Closing the SL Forums--The Right Move

Closing the discussion forums is the right move for LL--and SL. Sure, I will miss them, but all in all, this is a good thing.

Forums are not representative of the SL user base. It really never has been. And as SL grows, the "Forum Five Percent" is swiftly becoming the "Forum One Percent"--and not a representative one percent either. A number of posters have complained that without the forums, LL will loose an important source of feedback from SL residents.

No--what they are loosing is feedback from a non-representative sub-sample of their users. This is a good thing. For too long, LL has listened to the forums. Now they will have to either make an effort to proactively communicate with their user base--or let it be obvious that they are not bothering. No longer will they have the "we are reading the forums" as an excuse.

Closing the forums will also free up time for the already overworked LL community team. Sure they still need to hire more people--but getting rid of the forums will probably free a full time person worth of man-hours. Those hours can be better spent in the world dealing with problems, instead of babysitting the forums.

The forums are a poor way of communicating from LL to the SL user base. Too often a forum posts by LL has stood as a substitute for communicating important information SL residents. Newsflash--most residents don't read the forums and have no interest in wading through a sea of forum categories and posts to find the important bits of news they need to know. The single Linden blog is a better way of communicating to the average SL resident. Or giving stories to in-world publications. Or login text. Hell--even a town hall probably hits more people (especially since LL has redesigned the repeater network) than the forums

Non-LL forums and blogs exist to take over much of the discussion function of the SL forums. There are a LOT of these. And many of them are very good. Right now, I'm enjoying: SL Insider, Second Thoughts, SL Herald, Caveat Emptor, Dwell on It--probably a dozen in all I hit once a week or so.

Finally, the SL forums have become a cesspool of bitching and negativity. I mean--what percentage of people who post here actually _enjoy_ Second Life? For all its faults and bugs and downtime, SL is a lot of fun. You would have a hard time telling that by reading the forums.

The forums are dead because forum posters who understood the value of brevity were few and far between.

ouch

Not disagreeing with you so far, but you didn't mention any suggestions for a replacement? What other - BETTER - methods do users have of communicating with LL?

- ARs? They hardly even get answered.

- In-world discussions? If the event isn't firebombed, you're still looking at a major lag event that can't hold more than 30 or so users. What percentage of the total community is that?

- Blogs? One-directional expressions of opinion, not bi-directional exchange of ideas.

So what's left? What better method is there than a forum?

A forum that was realistically scaleable. Sadly, SL's just wasn't that.

A forum that the majority of people positively contributed to. Sadly, SL's just wasn't that.

I think the forum users are just as much "at fault" for the forum culling (YES, I SAID THAT WORD AGAIN) as anyone else.

I used the Classifieds forums, and while I liked them, I didn't after they removed the ability to thread stuff in those forums. That's the part about LL I didn't like. I loved to see comments on my stuff. Now.... nothing. I can see that X # of people have seen the thread.... but no feedback. :/

- Post an ad.
- Admire said ad.
- ... For 2 minutes, and then it would be pushed into the 4th page of the new topics by all the "Welfare Tuesday SELL SELL SELL", "Bring Back Dried Prunes", and "A sexy sex thread about sex and things to do with sexy sex sexile" threads.

No it is a move toward selling Second Life to EA. Then EA will convert it to something to teach the children. It is like how American companies butcher Japanese animation to make it "suitable" for Americans.
No I thing something really bad is going to happen and they are closing the forums to stop the easy spreading of this infomation, I think that everone who has bought land and sims is going to get fracked.

Fixed.

I would agree that the forums do not always actively reflect the population, and as in TSO I noticed a lot of excellent things were changed based on a very small population complaining on a forum board such as Stratics and being heard, same has held true in SL. But if you don't like what you see being changed, you have the option to head to the good old forum yourself and speak up *even if it means getting tomato bombed by long time forum players*
And what is concerning is there has been a lot of chit chat on this post or that post that LL is no longer listening or responding to anyone about anything lately, and sometimes aren't even always polite or helpful to your situation. So is this just another sign that they don't care what players like in what they are paying for? What option will open up for us to be heard or to come up with great suggestions?
Not trying to sound completely negative about LL, because in some ways they can only listen to us all so much anyways, and as seen on here for the same amount of people they make happy they will tick off that same percantage no matter what they do.
Just wondering if this will free them up to actually respond to abuse reports *reporting a minor and it taking them four weeks to respond that your report was read is somewhat ridiculous and in no way solving a problem*

Of course, if you'd posted this on a blog I probably wouldn't have known about it, let alone read it.

From: Cindy Claveau

So what's left? What better method is there than a forum?

I contend that, tor the purposes of communicating user concerns to LL, the forums are arguably worse than no method at all. The forums give the appearance of communication with the SL resident base, but in reality LL only communicates with a small self-selected percentage of SL users--a subgroup with experiences and concerns that are not typical of the community, and a subgroup that is too often dominated by the loudest and those with the most time on their hands.

In your opinion.

Forums and other means of semi-controlled expression serve different purposes in a community, some of them subtle, hard to define, but not insignificant. Sadly, LL made their decision without considering all of that.

Actually, this is an argument for keeping the forums open, then.

When I say 'majority', I mean "Lots of people, not 1.7% of the population, take part in, or even just READ".

You'd be surprised how many people ask me about scripts, some 2+ years old, I suggest they ask in the scripting forums or Wiki, and they go "SL has forums?" and then "And a wiki?"

The forums are largely populated by the minority motivated and engaged enough to make the effort. Maybe Linden Lab shouldn't hear only from that minority, but I think it's worth their while to hear from that minority. And I think they will continue to hear from them, but probably more through informal channels that aren't available to everyone.

Not that I disagree with LL closing the forums. It's their time and money, and they have to decide where to spend it. Still, I'll miss the forums, especially having a centralized place to get a sense of what's happening in SL, and who's making it happen.

Talking out of one's ass is truly an impressive skill. The muscular coordination, the ability to get the colon to reliably replicate the pitch and timbre of the larynx, the ability to modulate the volume sufficiently to penetrate clothing...

In short, I salute you.

My two cents, The forums serve the purpose of communication, and not just with teh Lindens but with other residents, and by being the "official" forums it was a central place to go to find out announcements from other residents. No 3rd party site can do this as well. it just cannot work, and if you think a new user is going to bother to search out other sites, well i know i would not have bothered to. i personally don't gives a rats rump about communicating with teh Lindens here, but i have met some of my best friends in SL directly because of the forums,

LL has since long NOT listened to the forums. And it's obvious they are not bothering. So where's the gain?

And if SL was down, of being attacked, where did you read about it first? On the forums (even though mostly not in the official category).

When people had login problems, or rez problems, or asset server problems, where did it appear first? On the forums. At least you knew what was going on right away, and didn't just wonder if your PC broke.

1.7% of what?
Active Accounts? Verified Accounts?
The 64 dollar question is who many people really access second life?
1/3 of the "active" accounts or is it 1/4 or even down to 1/5?

They no longer have to have a community team member waste their time with the depressing, menial job of slogging though all this BS?

No--it's an argument that keep the forums open wastes LL time on something that does not serve a core business purpose.

Damn it you monkeys with keyboards. It's spelled "lose". L-O-S-E.

~Ulrika~

"core business purpose" in American English is frack your customers and employees and then sell to the highest bidder and use your golden parachute.

Proof? Community is the core business purpose. Your problem, and LL's, is that you don't know how to define or manage the core business purpose.

Oh dear--I have committed a typo. Now all my arguments may be safely ignored.

If you're going to fix it, fucking fix it:

The forums are dead.