Watch out, everyone, I’m on a tear!
Here is the rather simple description of the Victorian Shopkeepers Association, a smallish group that I created in an attempt to help both shoppers and business owners:
The Association exists to enrich the 19th-century communities of SL.
* Discerning consumers, consolidate notices of new products and specials in a single group.
* Shopkeepers, reach a wider audience through cooperative effort.
Shopkeepers may send up to one notice fortnightly announcing new products or sales.
No general advertising. No general events. No land sales. No chat.
Rules strictly enforced.
Recently I noticed a number of land rental notices, freebies, and general advertising, and I was tired and just shrugging it off until I got two IMs from members who asked if the rules had changed. So I decided I should send “a gentle reminder” on May 30:
Shopkeepers may send up to one notice fortnightly announcing new products or sales.
No general advertising. No general events. No land sales. No chat.
I’ve attached our logo and group joiner in case anyone is in need of them.
On June 2, just three days later, “guilty party #1” sent this notice:
Visit Guilty Party #1’s to look at some of our conventional, weird n wonderful furniture, home decor, v 2.0 media systems and much more!
Be sure to IM guilty party #1 if you are interested in custom building, projects or entertainment services!
Then on June 6, “guilty party #2” sent a rental notice (a duplicate of a notice sent just on the 29th before, part of the impetus for the gentle reminder).
And so, also on June 6, I sent “a not so gentle reminder” and added the two aforesaid guilty parties to the new “rule breakers” role.
There is now a new role in the Victorian Shopkeepers Association: rule breakers.
This group is to announce new products or sales. No rentals, no land sales, no events, no general advertising.
The first response I received to my not so gentle reminder was this email from someone I had not placed in the rule breakers, as there had been no transgression following my initial gentle reminder:
I realized I goofed a couple of weeks ago by sending out two notices with a couple of days of each other. I wasn’t paying attention to which group I had entered the second message into. I blame the chemo drugs, but it’s still not an acceptable excuse.
Please be assured I will be more vigilant in the future, because I greatly appreciate the promotion that VSA offers my business!
Regards,
Not Guilty Party
(I replied that chemo is always an acceptable excuse.)
And then I received an IM from “guilty party #1.”
a small point for attention. there is a proliferation of junk advertisements in victorian shopkeepers. there are further, numerous ads for old products with no “sale” associated with them. on the rare occasion i have sent notices, they offer very specific products, note sales or offer niche services. fortunately, the only work i do in SL is commissioned, many requests which are turned down. consequently, i do not tolerate defamatory action without an ounce of procedural fairness and have gladly left the group.
I congratulate guilty party #1 on his/her/its success in doing commissioned work. But quite obviously, guilty party #1 was simply in the wrong group. Why he/she/it would want to be in a group with “junk advertisements,” I don’t know.
The Victorian Shopkeepers Association is perhaps a misnomer, as it is not an association. There is no procedural fairness. I “own” the group, in the parlance of Second Life groups, and I initially set the rules after a fairly small amount of consultation. It is neither more nor less than what it is. If that works for you, I am delighted to have you join. If it does not, I prefer that you not join. Mr Excalibur Longstaff provides an excellent aether forum at Steamlander.com for all manner of announcements and discussion, and there is the nascent Aether Chrononauts group (in-world, or Subscribe-o-Matic) for event announcements from across (and beyond) the Steamlands.
Observant readers will note that I myself do not own a shop and have no personal, vested interest in being able to do cooperative promotion such as the Victorian Shopkeepers Association. This (both the good and the bad examples I have provided), by the way, is just small potatoes compared to what some people who are public figures in the Steamlands get. It goes a long way towards explaining why people who try to serve our communities so often burn out or make mis-steps under pressure.