The Worst Thing I Have Ever Seen Ll Do.

And? It wasn't THE blog.

Regardless, companies can change their policies whenever they want to. Prok isn't exactly an upstanding citizen, and I think they're just tired of using kid gloves on her.

If I were running SL, she would have been banned outright a year ago.

But that's just me.

I don't give a shit about Prok and her posts, wherever she may try to post them.

Actually, that is not how everyone else does it.

Every MMO developer that I can think of has publicly accessible forums where players voice their complaints, debate one another, form consensus, and petition the publisher for change. It's true that forums do not represent a true cross section of all users and the loudest and most articulate often seem to carry more weight. Nobody is suggesting the forums is the only way that LL should solicit feedback. However, until now, LL was like all other MMO companies in that they provided for and accepted public critique and debate.

They are breaking new ground here by stifling open discourse and criticism.

you ever consider taking your act on the road. Your speculations are very humorous.
Utterly pulled out of your ass, but humorous.

OK, fine, Lordfly, but that's beside the point.

If that is a new policy, I don't believe they have posted it. (And I don't believe it is the policy.)

The point is, I read on Prok's blog what he said he posted on Pathfinder's blog, which disappeared in an hour.

I read it, figured this surely wasn't happening, and posted on Pathfinder's blog.

Pathfinder deleted my post. AND my follow-up one, saying how I couldn't believe he had deleted my post.

(And then went on to ask questions based on what Prok had said, as if he had come up with them himself!!!! And then allowed someone ELSE to make the very same point, which he responded to as if that person were an actual human!)

So I posted to Robin.

Deleted there, too.

And all this because Prok criticized the new six sims.

coco

Not in the slightest. I'm not a US resident so whatever this guy stands for doesn't affect me at all.

But if he's coming here with the trumpets blaring as an oh-so-important person (from LL's point of view), being given special treatment (already shown as happening), then why shouldn't anyone take the opportunity to let him know exactly how we feel?

After all, politicians are supposed to represent the people they serve, and they should listen to them to get their views.

Do we know why he is coming here anyway? I'm sure it's not for the sexx0rz.

Lewis

agreed

gotta love corporations

Well, no.

First her post was deleted, because, well, she's Prok. She's banned from the official forums of communication (and the blog, apparently).

You read it, get your dander up, and repost it. Surprise, it's deleted.

It's common practice to have a policy of moderation saying "please don't ask why you've been moderated, just accept it." Why? Because people invariably post more posts asking why they got deleted. That's nice, but it just generates more junk. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Ergo, it gets deleted because a) it's off topic, and b) you shouldn't have to ask why you got deleted.

So it's one post deleted questionably (by some), and 4 more deleted because they're redundant, skirting the rules, or off-topic.

He'll probably be running for President in 2008. Seeing as we're still the big dogs on the block (for another decade at least), he'll probably affect you in some way. Forcing British legislation, perhaps.



Because he really doesn't give a shit what the community of SL thinks, this is a media blitz. This will get the blogosphere going (it already has), thus getting eyeballs and his name out there. He wins, regardless of how many inane signs you put up.



You're from the UK, therefore he doesn't represent you.



Attention, media, and blogosphere cred. HE wants to be "hip" and "with it" with the younger crowd that plays "them video games".

And so on.

You alluded to a possible issue yourself. It probably wasn't deleted because someone disagreed with them... it was probably deleted, frankly, because of the overwhelming nature of Prok's criticisms. Prok dissents in a voluminous fashion, and finds conspiracies in so much, it probably reaches the point where it is irrelevant. I've got nothing against Prok, I don't know Prok, and couldn't give a shit either way, but I don't see it as an effective approach if you want to to be heard. Eventually people are going to tune out, and the more important you believe something to be, the more concise, reasonable and clear you have to be to get people to comprehend its importance. So now some of it probably gets marked as irrelevant by virtue of that, or perhaps simply, there's just too damn much of it.

Why must every word of Prok's be heard? What is so important about Prok's opinions, or any other one person's, that every word of it must be heard? They've left plenty of other posts by Prok be, perhaps there's a line where they say enough's enough, and this one is a bit of a waste of time.

That's not to say I think it's a good move, right, or shrewd. I don't. I think they should be bending over backwards to listen to the residents, after closing these forums and promoting the blog as the channel for communicating with LL. It just strikes me as no surprise that this is about Prok's comment being deleted, and I'm looking at it from a practical, realistic view of the way the world works, rather than the ideal.

And Coco... you personalised it. You made it about Pathfinder, and when you say in loud letters, "what is going through your mind Pathfinder?!", what you're saying is, "I think you're crazy/and or stupid Pathfinder". That never really works, does it? You probably could have made a comment on the importance of open dialogue with LL, and why you believe deleting comments is bad, that criticism should be heard and acknowledged by SL, and had it remain... but that's not what you did. I understand you were shocked, and upset by it, but sometimes you have to set aside your emotion and address an issue in a focused and calm fashion, because it's important (sometimes). Additionally, they may consider commenting on why a comment was deleted as irrelevant to the topic in question, and outside the limited scope of a blog, because it isn't a forum (how they may see it, not how I see it).

And that is the key point I believe - it's not a forum, and different rules apply for dialogue there. Of course, that's exactly why we need these forums, and why it sucks that they're killing them. It's not that the blog is bad - it's just bad when that is all there is.

Extremely true. But where will the shareholders get this profit from if LL continues this route and loses a portion of the paying base?
If they keep censoring and showing people how much they couldnt care less about them it will not take long before they look up and find the money is not coming in like it was. LL still has to show this profit and that comes from us.

If ever there was a conflagration in search of an issue, this is it. Prok's comment, as quoted here, is rude, inflammatory, factually fucked and stinks of the red herring with which it is liberally sprinkled. I'll miss the forums, too, but if that kind of troll-bait were posted on a website of mine, it'd be gone in two clicks. If any customer of mine approached me so abusively, s/he'd be shown the door.

So, yay! for Pathfinder and Robin having the good sense to delete trash when they see it.

LL would have deleted negative posts previously if they wanted to censor. It's a lot of fuss about nothing as far as I can see. And claiming that this is the worst thing LL has ever done makes them look quite good.

Albion

Just one....sorry TWO more reasons for me to read them!

Actually, having read a lot of Prok's stuff in the past, I would have to say this one was pretty darn tame. Neither the tone nor the validity of the criticism warrant censorship if the blogs are to be our way of dialoging with the Linden's moving forward.

I agree with Coco. There must be more to this story.

On the one hand, I normally have no problem with "censoring" blogs... becaue as another post said, they aren't really meant for two way communication, they are more of a journal or diary.

On the flip side, it becomes a different story when the "blogs" are being pushed as the "official form of communication", so I don't know.

Either way, I'll join with the "Who didn't see this comming?" crowd.

Well, that's the thing.

If they are going to just delete people's posts out of hand, when they feel like it (and other posts of Prok's have stood on the blogs, I am certain of it, because I remember him posting about keeping classifieds in Robin's blog after I posted about it), then that is of concern, isn't it?

Also, the post in question - the one that got deleted - had nothing in it at all that was any of those things you've alluded to in your first paragraph.

One expects that in civilized discourse that one's posts will be taken at face value, not tossed out just because of the name attached!

And if it was so irrelevant, why did Pathfinder take Prok's thoughts and run with them, as if they were his own? While covering up the tracks of who originally said them?

AND - covering up the fact that I objected to having my post removed.

There's something fundamentally wrong when a person can post a reasonable post - with nothing of danger in it at all - and that post gets obliterated, just . . . because they can. I call that abuse of power.

"You probably could have made a comment on the importance of open dialog with LL, and why you believe deleting comments is bad, that criticism should be heard and acknowledged by SL, and had it remain"

Why don't you give that a try? If I try, I will just be deleted again, and you know it.

Won't SOMEONE give that a try?

coco

Exactly.

So what benefit does his presence give to the general SL population? Absolutely nothing, from what I can tell, except a bit more media bullshit and hype, of which there is plenty already, masking the truth.

Lewis

I posted this just now to Pathfinder's blog entry about the new sims:

Cristiano Midnight Says:

August 31st, 2006 at 1:18 PM
Why was Prokofy Neva’s comment, which essentially says the same thing as Aaron Levy’s, removed, along with Cocoanut Koala’s comment questioning the removal?


We'll see if it gets removed - apparently they are not squashing all dissent, as Aaron questioned the very same thing about competition.

/cheer

It should, because it's offtopic.

One interesting thing about all of this, as much as I'm loathe to admit it, is that LL's behavior lately almost makes Prokofy's long-known claims of corruption seem credible ...

The forums were for the most part seen by LL as a waste of time and resources. But if people start using LL blogs in the same manner as the forums then what has LL accomplished? I naturally expected a heavier hand in the blogs with moderation and less "holding our hands and walking on eggshells for us". I think we're going to have to get used to it; otherwise what was the point of getting rid of the forums?

STOP ~ y'all are posting faster than I can read!