $100 per month,
by paying *directly* to LL, but that is not accepted.

It is this last thing that is ridiculous. Or at the VERY LEAST it
should be (or have been) possible to rent an isolated/private homestead
directly from Linden Lab.

Don't say that 'L$' isn't real money so one has no rights. This is
not about what a RL lawyer would say, this is about common sense
and people being pissed off till they vomit and want to run away
screaming from SL, or at least from Linden Lab.

Quick note... if the $100 a month, if this is rent, is not being paid to Linden
Lab if you're renting. It's paid to another avatar... different picture... It
seems to me the slap in the face is a landlord who does this to a large number
of tenants without notice, actually.
Joel (also going back to lurking)

Post by Gareth Nelson
and pointing out that LL have no contract with tenants of
rental regions - tenants of such regions are thus not customers.

True. But a premium account holder is a customer of LL. "And to say well
we dont want you $100 a month because your not a full sim owner" is a
slap in the face, period. FWIW i'm a premium account holder...whose now
returning to lurking.
_______________________________________________
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[Dahlia Trimble]

After reading this thread, somehow all my past bad memories from being a
mainland resident no longer seem quite so bad.

Post by Carlo Wood
Sorry, but you are ignorant.
A running sim is being paid for. That money is paid to Linden Lab.
It doesn't matter if that money was first paid by a grandmother to
her grandson, then double by gambling in the casino and subsequently
paid to some random stranger on Xstreet who give L$ for it, which
then were paid to some untrusty game-landlord who gave the game
money to yet another random stranger on Xstreet for which he recceived
real dollars which then finally are paid to Linden Lab.
Namely, if the guy actually using the sim doesn't want to pay for
it, the sim can't run. The fact that it runs means someone pays
for it and you can bet on it that that comes from the wallet of the
person using it (living on it).
So, in this case the sim was running a year aka $100 per month.
Now the sim isn't running anymore and this income of LL stopped.
The renter then offers to continue renting it for $100 per month,
by paying *directly* to LL, but that is not accepted.
It is this last thing that is ridiculous. Or at the VERY LEAST it
should be (or have been) possible to rent an isolated/private homestead
directly from Linden Lab.
Don't say that 'L$' isn't real money so one has no rights. This is
not about what a RL lawyer would say, this is about common sense
and people being pissed off till they vomit and want to run away
screaming from SL, or at least from Linden Lab.

Post by Joel Foner
Quick note... if the $100 a month, if this is rent, is not being paid to

Linden

Post by Joel Foner
Lab if you're renting. It's paid to another avatar... different

picture... It

Post by Joel Foner
seems to me the slap in the face is a landlord who does this to a large

number

Post by Joel Foner
of tenants without notice, actually.
Joel (also going back to lurking)

Post by Gareth Nelson
and pointing out that LL have no contract with tenants of
rental regions - tenants of such regions are thus not customers.

True. But a premium account holder is a customer of LL. "And to say

well

Post by Joel Foner
we dont want you $100 a month because your not a full sim owner" is a
slap in the face, period. FWIW i'm a premium account holder...whose

now

Post by Joel Foner
returning to lurking.
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[Marc Adored]

Can you guys please take the topic elsewhere its hard to catch whats
relevant with everyone discussing this off topic thread. I'm sure
there is a sl-drama-nHFbR+4dATNruOA+hsvTn1aTQe2KTcn/@public.gmane.org or similar available for
ranting about customer service and business practices but if I'm not
mistaken this list is for opensource development of the sl viewer.
Thank you for not filling my opensource-dev folder with any more of
this :)

- fellow former land owner that lost $250 all at once to 3rd party
land purchase scam

Post by Dahlia Trimble
After reading this thread, somehow all my past bad memories from being a
mainland resident no longer seem quite so bad.

Post by Carlo Wood
Sorry, but you are ignorant.
A running sim is being paid for. That money is paid to Linden Lab.
It doesn't matter if that money was first paid by a grandmother to
her grandson, then double by gambling in the casino and subsequently
paid to some random stranger on Xstreet who give L$ for it, which
then were paid to some untrusty game-landlord who gave the game
money to yet another random stranger on Xstreet for which he recceived
real dollars which then finally are paid to Linden Lab.
Namely, if the guy actually using the sim doesn't want to pay for
it, the sim can't run. The fact that it runs means someone pays
for it and you can bet on it that that comes from the wallet of the
person using it (living on it).
So, in this case the sim was running a year aka $100 per month.
Now the sim isn't running anymore and this income of LL stopped.
The renter then offers to continue renting it for $100 per month,
by paying *directly* to LL, but that is not accepted.
It is this last thing that is ridiculous. Or at the VERY LEAST it
should be (or have been) possible to rent an isolated/private homestead
directly from Linden Lab.
Don't say that 'L$' isn't real money so one has no rights. This is
not about what a RL lawyer would say, this is about common sense
and people being pissed off till they vomit and want to run away
screaming from SL, or at least from Linden Lab.

Quick note... if the $100 a month, if this is rent, is not being paid to Linden
Lab if you're renting. It's paid to another avatar... different picture... It
seems to me the slap in the face is a landlord who does this to a large number
of tenants without notice, actually.
Joel (also going back to lurking)
    >   and pointing out that LL have no contract with tenants of
    > rental regions - tenants of such regions are thus not customers.
    True. But a premium account holder is a customer of LL. "And to say
well
    we dont want you $100 a month because your not a full sim owner" is
a
    slap in the face, period. FWIW i'm a premium account holder...whose
now
    returning to lurking.
    _______________________________________________
    http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
    Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting
    privileges
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[Altair "Sythos" Memo]

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:56:56 -0700

Post by Dahlia Trimble
After reading this thread, somehow all my past bad memories from
being a mainland resident no longer seem quite so bad.

if you don't pay your fee mainland too your account will be
suspended anyway, and deleted ripping away the land if not fixed
balance :)

can we talk again about code and viewer?

[Rob Nelson]

And what venues can we use? The forums are almost as heavily
moderated as the mailing list, half of the time the blogs don't even
allow you to comment. I'd like to see a site moderated by a third party
that won't delete your account or add a moderation flag to your account
just for talking negatively about Linden Lab.

Post by Altair "Sythos" Memo
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:56:56 -0700

Post by Dahlia Trimble
After reading this thread, somehow all my past bad memories from
being a mainland resident no longer seem quite so bad.

if you don't pay your fee mainland too your account will be
suspended anyway, and deleted ripping away the land if not fixed
balance :)
can we talk again about code and viewer?
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[Altair "Sythos" Memo]

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 13:12:17 -0700

Post by Rob Nelson
And what venues can we use? The forums are almost as heavily
moderated as the mailing list, half of the time the blogs don't even
allow you to comment. I'd like to see a site moderated by a third
party that won't delete your account or add a moderation flag to your
account just for talking negatively about Linden Lab.

if elsewhere is too mdoerated to don't allow so not corret things be
written isn't a good reason to fill a opensource list of this kind of
junk.... if somebody don't pay is natural the account gone.... if you
don't pay your DSL nobody told you anything?

[Charlene Trudeau]

And estate owners already took a huge beating over homesteads. We can't
afford another hit by having homesteads be able to be directly leased by
everyone.

I have HUGE sympathy for the original poster. I have eaten fees, given
free tier and so on to people left in a world of hurt by such actions by
other landlords. There is NO EXCUSE for not admitting to one's tenants
what is going on, even if you can't afford to refund things, so that
they can at least get their things, even if they can't make alternate
arrangements for the region. Its irresponsible, unconscionable methods
of doing business. Unfortunately, in SL anyone who can get the fees
together to lease a region from LL can turn around and become an estate
owner/reseller. Hmmm, come to think of it, same with web hosting....

I wish I had an empty homestead to offer, not that it would help with
the things lost via absent partner, but I'd love to have a chance to
restore faith that there are a few of us out there that are worth the
respect of their tenants.

Charlene Trudeau

Post by Darmath

Post by Gareth Nelson
and pointing out that LL have no contract with tenants of
rental regions - tenants of such regions are thus not customers.

True. But a premium account holder is a customer of LL. "And to say well
we dont want you $100 a month because your not a full sim owner" is a
slap in the face, period. FWIW i'm a premium account holder...whose now
returning to lurking.
_______________________________________________
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[Joel Foner]

Post by Aleric Inglewood
After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a homestead,
and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take the sim
offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.
Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a FULL
sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count.

There is a simple answer for this. You are the customer of your landlord in
this case, not Linden Lab. Yes, you have a Second Life account, but you are
not renting your land from Linden Lab. You are renting your land from
another avatar in Second Life. Linden Lab is not a party to your decision to
rent... so why are they accountable if some other avatar bails out and
decides to "level their city block"? If the landlord decided to stop
renting, boot everyone off and re-terraform the region for some completely
different use, would you think Linden Lab would have any responsibility for
stopping that or somehow compensating you? It's the landlord's land, and
they can do anything with it they choose to, including shut it down, leave,
take it over from the renters, or shut it down and let no one else in at
all.

Joel

[m***@public.gmane.org]

I don't think anyone disagrees with. The problem is you can't get a
homestead unless you have a full sim already and so you need to rent from
someone and this puts you dependent on someone else which is frustrating for
people. So to log in one day and see all your hard work returned to your
lost and found isn't a pleasant experience and seems SL if they are serious
about the user experience would have some better ways to handle this.



I don't know if you rent from someone else if you can do a restore of your
region to the new location. But seems like there are ways to make this
better if not just let people rent homesteads which to me I believe would be
a huge market.



Anyway this whole subject is off topic for this mailing list and probably
should be on the SL forums.



M.





_____

From: opensource-dev-bounces-nHFbR+4dATNruOA+hsvTn1aTQe2KTcn/@public.gmane.org
[mailto:opensource-dev-bounces-nHFbR+4dATNruOA+hsvTn1aTQe2KTcn/@public.gmane.org] On Behalf Of Joel Foner
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2010 11:49 AM
To: Aleric Inglewood
Cc: opensource-dev
Subject: Re: [opensource-dev] This is how Linden Lab treats it's
customers...




After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a homestead,
and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take the sim
offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.

Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a FULL
sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count.



There is a simple answer for this. You are the customer of your landlord in
this case, not Linden Lab. Yes, you have a Second Life account, but you are
not renting your land from Linden Lab. You are renting your land from
another avatar in Second Life. Linden Lab is not a party to your decision to
rent... so why are they accountable if some other avatar bails out and
decides to "level their city block"? If the landlord decided to stop
renting, boot everyone off and re-terraform the region for some completely
different use, would you think Linden Lab would have any responsibility for
stopping that or somehow compensating you? It's the landlord's land, and
they can do anything with it they choose to, including shut it down, leave,
take it over from the renters, or shut it down and let no one else in at
all.



Joel

[Tigro Spottystripes]

btw, if you're considering changing your account from premium to basic,
be sure to pay any money you own to LL and then downgrade your account
thru the site, do not just stop paying, if you stop paying them while
still being a premium they will wipe out all your account's data,
inventory L$ balance etc (i've seen some people that had the
misconception that to downgrade all you had to do was stop sending money
to LL, the ones that didn't got set straight in time lost everything)

I don’t think anyone disagrees with. The problem is you can’t get a
homestead unless you have a full sim already and so you need to rent
from someone and this puts you dependent on someone else which is
frustrating for people. So to log in one day and see all your hard work
returned to your lost and found isn’t a pleasant experience and seems SL
if they are serious about the user experience would have some better
ways to handle this.
I don’t know if you rent from someone else if you can do a restore of
your region to the new location. But seems like there are ways to make
this better if not just let people rent homesteads which to me I believe
would be a huge market.
Anyway this whole subject is off topic for this mailing list and
probably should be on the SL forums.
M.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Foner
*Sent:* Saturday, August 28, 2010 11:49 AM
*To:* Aleric Inglewood
*Cc:* opensource-dev
*Subject:* Re: [opensource-dev] This is how Linden Lab treats it's
customers...
After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a homestead,
and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take the sim
offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.
Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a FULL
sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count.
There is a simple answer for this. You are the customer of your landlord
in this case, not Linden Lab. Yes, you have a Second Life account, but
you are not renting your land from Linden Lab. You are renting your land
from another avatar in Second Life. Linden Lab is not a party to your
decision to rent... so why are they accountable if some other avatar
bails out and decides to "level their city block"? If the landlord
decided to stop renting, boot everyone off and re-terraform the region
for some completely different use, would you think Linden Lab would have
any responsibility for stopping that or somehow compensating you? It's
the landlord's land, and they can do anything with it they choose to,
including shut it down, leave, take it over from the renters, or shut it
down and let no one else in at all.
Joel
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

[Gareth Nelson]

That's a serious bug in LL's business model - your account is safer as
a basic, since a premium account that quits paying means the account
is deleted (rather than merely downgraded).

On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Tigro Spottystripes

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
btw, if you're considering changing your account from premium to basic,
be sure to pay any money you own to LL and then downgrade your account
thru the site, do not just stop paying, if you stop paying them while
still being a premium they will wipe out all your account's data,
inventory L$ balance etc (i've seen some people that had the
misconception that to downgrade all you had to do was stop sending money
to LL, the ones that didn't got set straight in time lost everything)

I don’t think anyone disagrees with.  The problem is you can’t get a
homestead unless you have a full sim already and so you need to rent
from someone and this puts you dependent on someone else which is
frustrating for people.  So to log in one day and see all your hard work
returned to your lost and found isn’t a pleasant experience and seems SL
if they are serious about the user experience would have some better
ways to handle this.
I don’t know if you rent from someone else if you can do a restore of
your region to the new location.  But seems like there are ways to make
this better if not just let people rent homesteads which to me I believe
would be a huge market.
Anyway this whole subject is off topic for this mailing list and
probably should be on the SL forums.
M.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Foner
*Sent:* Saturday, August 28, 2010 11:49 AM
*To:* Aleric Inglewood
*Cc:* opensource-dev
*Subject:* Re: [opensource-dev] This is how Linden Lab treats it's
customers...
    After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a homestead,
    and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take the sim
    offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.
    Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
    Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a FULL
    sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count.
There is a simple answer for this. You are the customer of your landlord
in this case, not Linden Lab. Yes, you have a Second Life account, but
you are not renting your land from Linden Lab. You are renting your land
from another avatar in Second Life. Linden Lab is not a party to your
decision to rent... so why are they accountable if some other avatar
bails out and decides to "level their city block"? If the landlord
decided to stop renting, boot everyone off and re-terraform the region
for some completely different use, would you think Linden Lab would have
any responsibility for stopping that or somehow compensating you? It's
the landlord's land, and they can do anything with it they choose to,
including shut it down, leave, take it over from the renters, or shut it
down and let no one else in at all.
Joel
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

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Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
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=pGVm
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

[Altair "Sythos" Memo]

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:19:57 +0100

Post by Gareth Nelson
That's a serious bug in LL's business model - your account is safer as
a basic, since a premium account that quits paying means the account
is deleted (rather than merely downgraded).

nobody is deleted why skip a payment, happened to me some time ago,
account is just "suspended" and login inworld locked, as soon as you
fill the debt all is restored. I use a revolving credit card, this mean
i can use it after charged with money (ui use always this on all
internet shopping activities, so if somebody steal the number cannot
take my money, every time i charge only the cash needed).

if somebody skip payments to LL, hold payments from customers and let
suspension expire losing account and sims owned isn't a victim, is
a thief... and i don't think is a fault of LL business model

[Tigro Spottystripes]

Please read http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-2647

Post by Altair "Sythos" Memo
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:19:57 +0100

Post by Gareth Nelson
That's a serious bug in LL's business model - your account is safer as
a basic, since a premium account that quits paying means the account
is deleted (rather than merely downgraded).

nobody is deleted why skip a payment, happened to me some time ago,
account is just "suspended" and login inworld locked, as soon as you
fill the debt all is restored. I use a revolving credit card, this mean
i can use it after charged with money (ui use always this on all
internet shopping activities, so if somebody steal the number cannot
take my money, every time i charge only the cash needed).
if somebody skip payments to LL, hold payments from customers and let
suspension expire losing account and sims owned isn't a victim, is
a thief... and i don't think is a fault of LL business model

[Yoz Grahame]

On 28 August 2010 21:25, Tigro Spottystripes

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
Please read http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-2647

Thanks! Resolved.

-- Yoz

[Argent Stonecutter]

re-opened.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
Please read http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-2647
Thanks! Resolved.
-- Yoz
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

"Welcome back, Anonymous, we're glad to see you again!"

[Yoz Grahame]

This *was* a serious bug, but fixed over a year ago. Now a premium account
in default is merely suspended with the ability to fully restore on payment.

Post by Gareth Nelson
That's a serious bug in LL's business model - your account is safer as
a basic, since a premium account that quits paying means the account
is deleted (rather than merely downgraded).
On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Tigro Spottystripes

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
btw, if you're considering changing your account from premium to basic,
be sure to pay any money you own to LL and then downgrade your account
thru the site, do not just stop paying, if you stop paying them while
still being a premium they will wipe out all your account's data,
inventory L$ balance etc (i've seen some people that had the
misconception that to downgrade all you had to do was stop sending money
to LL, the ones that didn't got set straight in time lost everything)

I don’t think anyone disagrees with. The problem is you can’t get a
homestead unless you have a full sim already and so you need to rent
from someone and this puts you dependent on someone else which is
frustrating for people. So to log in one day and see all your hard work
returned to your lost and found isn’t a pleasant experience and seems SL
if they are serious about the user experience would have some better
ways to handle this.
I don’t know if you rent from someone else if you can do a restore of
your region to the new location. But seems like there are ways to make
this better if not just let people rent homesteads which to me I believe
would be a huge market.
Anyway this whole subject is off topic for this mailing list and
probably should be on the SL forums.
M.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Joel

Foner
*Sent:* Saturday, August 28, 2010 11:49 AM
*To:* Aleric Inglewood
*Cc:* opensource-dev
*Subject:* Re: [opensource-dev] This is how Linden Lab treats it's
customers...
After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a

homestead,

and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take the

sim

offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.
Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a FULL
sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count.
There is a simple answer for this. You are the customer of your landlord
in this case, not Linden Lab. Yes, you have a Second Life account, but
you are not renting your land from Linden Lab. You are renting your land
from another avatar in Second Life. Linden Lab is not a party to your
decision to rent... so why are they accountable if some other avatar
bails out and decides to "level their city block"? If the landlord
decided to stop renting, boot everyone off and re-terraform the region
for some completely different use, would you think Linden Lab would have
any responsibility for stopping that or somehow compensating you? It's
the landlord's land, and they can do anything with it they choose to,
including shut it down, leave, take it over from the renters, or shut it
down and let no one else in at all.
Joel
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting

privileges

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
iEYEAREKAAYFAkx5Os0ACgkQ8ZFfSrFHsmWNbQCeL35cNo4MkluDPXFx2+ZGb3z3
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=pGVm
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting

privileges
--
“Lanie, I’m going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for
everyone. That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything.” -
Printcrime by Cory Doctrow
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

[Latif Khalifa]

It's still far safer not to have a premium account. You don't run a
risk than when your premium subscription expires and your payment info
is not up to date that your account will get suspended.

You get locked out of you account, with a message "call
1-xxx-xxx-xxxx". This was not very helpful for a friend of mine from
Croatia who is deaf and could not use a phone. My attempt to mediate
and help sort out issues failed because LL told me "we do not disclose
information about other people's accounts". Faced with a double wall
like that, she just gave up on SL after being a premium member for
over 3 years.

Why LL doesn't simply downgrade accounts to basic instead of locking
them out is beyond me. Because of this policy I recommend to my
friends not to "upgrade" their accounts to premium, because they risk
losing their accounts, and nobody would be able to help them if they
themselves don't have the ability to communicate in English and over
the phone.

Post by Yoz Grahame
This *was* a serious bug, but fixed over a year ago. Now a premium account
in default is merely suspended with the ability to fully restore on payment.

Post by Gareth Nelson
That's a serious bug in LL's business model - your account is safer as
a basic, since a premium account that quits paying means the account
is deleted (rather than merely downgraded).
On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Tigro Spottystripes

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
btw, if you're considering changing your account from premium to basic,
be sure to pay any money you own to LL and then downgrade your account
thru the site, do not just stop paying, if you stop paying them while
still being a premium they will wipe out all your account's data,
inventory L$ balance etc (i've seen some people that had the
misconception that to downgrade all you had to do was stop sending money
to LL, the ones that didn't got set straight in time lost everything)

I don’t think anyone disagrees with.  The problem is you can’t get a
homestead unless you have a full sim already and so you need to rent
from someone and this puts you dependent on someone else which is
frustrating for people.  So to log in one day and see all your hard work
returned to your lost and found isn’t a pleasant experience and seems SL
if they are serious about the user experience would have some better
ways to handle this.
I don’t know if you rent from someone else if you can do a restore of
your region to the new location.  But seems like there are ways to make
this better if not just let people rent homesteads which to me I believe
would be a huge market.
Anyway this whole subject is off topic for this mailing list and
probably should be on the SL forums.
M.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Joel
Foner
*Sent:* Saturday, August 28, 2010 11:49 AM
*To:* Aleric Inglewood
*Cc:* opensource-dev
*Subject:* Re: [opensource-dev] This is how Linden Lab treats it's
customers...
    After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a homestead,
    and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take the sim
    offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.
    Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
    Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a FULL
    sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count.
There is a simple answer for this. You are the customer of your landlord
in this case, not Linden Lab. Yes, you have a Second Life account, but
you are not renting your land from Linden Lab. You are renting your land
from another avatar in Second Life. Linden Lab is not a party to your
decision to rent... so why are they accountable if some other avatar
bails out and decides to "level their city block"? If the landlord
decided to stop renting, boot everyone off and re-terraform the region
for some completely different use, would you think Linden Lab would have
any responsibility for stopping that or somehow compensating you? It's
the landlord's land, and they can do anything with it they choose to,
including shut it down, leave, take it over from the renters, or shut it
down and let no one else in at all.
Joel
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
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G/UAn31zdQ2HEKMoRzbp+3CYV/C+O5CM
=pGVm
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

--
“Lanie, I’m going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for
everyone. That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything.” -
Printcrime by Cory Doctrow
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

[Marine Kelley]

At least the land and inventory are not gone, automatically downgrading to
basic would make the lands be abandoned... way to even more drama. To me the
user should not even be locked out of the grid, but I understand that there
are technical difficulties to making a premium be considered as basic until
the funds are available again, and let's not forget that if you are premium
and in this situation, then you do owe LL money. This is different than
being simply basic.

The only issue is that the user is ALSO locked out of their SL webpage. To
me that makes no sense at all, because that's how they could access tickets
and get some help, or downgrade to basic, or change credit card info (what
if the original credit card has been stolen and the user blocked it ? That's
not valid grounds to lock them out of SL and yet they can't change their
credit card info through the SL webpage anymore). Locking them out of the SL
website simply discourages them from even trying to sort things out, and LL
loses money in the process.

Post by Latif Khalifa
It's still far safer not to have a premium account. You don't run a
risk than when your premium subscription expires and your payment info
is not up to date that your account will get suspended.
You get locked out of you account, with a message "call
1-xxx-xxx-xxxx". This was not very helpful for a friend of mine from
Croatia who is deaf and could not use a phone. My attempt to mediate
and help sort out issues failed because LL told me "we do not disclose
information about other people's accounts". Faced with a double wall
like that, she just gave up on SL after being a premium member for
over 3 years.
Why LL doesn't simply downgrade accounts to basic instead of locking
them out is beyond me. Because of this policy I recommend to my
friends not to "upgrade" their accounts to premium, because they risk
losing their accounts, and nobody would be able to help them if they
themselves don't have the ability to communicate in English and over
the phone.

Post by Yoz Grahame
This *was* a serious bug, but fixed over a year ago. Now a premium

account

Post by Yoz Grahame
in default is merely suspended with the ability to fully restore on

payment.

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson
That's a serious bug in LL's business model - your account is safer as
a basic, since a premium account that quits paying means the account
is deleted (rather than merely downgraded).
On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Tigro Spottystripes

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
btw, if you're considering changing your account from premium to

basic,

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson

be sure to pay any money you own to LL and then downgrade your account
thru the site, do not just stop paying, if you stop paying them while
still being a premium they will wipe out all your account's data,
inventory L$ balance etc (i've seen some people that had the
misconception that to downgrade all you had to do was stop sending

money

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson

to LL, the ones that didn't got set straight in time lost everything)

I don’t think anyone disagrees with. The problem is you can’t get a
homestead unless you have a full sim already and so you need to rent
from someone and this puts you dependent on someone else which is
frustrating for people. So to log in one day and see all your hard work
returned to your lost and found isn’t a pleasant experience and seems SL
if they are serious about the user experience would have some better
ways to handle this.
I don’t know if you rent from someone else if you can do a restore of
your region to the new location. But seems like there are ways to

make

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson

this better if not just let people rent homesteads which to me I believe
would be a huge market.
Anyway this whole subject is off topic for this mailing list and
probably should be on the SL forums.
M.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson

*Joel
Foner
*Sent:* Saturday, August 28, 2010 11:49 AM
*To:* Aleric Inglewood
*Cc:* opensource-dev
*Subject:* Re: [opensource-dev] This is how Linden Lab treats it's
customers...
After being a paying customer for more than a year, renting a homestead,
and thus paying Linden Lab ~ USD$ 1000 or so ... they just take

the

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson

sim
offline, with no opening to even discuss the matter.
Why? Because of something I did? No. The reason is that Linden
Lab isn't interested in the "little people". Unless you have a

FULL

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson

sim of USD$ 300 per month, you don't count.
There is a simple answer for this. You are the customer of your landlord
in this case, not Linden Lab. Yes, you have a Second Life account,

but

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson

you are not renting your land from Linden Lab. You are renting your land
from another avatar in Second Life. Linden Lab is not a party to your
decision to rent... so why are they accountable if some other avatar
bails out and decides to "level their city block"? If the landlord
decided to stop renting, boot everyone off and re-terraform the

region

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson

for some completely different use, would you think Linden Lab would have
any responsibility for stopping that or somehow compensating you?

It's

Post by Yoz Grahame

Post by Gareth Nelson

the landlord's land, and they can do anything with it they choose to,
including shut it down, leave, take it over from the renters, or shut it
down and let no one else in at all.
Joel
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
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=pGVm
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

--
“Lanie, I’m going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for
everyone. That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything.” -
Printcrime by Cory Doctrow
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

[Latif Khalifa]

Post by Marine Kelley
The only issue is that the user is ALSO locked out of their SL webpage. To
me that makes no sense at all, because that's how they could access tickets
and get some help, or downgrade to basic, or change credit card info (what
if the original credit card has been stolen and the user blocked it ? That's
not valid grounds to lock them out of SL and yet they can't change their
credit card info through the SL webpage anymore). Locking them out of the SL
website simply discourages them from even trying to sort things out, and LL
loses money in the process.

Yes, you are right. Having the web site accessible would solve the problem.

In case of my fiend it was particularly cruel because she was asked to
make a phone call which she was incapable of doing because of her
disability (and even if she was able to speak, she doesn't understand
any English). And I was told that I cannot call in her behalf, she'd
have to call herself.

[Marc Adored]

You guys do realize that linden gives you plenty of warnings and time
AFTER payment is due to "update" your payment information if you do so
happen to forget or a cc expires. it's not like its due on 13th and
bam its off on 13th. You get emails telling you payment failed(a few
of them actually) and the emails even contain information about
whether it was expired or just plain failed. I know because I use a 1
time payment card every month and I forget every month to put a new
card number in and guess what I even ignored the emails for days after
payment was due. Here is an experp:

"Don't worry; this billing failure will not prevent you from logging
on with your Second Life account. We will simply try to bill your
overdue balance again the next day. If we are unable to collect the
amount due within seven (7) days, your account will be suspended
pending payment for an additional thirty (30) days. During that time,
you will not be able to log in to Second Life. Alt accounts may be
placed into administrative hold and you may be logged out of active
sessions during this time as well. Failure to resolve this billing
issue by the end of the probation period may result in the
cancellation of your account."

If you check your email less then 1 time every 37 days I don't even
know why you have a premium account on a game you obviously don't play
enough to get your monies worth.

Now all this being said Not only has this off-topic thread gotten off
of its own topic I believe a few of us on a few occasions asked for
this to be moved to a more appropriate forum. It clouds the actual on
topic discussions of this particular list and has nothing to do with
it. So please do so. We're all adults and everyone keeping this going
should understand this simple concept.

Post by Marine Kelley
At least the land and inventory are not gone, automatically downgrading to
basic would make the lands be abandoned... way to even more drama. To me the
user should not even be locked out of the grid, but I understand that there
are technical difficulties to making a premium be considered as basic until
the funds are available again, and let's not forget that if you are premium
and in this situation, then you do owe LL money. This is different than
being simply basic.
The only issue is that the user is ALSO locked out of their SL webpage. To
me that makes no sense at all, because that's how they could access tickets
and get some help, or downgrade to basic, or change credit card info (what
if the original credit card has been stolen and the user blocked it ? That's
not valid grounds to lock them out of SL and yet they can't change their
credit card info through the SL webpage anymore). Locking them out of the SL
website simply discourages them from even trying to sort things out, and LL
loses money in the process.

[Argent Stonecutter]

Post by Marc Adored
If you check your email less then 1 time every 37 days I don't even
know why you have a premium account on a game you obviously don't play
enough to get your monies worth.

There are people who have jobs that take them out of communication for months... consider members of the military.

If you pay annually, it's 6 dollars a month.

[Argent Stonecutter]

At least the land and inventory are not gone, automatically downgrading to basic would make the lands be abandoned.

What if the account doesn't own land, or has nothing but the original 512 square meters in something like a Linden Home?

That's the majority case.

An account in that situation is not *in default* when they skip a payment, because the account payment itself is not made in arrears.

[Laurent Bechir]

Post by Argent Stonecutter
What if the account doesn't own land, or has nothing but the original 512 square meters in something like a Linden Home?
That's the majority case.
An account in that situation is not*in default* when they skip a payment, because the account payment itself is not made in arrears.

I used to have a premium account once upon a while. Not using it really
(no land associated to the account) and being short of money, I didn't
renew. The only thing that happened is that I'm back as a basic member
now. So I don't see where is the problem :)

[Argent Stonecutter]

I used to have a premium account once upon a while. Not using it really (no land associated to the account) and being short of money, I didn't renew. The only thing that happened is that I'm back as a basic member now. So I don't see where is the problem :)

Are you sure you didn't at any point select "downgrade to basic" on the web page?

If that's the case, and I'd like LL confirmation of that, then there is no problem.

[Laurent Bechir]

Post by Argent Stonecutter

I used to have a premium account once upon a while. Not using it really (no land associated to the account) and being short of money, I didn't renew. The only thing that happened is that I'm back as a basic member now. So I don't see where is the problem:)

Are you sure you didn't at any point select "downgrade to basic" on the web page?
If that's the case, and I'd like LL confirmation of that, then there is no problem.

Now that you tell me that, effectively, I must have asked do downgrade
to basic at the end of my subscription

[Altair "Sythos" Memo]

On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:32:22 +0200

Post by Laurent Bechir

Post by Argent Stonecutter

Post by Laurent Bechir
I used to have a premium account once upon a while. Not using
it really (no land associated to the account) and being short of
money, I didn't renew. The only thing that happened is that I'm
back as a basic member now. So I don't see where is the problem:)

Are you sure you didn't at any point select "downgrade to basic" on the web page?
If that's the case, and I'd like LL confirmation of that, then there is no problem.

Now that you tell me that, effectively, I must have asked do
downgrade to basic at the end of my subscription

there is already the feature on web page.... "change membership plan"

[Sodovan Torok]

Post by Altair "Sythos" Memo
On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:32:22 +0200

[snip]

As a (mostly read-only) user of opensource-dev, I'd like to see more
on-topic posts. Maybe the moderator(s) could prune this branch...

[Gareth Nelson]

Oddly I myself tend to only post when there's some kind of drama, as I
don't do a lot of viewer development these days (only the odd patch
when needed if I bother to login at all).

Post by Sodovan Torok

Post by Altair "Sythos" Memo
On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:32:22 +0200

[snip]
As a (mostly read-only) user of opensource-dev, I'd like to see more
on-topic posts. Maybe the moderator(s) could prune this branch...
_______________________________________________
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Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges

[leliel]

On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 4:25 AM, Argent Stonecutter

Post by Argent Stonecutter
What if the account doesn't own land, or has nothing but the original 512 square meters in something like a Linden Home?
That's the majority case.
An account in that situation is not *in default* when they skip a payment, because the account payment itself is not made in arrears.

So you're saying a person that doesn't pay their membership fees
should be able to log in and use their 512 square meters of land as if
nothing was wrong? How long should this persist before they are
considered in arrears? A week, a month, a year?

Membership fees are paid in advanced, if you don't pay than you can't
use the service (512m^2). If you don't own land you should be
downgraded to basic.

[Argent Stonecutter]

Post by leliel
On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 4:25 AM, Argent Stonecutter

Post by Argent Stonecutter
An account in that situation is not *in default* when they skip a payment, because the account payment itself is not made in arrears.

So you're saying a person that doesn't pay their membership fees
should be able to log in and use their 512 square meters of land as if
nothing was wrong?

No, they should be downgraded to Basic. They are not in default, and should not be suspended.

[Argent Stonecutter]

This *was* a serious bug, but fixed over a year ago. Now a premium account in default is merely suspended with the ability to fully restore on payment.

A premium account that does not own any land (beyond the basic 512 square meters) should not be suspended, because payment for the account itself is not made in arrears and it is not in default.

[Brian McGroarty]

On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 5:50 AM, Aleric Inglewood <

Post by Aleric Inglewood
So one day I have a home, my own island where I live and
did built and work on for more than a year. Which is full of
objects of my dead partner that I can use but not Take Back
(no help from LInden Lab here either of course), and the
next -poof- offline. Not because *I* didn't pay, but because
LInden Lab doesn't give a shit about me, or my money.
Or it's customers.

I hate that this has happened, and I don't know the reason why the full
region prerequisite exists so I can't say if it makes sense.

I don't think you've exhausted the concierge options, though. I'll follow up
off-list, given that this is definitely way off topic.

[Meadhbh Hamrick]

while an actual lab employee like jack is probably the best reference
for this... i can provide a little bit of history. keep in mind that
this relies on some neurons that haven't been exercised in a bit, so i
could have some of the facts wrong.

so back in the day linden created openspace/void sims. the idea was
that you were only supposed to put a certain amount of stuff on them.
the deal was that instead of running 1 region per core, they were
running something like 3 or four regions per core (can't really
remember, but it was > 1 regions per core in any event.) if i remember
correctly, the agreement with openspace sim owners was that they would
use the sims very lightly and wouldn't exceed a certain number of
prims per openspace region.

but for reasons i never learned, linden never implemented prim
restrictions for openspace sims. so even though you were only supposed
to have some small number of prims in an openspace sim, the system let
you go over that limit. so guess what happened? yes, that's right,
people started putting a lot of prims on sims hosted on overloaded
cores. some sim owners even went so far as to rent out openspace sims
to people without mentioning the fact that their new virtual parcels
were hosted on CPUs that were a touch overtaxed.

eventually the community figured out what was going on and complained.
the more scrupulous land barons were making the argument: "hey, i'm
following the rules here and only renting out parcels on full sims,
but these other bozos are undercutting my business by breaking the
rules. what gives?"

so linden says "okay, we're raising the price on openspace sims" in an
effort to make it less profitable for people renting out void sims.

then people complain and linden says, "fine, we're going to get rid of
openspace sims all-together!" and then the community says, "ORLY?" and
linden says, "no, we were just kidding."

eventually they settled on the idea of "okay, you can have an
openspace sim, but only if you have a regular sim." i think that's
also when linden changed the name from "openspace" or "void" to
"homestead". the "homestead" sim product offering was, as i remember
it, a compromise mostly for sim owners who were using them in the way
linden thought they were supposed to be used.

so, fwiw, that's how we got to where we are (as i remember it.)

with respect to losing all your stuff when a sim owner evaporates (or
the sim changes hands.) IRL, if i'm renting from someone, i have
certain protections (depending on the jurisdiction.) but if i have a
lease agreement with someone and my landlord sells the property,
there's usually a period of time where the new owner has to honor the
lease. if the property is condemned, most counties (as i understand
it) give residents fair notice. the amount of notice and whether the
clock starts ticking before or after the final condemnation order
varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. but the idea is you're not
supposed to be thrown out on your rear overnight.

it would be "really cool(tm)" if there was some way to enforce that in
the SL server software. so if a sim owner isn't paying their bills to
LL, the tenants on the sim would be notified. depending on how the lab
manages sim foreclosure these days, that might be a reasonable
warning. also, i've got to think that under this system, landlords
that pay their tier on time would be able to charge a mild premium
over those that don't as there's one less hassle in dealing with them.

ultimately, IMHO, i hope we move to a system where the authoritative
copy of your content is not actually stored on linden servers, but on
some other "backup" server; linden just caches it. or maybe we could
do the OpenSim region backup thing, but let parcel owners do the same
thing.

there's a lot of work to implement such a system; in a world where
linden manages the copy protection, it might require the use of
encrypted blobs in people's backups.

but a girl can dream...
--
meadhbh hamrick * it's pronounced "maeve"
@OhMeadhbh * http://meadhbh.org/ * OhMeadhbh-***@public.gmane.org

Post by Brian McGroarty
On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 5:50 AM, Aleric Inglewood

Post by Aleric Inglewood
So one day I have a home, my own island where I live and
did built and work on for more than a year. Which is full of
objects of my dead partner that I can use but not Take Back
(no help from LInden Lab here either of course), and the
next -poof- offline. Not because *I* didn't pay, but because
LInden Lab doesn't give a shit about me, or my money.
Or it's customers.

I hate that this has happened, and I don't know the reason why the full
region prerequisite exists so I can't say if it makes sense.
I don't think you've exhausted the concierge options, though. I'll follow up
off-list, given that this is definitely way off topic.
--
Brian McGroarty | Linden Lab
Sent from my Newton MP2100 via acoustic coupler
_______________________________________________
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev
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[Aidan Thornton]

Post by Meadhbh Hamrick
but for reasons i never learned, linden never implemented prim
restrictions for openspace sims. so even though you were only supposed
to have some small number of prims in an openspace sim, the system let
you go over that limit. so guess what happened? yes, that's right,
people started putting a lot of prims on sims hosted on overloaded
cores. some sim owners even went so far as to rent out openspace sims
to people without mentioning the fact that their new virtual parcels
were hosted on CPUs that were a touch overtaxed.

That's the interesting thing. Linden Labs did implement prim
restrictions for openspace sims from the start. In fact, they had
quite a small prim limit - 1875 prims, which was enough for the
intended use and possibly a low-prim house somewhere for one or two
users. Then Linden Labs, in an effort to make them more widely useful,
*doubled* the prim limit. This was quite widely advertised at the
time, and a large number of people bought them... just in time for
Linden Labs to pull off a significant and unexpected price increase
together with more restrictions. Of course, at that point everyone had
already invested money and time in their regions that they didn't want
to see wasted.

[Patnad Babii]

yep this was bait and switch scheme and they got away with it. They probably
made around 5 millions dollars that summer when they did double the prim
limit on openspace. It was actually one of the best move they did to the SL
economy in years except when they decided to increase it. Many people have
abandon their sims at that time and just left SL.

Want a suggestion, you want a nice setup and you dont want it to be
disrupted and for much cheaper. Find a opensim grid you enjoy, setup your
own sim there (could be hosted on your own computer or vps hosting for 20$ a
month) and this way no more trouble like this, you can even backup your
whole sim in case you mess up something.

LL is loosing more and more ground each time they doing what they like and
not what the customers want.


-----Message d'origine-----
From: Aidan Thornton
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2010 6:24 PM
To: Meadhbh Hamrick
Cc: opensource-dev
Subject: Re: [opensource-dev] This is how Linden Lab treats it's
customers...

Post by Meadhbh Hamrick
but for reasons i never learned, linden never implemented prim
restrictions for openspace sims. so even though you were only supposed
to have some small number of prims in an openspace sim, the system let
you go over that limit. so guess what happened? yes, that's right,
people started putting a lot of prims on sims hosted on overloaded
cores. some sim owners even went so far as to rent out openspace sims
to people without mentioning the fact that their new virtual parcels
were hosted on CPUs that were a touch overtaxed.

That's the interesting thing. Linden Labs did implement prim
restrictions for openspace sims from the start. In fact, they had
quite a small prim limit - 1875 prims, which was enough for the
intended use and possibly a low-prim house somewhere for one or two
users. Then Linden Labs, in an effort to make them more widely useful,
*doubled* the prim limit. This was quite widely advertised at the
time, and a large number of people bought them... just in time for
Linden Labs to pull off a significant and unexpected price increase
together with more restrictions. Of course, at that point everyone had
already invested money and time in their regions that they didn't want
to see wasted.
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[Oz Linden (Scott Lawrence)]

Post by Aleric Inglewood
I know this is "off topic", so I'll keep it as short as possible.

What happened was wrong, and regrettable, but it's very much off topic
for this list. Please take it elsewhere.