Add a "Services Offered" section to the Commerce section of the Forum
Gayngel Resident
Can we please get a "Services Offered" section on the forum?
I'm not sure why offering skills and services has suddenly been disallowed after so many years.
All we were told was that no advertising is allowed on the forum. But if you go to any section of the forum quite a lot of advertising is still happening there. From events coming up, educators offering courses, Art, Music and Photography classes, land for sale offering land, and contests. Even sex workers are allowed to ply their trade on there in the adult sections.
It just doesn't seem very fair that people offering skills and custom services like scripting, meshing, building, landscaping, etc now don't have a section to offer their services, when up until a month ago they did. Now because of that as a scripter I can't offer my scripting services to the community and make rent on my parcel.
We were also told to offer our services on other platforms but they just don't have the reach or captive audience as the forum does. Since the forum is a central hub it doesn't make sense to relegate services to where people have to search hard to find what service they need.
Previously jobs and services offered services offered have all been bunched into the Inworld Employment section but having it's own separate section in Commerce would clearly define lanes between services/skills offered and jobs offered.
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Anne Forbes
If the lab is hosting resident‑to‑resident commerce, they probably want it to happen in the channels that generate revenue or at least justify their operational cost. The forums don’t do that. LL earns money from in-world classifieds, not forum ads.
Serishen Cagney
I will sacrifice myself to the 'Devil's Advocate':
The "revenue" argument assumes the forums are a profit center. They're not — they're a community hub. If revenue were the deciding factor, we'd need to remove the Land forum, event promotions, and the Employment section itself. Those all remain. The only thing being removed is residents offering their skills and services.
The suggestion to use paid classifieds ignores they serve a different purpose. And the official alternative — Primfeed — was fact-checked: they don't allow service promotions either. The recommended workaround doesn't work.
This request isn't for special treatment. It's for consistency. If free posts for entertainment are allowed, there's no logical reason to ban posts for the people who build and maintain the platform.
History note: This isn't the first time LL has removed a community resource without a working replacement. Fellow old-timers remember the banning of the Emerald Viewer — used by an estimated half of active users — and the official alternative couldn't fill the gap. The community had to rebuild. Feels familiar.
A "Services Offered" section would simply restore what existed before.
Anne Forbes
Serishen Cagney LL consistently trims features that create workload without offsetting value. A ‘Services Offered’ section is high-maintenance: scams, disputes, copybot issues, and moderation load. The other forum categories you mentioned don’t generate that kind of overhead.
Serishen Cagney
Anne Forbes Scams and disputes are real. But the argument that services are uniquely "high-maintenance" appears biased when you look at what's already allowed:
Land forum: Rental scams, disappearing landlords — still up. This isn't hypothetical — residents have lost L$40,000+ in single incidents, entire sim communities have been evicted overnight, and land disputes have even led to federal lawsuits and real-world arrest. The workload exists. It's just ignored.
Event promotions: No-shows, stolen fees — still up.
Employment section: Ghosting, unpaid work — still up.
Marketplace: Copybot issues, false advertising — still active.
Every category generates workload. Services are the only one removed.
Real example:
There's a paid 4-week interior design workshop in Education & Nonprofits. Entry fee. External links. Active since October 2025. If that workshop doesn't deliver, that's a dispute — exactly what you warn about. Yet it remains, in a section that arguably bans event ads.
The larger issue:
Moderation appears lacking across all sections. Scams and disputes exist everywhere — they're just ignored. Other categories stay despite the risks. Services are the only one removed.
When I raised this with a Linden, the response was: "If you find a post that breaks our guidelines you are more than welcome to report those." The onus of moderation now falls on users?
Shall I maliciously comply and report every single listing, in every category? Would that not further increase this "massive" workload?
Which raises a question:
Posts with engagement from long-standing, respected members — people aware of the ban — seem to remain active. Is that burnout? Inconsistency? I'm genuinely asking how the system works, because the written rules don't correlate with what I'm seeing.
A "Services Offered" section could include safeguards. Instead, the space was removed entirely — while paid workshops with the same risks remain.
The issue isn't that services are too hard to moderate. It's that moderation is already lacking, and services are held to a standard that doesn't exist elsewhere.
Anne Forbes
Serishen Cagney Those examples create forum drama. Service disputes create support tickets.
Moderation inconsistency doesn’t change the pattern: LL removes what lands on their workload, not what residents argue about.
LL makes money from in‑world classifieds, not from forum activity. Forums are already a cost center. Adding a section that requires even more babysitting just increases that cost.
If forum people want a dedicated space for service listings, a Discord server or website would fill the gap that LL won't. It doesn’t cost LL anything, and it avoids putting more workload on the forums.
Alwin Alcott
Serishen Cagneywhat you discuss is that moderation sucks .. not that the section idea is wrong.
Serishen Cagney
Alwin Alcott (Your inital reply to me regarding Emerald no longer appears to be here - but I'll address it.)
Appreciate the history check on Emerald — you're right. The viewer wasn't just removed arbitrarily; there were genuine privacy violations, data harvesting, and malicious code involved. The community didn't rebuild because LL left a vacuum — responsible developers forked the code and removed the bad actors. Fair correction.
But my post wasn't just "moderation sucks" in general — it was a direct response to Anne's claim that services are uniquely "high-maintenance." The evidence (land scams, event no-shows, employment ghosting, copybot issues) shows other categories generate the same risks. They just don't get removed. That's the point.
I want to be clear that my response to Anne isn't meant to distract from the core request — which Gayngel started and many of us support. This thread is about restoring a space for services advertisements. The moderation discussion is only relevant because Anne raised it as an objection.
The issue remains: other commercial categories stay despite identical risks. Services are the only one removed. A dedicated "Services Offered" section would simply restore what existed before.
Serishen Cagney
Anne Forbes Anne, I've read your forum history. You've written beautifully about what makes SL special: the participatory economy, the people, the moments between. So I know you understand why this matters. That's why this response is disappointing.
You're creating categories that don't exist ("land scams = drama, service disputes = tickets") to justify selective enforcement. You're ignoring the evidence I provided (land scams costing L$40k+, the workshop in Education, the four categories with identical risks). And you're offering "make a Discord" as a solution, which just shifts responsibility onto residents, the same way the Linden suggested Primfeed (which doesn't even allow service ads).
You began with revenue, shifted to moderation overhead, and are now parsing workload categories. The intent of this thread is to reopen "Services Offered", not wherever this is going.
That line, "LL removes what lands on their workload, not what residents argue about," is worth pausing on. You present it as a neutral observation, but it's actually a confession: community concerns don't drive moderation. Internal workload does. Residents have been arguing about land scams for years. That workload exists, it's just been normalized. The difference with services isn't that they'd create more work. It's that LL has decided this workload isn't worth taking on, while every other category's workload is just... fine. You're not describing inevitability. You're describing a choice.
You're not engaging with the evidence. You're just restating LL's position as if it's inevitable.
So let me summarize what you've actually said: "LL only moderates what creates internal workload, not what matters to residents. The forums are a courtesy, not a community space. If it doesn't make money, figure it out yourself."
That's honest, at least. Thanks for clarifying.
You're more than welcome to continue posting to this thread, but I am disengaging because I don't do bad faith debating.
Anne Forbes
Serishen Cagney You’re attributing positions to me that I haven’t taken.
I’m not defending selective enforcement, and I’m not arguing that residents’ concerns don’t matter. I’m pointing out the pattern behind LL’s decisions: they remove features that create operational load for them, not features that generate debate on the forums.
That isn’t a value judgment, and it isn’t a moral stance, it’s an observation about how the Lab historically allocates staff time.
You’re free to disagree with that interpretation, but please don’t recast it as bad faith or as me dismissing the community.
My point remains: if the goal is to reopen ‘Services Offered,’ the argument needs to address the operational concerns LL has consistently cited, not just the philosophical ones.
You're operating from a moral-political frame. I'm speaking from a structural-operational frame.
Gayngel Resident
Anne Forbes No it doesn't add any operational load. LL has continually stated they will not get into disputes about money exchanges between residents and it doesn't add any load to moderation since this was always allowed before.
If however they are getting a large amount of support tickets disputing people who don't deliver what is advertised and they are scammed out of their money then the honus Is on them to improve the support ticket system. It should detect what they are writing and automatically pop up with a warning flag explaining LL doesn't get into resident disputes and/or even automatically reject the ticket. Many support ticket systems do that already, I'm not sure why LL doesn't yet.
The point is it isn't fair to take the space on the Forum away just because the ticket system is lacking if that's really the reason why the space to offer services is now banned.
Anne Forbes
Gayngel Resident Yeah. . .I'm not talking about what LL should do. I'm just describing how they seem to operate. Even if the Lab doesn't intervene in resident to resident disputes those tickets still land on support before they're closed. That's operational load. Even if a section 'was always allowed', it still required staff time to monitor, review and remove problem posts.
I was never addressing fairness or purposely making a fairness argument. Just stating that LL historically removes features that don't generate revenue. It's a company; their decisions usually follow the money.
Gayngel Resident
Just spoke with Luke Rowley founder of Primfeed as that was the suggested place to advertise services. Primfeed does not allow promotion of services on the public gallery so that isn't even a viable option.
Speaking for myself having promoted my scripting business across social media like facebook and twitter and inworld through classifieds and groups, the majority of requests for my scripting services came through the forum up until it was banned.
Service work is a large part of the SL economy so this ban is hindering and even hurting the industry. We can't do work for the community if no one can find us.
Toxxic Rhiannyr
Please consider adding a section where commission-based artists can showcase their services and connect with a wider audience. It can be difficult for creators to reach the right people in-world who are actively looking for these types of services. Providing a dedicated space would not only increase visibility for artists but could also create a system of accountability, where customer feedback helps highlight professionalism, verify quality of work, and warn others about potential scams.
This kind of section could benefit both creators and customers by making it easier to find reliable services in one place. 🎨
Serishen Cagney
OP of the thread linked by Wulfie Reanimator here. I can confirm everything in that discussion, and I support this request. A dedicated 'Services Offered' section would clarify the rules and give freelancers a legitimate place to connect with the community.
Gayngel Resident
To add to my post since I can't edit it anymore. Skills and services are people's jobs, and I can't see why taking away their oppurtunity to do them is in any way fair.
Spider Mycron
We really would appreciate if we can get a section to post our skills ads to get chances from other residents to hire us. Thanks much and look forward for any positive action
Wulfie Reanimator
For context, here's the moderator's response: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/531047-requesting-an-explanation-of-forum-post-rules-under-employment-subforum/
The current policy is very odd and needs more explanation. Why is "work for me" allowed but "I'll work for you" isn't allowed?
Ryonen Resident
There are many people in SL, who have skills to offer. And also, many folks who might rather spend some linds, than acquire those skills. I do agree that ads are unwelcome in many places -- I also don't want them in my face: none of us do. But sometimes, a person is actively seeking services. One answer to help them, I feel, is to provide a space in the forums, to help folks looking for help from creators. As just one example, the forums seem to welcome people offering to renting land for linds, and yet shun people offering to help landscape that same land for linds -- what sense does that make?