Here’s a general update on things:

Buying T$, Subscriptions, “Trash Bug”, etc

We really hope to have Buying T$ this week. We’re really close, we just have to put in a few more “security measures”

That will also finish up another piece of subscriptions, which makes opening that much closer.

We haven’t really fixed the “Trash Bug”, which is the problem that occurs when someone logs in with hundreds or thousands of items they didn’t have before. The problem is, the system has to do something special the first time it sees these items, and there’s a problem in there which can cause (a) server to become unresponsive. The good news is that it “heals itself” over time as the system processes those new things. The bad news is that the “Claim Alt Inventory” tool has exacerbated the problem since it causes people to amass hundreds or thousands of items all at once, instead of “over time” as it would happen in “real life”. Since this isn’t fatal, I’ve decided we’re going to focus on getting money into the system right now, then we’ll go back and address this.

There have been rumors that “the new Cloud Servers make me lag more”. SamSyn has investigated this over and over and over, and we’ve consistently found the Cloud Servers are faster than the old server, and we’ve yet to see them overloaded anywhere near where people are reporting lag. We’ll keep looking at it, but we have not seen evidence of it yet.

Lost Items

Over the past few months we’ve examined scores of reports of missing items. With the exception of Cars with custom paint jobs losing their paint jobs, we have not had a single case of us losing an item. Now, it may be that people are fuzzy on where their items were when we closed, which may cause them to believe they’re “lost”:

If you gave you item to a friend before we closed, then it’s still with them. If they haven’t resurrected their avatar, your item hasn’t been resurrected, either. It will not reappear until your friend re-registers, resurrects their inventory, and gives it back to you.

If you gave your item to an Alt before we closed, then it’s still with your Alt. You will need to resurrect it, or claim it’s possessions to get it back.

If the item was on a TryIt or a Loaner before we closed, then it’s gone. It was a loaner, and it’s been taken back. Sorry.

If you sold the item in auctions, or returned it before we closed, then it’s gone. You returned it.

Each time we have to do this, it takes time, sometimes up to a 1/2 hour or an hour. That’s 1/2 or an hour that we’re not doing things we need to re-open.

Since we’ve never found a case where an item’s gone missing, we’re going to slow down looking at these reports by quite a bit, and will probably start charging you for looking into it if it turns out we didn’t lose it. I know that this isn’t popular, but I’d guess we’ve spent over a man-week chasing these geese, and haven’t caught one yet.

Age Verification Moderations

I will admit, we have been very agressive about underage bans.

First, There’s not open yet. We actually not interested in people, especially underage people, enjoying themselves in There. We’re happy you are, but it’s not a right, it’s a privilege. We’re happiest with people like Okalnix and others, who tirelessly try different things and give us complete and through reports of what works and what doesn’t. Okalnix is one of many, but if you see him in world you should give him a ‘hi5, ‘hug, or whatever for all his good work.

Where was I? On minors. Also, we only do it when we have pretty good proof that someone should provide proof of age. I’m not going to tell you what the triggers are, but they’re pretty solid.

If you are moderated for age verification, Mackie will send you a very specific list of qualifying documents. When you get the list, you’ll see that it doesn’t say “Your brother’s documents”, or “defaced documents”, or “fake documents”.

Finally, we won’t be processing age moderations until we open, we have too much to do.

Other Moderations

We’ve been moderating for another reason: Hate Speech. We – and we’ve discussed it as a group – don’t tolerate hate speech, racial slurs, or what I call “sexually” agressive speech (any sort of speech implying forcing acts on another person).

My rule of thumb is “If you can’t go up to a stranger on a city street and say it without getting in trouble, or ending up in a hospital, then you can’t do it in There”. As I said on Facebook, you can tell me to Fuck off, call me a Fuckhead, a dick head, and offer to kick the shit out of me. But if you call me the “N” word, threaten to rape me, or kill my children, then you’re outta There, for good.

I will say that the only people we’ve had to moderate for that are also probably underage. Imagine that!!!!

By the way, when we ban an Avatar, we’re banning the person behind it, not “the avatar”. So If you’re banned, we consider your Alts banned too. The TOS says that you can’t give out your Avatars to others, so the behavior of all of your former and current Avatar(s) and Alt(s) reflect on you.

Rumors

We’ve heard some doozies:

No, we’re NOT “Closing Space” when There opens

The OSX/Mac version was used in virtual congress, and when you see me in world, there’s a 50/50 chance I’m using a Mac client. It doesn’t mean it will be available when we open, but it won’t be forever, either.

There will be no refunds for anything. Sorry. We’re trying to get into the black here.

When will There Open?

We’re not going to say. We don’t want a mad rush, so one day, it will just “be open”. I’m not even sure if we’ll pull up all PAZs before or after that – we need to think about that.

When will new members be allowed in?

Once the dust settles from getting all the former members in.

That’s all for now. I wish I had a happier post today, and a better picture. Maybe the next one :-).