Proposal to not close the forums?

Has anyone considered submitting a proposal to not close the forums?

Would anyone vote on it if I submitted it?

Well, no offence, but I wouldn't vote, because LL clearly want to close the forums and a thousand plus votes in five minutes won't change that.

Already done. Proposition 1781.

Its peeing into the wind, but at least I can say I tried.

I missed when you posted this. I added my votes. Maybe others will see this and add theirs.

Proposals don't do anything anyways. It's like complaining on the forums about anything - always futile.

</pessimism>

MM

Prop: 1781 524 votes/75 voters

Doesn't that mean there has to be a Linden response once it hits 500+?

Lewis

To be fair, proposals can do things if they're on a subject that LL doesn't have a position on already.

Proposals on subjects which have already been decided on, though, aren't going to achieve anything.

I spent some of my votes on that one, but I fully expect the official Linden response to be "Acknowledged - Can't be done", which is their lovely way of saying "We already made our minds up on this issue, and nothing the users say is going to change our minds on the matter". That is how they replied to the Open Registration fiasco, no matter that thousands of votes were cast in a matter of just a few days, demanding a return to verified registration.

So let's hear it, Lindens? Will you listen to the people that pay your salaries, or tell us to mind our own business... again.

Yep, which you will be seeing about the end of this week likely. At this point we are lighting candles in the rain, but we still have the ability to voice our opinions for the moment so nothing wrong with that.

Link please. Many want to vote but are too lazy to seek out the voting page.

That is true, which is why I believe the protests over "phasing out" the Content Creation forums met with some success, they weren't wedded to the idea and eventually backed off.

This is why we should continue to make noise about the Classified section as well. Save what we can.

Proposal 1781 is HERE.

Thanks for the link, for what it's worth I just threw all I could behind it.

No matter how much we protest they don't care...

I've pretty much concluded that I hate the entire idea, so I put ALL of my votes there. It's not as though they were being very effective where they originally were.

I've never been a big fan of the forums; the atmosphere here is not very friendly, even moreso than most forums I've seen (which is no small number). I still think it's a patently stupid idea to get rid of them at this point in time, and it is killing my interest in SL.

* The weblog is a nice alternative to the forums. It is not -- and never will be -- a sufficient replacement.

* LL may be working on in-world alternatives or whatever, but it's very premature to close the external forums before such things are ready.

* Third party forums are, near as I can tell, doing exactly what I suspected they would: fracturing the community.

My suggestion to LL would be to put the plans to ditch the forums on hold until such time as either a REAL replacement is implemented that supports all the things the forums do (good luck with that), or else there is a viable third party alternative (meaning a clear emerging favorite supported by a majority of the community).

I expect they will ignore that suggestion, however.

LL wants the forums closed, period. They don't give a rat's ass what you or the rest of us think.

BTW, my 10 votes are appled, but they won't matter.

How is this?
Keep the forums open for Premium accounts.

Premium accounts can post.
none Premium accounts (free ones) can just read but not post.

*sigh*

I have been dreading this post.

Here goes.




Closing the Second Life general forums will backfire badly - a moment's reflection will make this clear.

Here with a centralised, official forum there is some hope of moderation and dialog. And the ability to ban people who are mean for sport.

Why not get tough? 90 day forum suspension for a personal attack; 90 day SL suspension and permanent forum ban for a second offence. Forums saved. Don't like it? Post elsewhere.



But give up these forums, and now what do we have?

We'll have the secondcitizen forums representing a good fraction of this multimillion dollar, lifetime dream of many.

Who is going to be silenced by all of this? Not the mean people. No, they will still be on every blog comment, thug forum, and inappropriate venue.

Rather, you'll be silencing me, and everyone like me.

I suppose the only thing we can say is goodbye.

Well put. I had some thoughts as well, but i havent posted them yet.

I've been posting regularly since I joined in April 06. I hope that some of my posts have been helpful to others. I know that reading the forums have helped me in many ways too.

I've yet to post in response to someone from LL. I might in the future, but who knows.

SL will go on for sure, but it will be losing something very valuable.

I agree - I think that the forums have been another way for in world personalities to develop. It has helped in world business. There are a lot of people who come here who never post but just read the forums for information.

I hate to see them go because I think they have been very useful.

I didn't want to see them go, so I tried to post responsibly. It's the ones who used the forum to show off their cleverness and the ones who constantly ran to the Lindens complaining about the clevernes and the ones who ran to the Lindens complaining about the ones complaining, who made it necessary to close the forums.

Why should the Lindens committ so much energy to policing a board that is admittedly only read by a portion of the SL population?

I know the latest thing is to bash the Lindens, but in this case bashing the Lindens about closing the forums is just proving their point.

One of the key problems here is that I see closing the forums in the long run will be damaging to Second Life and Linden Labs. These forums serve as an asset to LL, whether they think or or not, in a huge number of different ways.

Many people have suggested some of the reasons the forums are valuable to LL, let me suggest one more...

The Official Forums act as a relief valve to customer's problems and frustrations.

What do I mean by this? When an individual runs into a glitch or problem or theft or god knows what else in SL, they become frustrated, even mad. Now this can stay bottled up or as human nature dictates, some kind of release is needed. The person may do nothing, but then their enjoyment of SL decreases, presumably with enough such events, the person just throws up their hands and quits.

Alternately, the person can log on to these forums and vent their problems. The public exposure releases many of the frustrations, and as such, the individual will be much less frustrated with Second Life itself. Although this cathargic act doesn't have to be rough or nasty, it is one reason we see such rough post in the forums. There is release going on.

This works well because whether true or not, the poster feels that they are reaching a large portion of their peers and even reaching Linden Labs. Third party forums do not meet this same goal because the person knows they are reaching a smaller fragmented audience and he or she has no expectation that LL will see the post.

So I would predict closing the forums is going to increase the customer frustration levels, with the resulting loss of both in-world business and actual customers.

And this is only one problem among many that will be created with the closing of the forums.

Because the portion of the SL population that reads the forums are the more active residents and are much more likely to contribute to SL in some way.

True... so instead of abandoning the forums, surely Linden Lab should have promoted the forums more in-world and kept a better control on the idiots who come here and disrupt things?

If there really was a 'signal to noise' ratio - a dreadful bit of PR by the way - then surely getting more signal would be a better deal, to make the noise quieter?

Lewis