I told you so.

When can I get off the cross??

You were kept warm next to that boiler!

You live there still!

(And please clean out your cage more often dear, the neighbors are starting to complain about the rats. Which reminds me, it is time to make dinner..)

You make it sound as though the forums are the only outlet for open criticism.

You are forgetting:
- in-world protests, town halls, roundtables, etc
- replies to Linden blogs
- posts on other resident forums
- creating proposals
- your own website / blog / etc

All of which are far superior to the forums in getting your concerns addressed by LL.

Can I use that as my new signature, Soleil?

I personally saw it coming as well, and think it's both sad and counter-productive.

A voice on the forums was often the only way of communicating about large scale griefing, scams, and actions that adversely effected Second Life.

It also was used for the opposite of that, with public announcements, thank you's, joyful observations, and calls for compassion.

It is just another joke on those within SL that do like the thought of a community, with all it's goods and bads.

LL has once again shown their "growth" from a company-community shared dream, to a profits hungry coorporation.

Hail to the teens flooding the grid!

Hail to the bugs that abound!

Hail to griefers that can now eternally haunt SL through alternate accounts! We shall not be hearing much of you soon, though we shall still feel your effets often.

And a heartfelt, and early farewell to those whose writings and ramblings within these forums were thought-provoking, insightful, and often times humorous exactly when humor was most needed. I shall miss my forum browsing while drinking my morning cup of coffee.

Sure!

Everyone has pointy hair?

I just added a comment to the secondlifeblog, it's awaiting moderation. This is what I said, because I'm sure that lindin labs doesn't want it on their fancy little blog,

'HA. Wow, see, this is what I expected. A lot of users are unhappy with the direction that Second Life is going in and now you’re taking away their only means to express that as a somewhat unified front. Kudos. I’m so happy I downgraded. You continue to disappoint.'

Woot! Take lots of pictures!

I don't see the "superior" part. All have far less attendance/audiences, all are spread out and harder to consolidate viewpoints from, and apparently you've never been to a Town Hall? They are next to useless.

Yes, all the other useless attempts at voicing concerns are well and good, but these are the Official Forums and when a company shuts those down it is a Bad Sign.

I'm not surprised, although I am sad. I am far more sad that newbie designers, builders and scripters will be forced to search the web for answers to their questions rather than on SL's own fourms, with experienced creators helping them and sharing information. A wiki is no substitute.

None of which has much of an effect and can easily be edited. As for protests ... how will you read word of the protest before it happens?



No organization to any replies and I'm sorry, but replies to blogs just aren't as well read as forums, nor can they be catagorized. It's an incoherent babble.



Not widely read, and certainly not taken seriously by LL, don't even suggest that something they read (IF they read it) on an unofficial board will get much official notice.



As above



Correction .. NONE of wich even come close to the impact of a post on an official forum.

I don't think that is the issue as much as the man power hours required to monitor and maintain them.

The resmod program was introduced to address this problem and what resulted was a lot of hard feelings. The program was not a great idea to begin with and has resulted in a handful of members on a power trip, including one out of control resmod who has characterized the SL community as criminals and himself as a cop!!!!!!

I noticed that the resmods had not been changed for quite some time with new ones added and perhaps it was because this decision to close the forums was pending.

There are great member forums out there, including sluniverse and second citizen, plus all the Linden and member blogs, that will be good venues for discussion.

I hope the Linden announcements are still centrally noted on the SL web site in some way so we don't have to click on every Linden blog in order to learn about new developments and announcements.

I never got to cyber Taco on the forums.





How will I go on?

My feelings exactly.

What annoys me is that so often the community roundtables happen during the day while I'm at work. Added to this, discussion in world, in large groups is next to impossible because of lag and interruptions form other people chit chatting.

This really wouldn't be such a big deal if we had some sort of in-world communication tool, but we don't. I feel as if LL is just cutting off the only real line of communication they had. Sure it was flawed, but it's better than nothing.

So long to all of you. This little voice has been silenced.

... with your sanity intact?

=/





I met someone I almost partnered with on the forums -

Is a lot of things that make us all laugh also.

Have talked to people in game I met from here.

Gonna miss the forums =(

Here is a thread from July 2004 I started on SLUniverse where Philip talks about closing the forums (third post).

There's a month left, give him time.

So you're saying that:
1) posts to the forums are effective
2) more frequently read by LL than blogs
3) are taken more seriously than resident-run forums, official proposals, or resident-run websites
and
4) have a relatively high-margin impact on getting a response from LL

Would this be an accurate summary?

I said it first.

/108/58/125192/1.html

I also posted on that blog entry, though while many other comments have already gotten the green light to be displayed, mine is still "awaiting moderation." Hm. Was I too harsh? XD If so, and this isn't just moderation lag, this doesn't bode well.

What I commented:

"Both a good and bad thing. On one hand, the forums (as in General, Land and the Economy and Sandbox specifically) are just total rats nests of negativity, full of vultures who are constantly waiting to tear into whomever they can. It constantly showcases the worst aspects of the community, often favoring the sensationalist/obnoxious/can-o-worms threads over the constructive ones. Every time I’ve felt the most discouraged about SL has always been after reading General; go figure. While I may miss my daily forum dose (as someone said, it’s like crack), I will NOT miss all the utter schlock that will get washed off with this change.

On the other hand…wow…way to kill off a really great, centralized, popular way for SL users to get together and schmooze, en masse, about anything and everything SL-related. This is very much taking away the official collective voice of the community and shunting everyone who desires free and open discourse to third party sites — sites which now will be so very easily ignored by LL.

Very mixed feelings about this."

Me, too, Eryn. I'm not sure why my comments aren't appearing immediately, I asked a simple question about the link Robin posted in her blog entry. Maybe we don't know the secret Linden Blog handshake, or something.

Mine is also awaiting moderation. Apparently some of us are not trusted. =P

My blog post:

When forums have small numbers of users they are far more effective in communicating with the hosts (ie Linden Labs). Official forms are always taken more seriously than resident run websites.

But as forums grow, forums evolve into something else, they become a community in their own right. Independant of any feedback that LL may get from here will be the loss of the sense of community that the forums bring. I've found a lot of great places in SL by reading the forums, found new ideas that only comes from listening to other second life members and while I haven't met anybody from the forums in SL yet, I certainly see that as part of the forums too.

In sum, what LL is missing is the forums have grown to become a place where SL members interact with each other. Its the ulitimate group on second life.

So.. I guess... Where are we supposed to get information now? The Linden Blogs don't exactly tell the whole story.