Feature voting update - please come add some bugs

Having been a customer since 1.4, I've learned by now that this is LL's modus operandi. Whenever there's a real, nontrivial problem with SL (ghosting, server performance, client performance, server reliability, client reliability, sim crossing, physics bugs, scripting bugs, permissions bugs), the solution is to loudly announce they're working on it. The people are appeased. And pretty soon another real, nontrivial problem materializes, everyone forgets about the first problem, and the cycle repeats.

Months later someone inevitably wonders, "whatever happened to ________?" But that usually ends up buried on the 4th or 5th page of some other thread. Easily ignored.

I love it, I was waiting for the first person to call this forum drama. Glad I've not been disappointed.

I'm pleased you have faith in the Lindens. I on the other hand do not, having seen the steady deterioration in the quality and stability of the Second Life system over a period of nearly 18 months. And now they create a means to exonorate them from fixing the multitude of issues. Welcome to the future. If you think this is the way to greater stability, I'll gladly leave you to it.

the features are already jumbled up and need to be organized into topic catagories, so we can skip the topics we lack intrest in and save time. I am WAY too lazy to scroll threw every prop to look for ones i support. Now adding bug into the mix will deffinently require some sort of organization, and you better be giving out more vote points.

I would like to see negative vote points. Not every proposal is something that is best for ther community,. or might have some negative impact. We the people should be given the right and option to vote against a specific proposal we feel isn't in our best intrest. Then the votes would better reflect the communities needs. Not everyone will research the proposal on the forums, and talk about it before voting. Nor will many look at the forums for that proposal after voting and possibly have a different view.

One main example is the issue of Telehub vs Direct Instant Teleporting. There are people on both sides of the issue and the voting system only allowes one side to be heard (in votes).

D00d It's either intended behaviour, or it's a bug. I can hardly imagine that "occasionally sim crossings will make you bounce off the ground until you relog" was intended behaviour.

It can be both a technical challenge, and a bug. And judging from the length of time we've had that one, I'd bet this one might fall under the category "design weakness".

Cereal - I've noticed a bit of that too! I was just thinking the other day when 1.4 came out, they said "oh, we'll make an in-world animation editor too!" I think that's fallen off the roadmap

I think what bugs me the most is how they approved this proposal. Kris wrote a proposal and was very clear about what was wanted. It was voted on and passed. LL decided ok ...but we will do it our way and introduce a vote for bugs system.

The whole proposal and voting system is useless if LL isn't going to listen to what the customers want.

The proposal and voting system is just a useless tool that has a placebo effect.....press the button and you'll feel better....the button doesn't really do anything ...but who cares when ya feel better.

In a bid to play Linden Lab's voting game I have created two proposals on the voting system, each of which deals with the bug situation in a different way. I have created two proposals as one covers moving voting on bugs into a seperate voting system away from features and the other proposes to remove voting on bugs at all, in favour of Linden Lab making a commitment to resolving bugs as they arise.

The two proposals are as follows:

Proposal 219: Seperation of Bugs From Features For The Purposes Of Voting.
Link To Proposal: http://secondlife.com/vote/get_feature.php?get_id=219

Proposal 220: Linden Lab Should Make A Commitment To Deal With All Bugs Promptly As They Arise.
Link To Proposal: http://secondlife.com/vote/get_feature.php?get_id=220

I have used up all my votes equally between the two as I feel that either would be a step in the right direction. Personally I prefer the second, but feel that the first has more chance of acceptance. I would like to encourage all those who have expressed the opinion that the current setup is not ideal to vote on either or both of those proposals.

Please vote for my proposal #1287 "SL revolves around me, and my issues and priorities are obviously more important than everyone else's!"

Excuse me? Do you have anything at all to add to the discussion or are you just here to undermine or deride?

It's the time it is going to take to work this out if they stick with the current system. I don't give a flying fart about new features - I want to build and I want the building to be as bug free as possible. I do not want to have to repeatedly search through stupid votes about try before you buy or having virtual sex in space of WHATEVER in order to find the bugs I want to put my votes behind.

Already it is becoming very difficult to find the votes you want to support. Someone managed to present a proposal for the linking bug to be fixed without mentioning link in it. Thus there are two proposals for that to be fixed, and the vote is split across them.

I had already put a proposal that bugs should be removed from the features list, and now Moopf has had the same great idea...and so there are now three proposals for the same item...and maybe more, I haven't had the time or inclination to check.

Seems to me the thing is already too big and unweildy to handle, and I DON'T WANT to spend my time trawling through votes and proposals like this. It isn't forum drama, my blood pressure has been high this week due to linking problems and prim rot - both of which are old bugs which need dealing with.

Cali

Curses. Beat me to it.

My first proposal -- my proposals supersede all others in priority indefinitely.

Ok...so explain to me why it is worth my spending time and effort on the voting system then? If Linden Labs is going to follow their own priorities...then why bother? If they aren't then it will mean something and it will matter whether builders take the time to try to prioritize bugs over the whizzbang.

Can't have it both ways, sorry.
Cali

You're awfully cranky lately Moopf. What I hear in this thread is a lot of things that sound like the bit of satire I posted... an attitude that if LL's priorities aren't exactly aligned with yours then they're somehow off the rails or have lost their minds or are selling out to the masses. It seems very self serving to me. I agree with SteveR. LL isn't going to stop working on bug squashing just because a bug doesn't make it to the top of the proposal list. I personally think that such a notion is a bit insulting. I think the new vote system is a great way for LL to get an idea of what new features are on the minds of the majority and what bugs are affecting the greatest number of people. Like any democratic system it's not always going to go your way. My personal pet proposal is languishing with only 7 votes. If it's not something that a lot of people want or need then it shouldn't be a priority just because I want it.

Uh that might lead to a few differences of opinion. That's the whole reason to vote.

Besides... there is so much that people think is a bug that is really a feature. (and vice versa?) That's why it makes sense to mix the two in the same votes.

--Blueman

If you believe that what I've said in this thread is about me, you are entirely 100% mistaken. I find it insulting that a software development company will force its customers to decide which bugs need fixing in the same voting as new features. Look at Philip's wording. He's all interested in the priority mix now, so if they want bugs to be part of that mix why on earth do you expect them to do anything about the bugs unless they're at the top of that list. What's the point of the voting list if it's not used? As Caliandris said, either they're using the list to prioritize or they're not. If they're not then it's the current status quo and we'll have to have heated forum threads to get action. If they are, then lumping bugs in with features is something extremely worrying.

But you seem to be suggesting throughout that this is about me. And it's so not about me, you couldn't be further from the truth. I haven't developed for months and months, so please explain how it's about me. It's about not allowing bugs to get pushed aside. It's about Linden Lab making a commitment to quality and stability in their software. If that's just about me in your eyes, then I'm not quite sure how I can make you see otherwise.

Thanks for trying to personlize this issue as a way to undermine what I'm saying. I'm not awfully cranky lately, I disagreed with you over the Nolan/Prokofy affair and then you come in here and childishly try to undermine or deride me, trying to present me as somebody who's only interested in themselves. Self serving you say? Yeah, that's me if it helps you compartmentalize me into your pre-conceptions.

But finally, you don't think LL will stop bug-squashing just because it's not at the top of the list? They'd first have to start doing some real bug squashing in the first place for that to be the case. Remember ghosting? Yeah, nothing happened until it had got to the point where people ranted and screamed on the forums after putting up with it for so long. Now you'll have to vote for similar issues in amongst all the other bugs and new feature requests with only 10 votes to play with to the top of a priority list to get action. Gives them a nice way to avoid that happening, like it did recently with ghosting and 1.6, in the future, doesn't it.

Now the community has to mobilize itself through a single point - the voting mechanism. They'll have to find the right proposition in amongst several others that might be there for the same purpose, probably change their votes to be able to put them to the bug and hope that others do the same and all this amongst the new features that people want so much. If it's brought up on the forum, guess what LL will say: VOTE FOR IT THEN! Nice. There's no such "limit" if an issue becomes hot on a forum, but the voting mechanism has strict rules and regulations that mean it's much more difficult to make something a hot topic in the same way.

Good grief! I didn't say you specifcially, Moopf. I said there are a lot of things in this thread that sound like what I characterized. If you want to apply that to yourself, be my guest.

No, you lumped myself and others into the same remarks, to characterize anybody who's saying what we are as self-serving, insulting and all about "me, me, me". It's the same thing Chip, whether you like it or not. The only difference is you just lumped us all together rather than naming any one specifically.

If the shoe fits?

philip 2

residents 0

thank you chip for making my point

Or, possibly: they're using the list to HELP prioritize.

Indeed, which is why adding yet more ways to communicate, such as a voting system, is a good thing.

And now we have another, more direct, tool to help get those kind of things fixed quicker. w00t!

No, the voting mechanism is just another means of communication to help LL decide what they should be working on.


Sure, the voting system is not perfect.

Or rather, it gives them a way to further decide if the "hot" topic on the forums is as big of a issue as a handful of posters make it out to be, or if it's mostly just drama.

Wow Chip, please continue your childish little crusade on your own if you like. You're just here to put people down and paint them as something they're not, so carry on if you like, I'm not going to respond to you any further and de-rail this thread.

Wow Moopf, you sure can't handle criticism. I added my opinion to this thread. If you don't like it, or think it paints you in a negative light, oh well. I also once again agree with everything SteveR just said. Sue me... or mabe just lighten up.

That's a possibility, although it's difficult to see how "empowering" the community to vote for what they want and then not actually following that (where it's possible) is going to do anything other than disenfranchise people.



No, it centralizes communication on feature requests and bug fixing.



See my answer above, it centralizes it, limiting our other tools as this is the Linden Lab "accepted" way to get anything on the radar.



Erm, I think I've answered this above - sounds like the same point.



No, which is why one of my proposals is geared towards maybe helping make it more so.



So ghosting was just drama was it? The point here is that to mobilize people to go through the steps necessary to put their votes towards a specific bug proposal when others for the same thing might exist and when they've already most likely used their votes and will have to re-arrange their votes, limits the impact. You won't get the same impact. Take ghosting. It would of taken longer the issue to rise to the top of the voting pool because of the mechanics of the voting than it did to use the forum to be more direct, so I'd suggest that ghosting would not have been addressed as it was eventually in 1.6 if the voting system had been in action then.

PS. Actually, if Linden Lab had had any strong commitment to fixing bugs they would of addressed object ghosting (which has always been a bug bear of many, many people here) before it got to the heated level it did when people realised that 1.6 wasn't going to solve it. They had bug reports stretching back months, they had ways to reproduce it. But no, they waited until they got a concentrated flwo of flack on the forum before they did anything about it. That's a fine commitment to bug fixing.

I do agree with you on a few points, Moopf. It would probably be a good idea if there was some sort of vetting of proposals before they made it onto the list... namely that they're doable (and not a waste of people's votes) and that they're not duplicates or something that couple be combined with an existing proposal. I serisouly doubt that this is now the only avenue to submit bug reports or suggest features. As far as I'm aware the bug reporting tool still exists and the feature suggestions forum is still there. If an impossible proposal got the most votes do you honestly think LL would divert all their resources to rewriting SL from the ground up for that proposal? I think people are being a bit reactionary here. It's probably more accurate to think of the voting system as more of a poll than a priority list.

As I've said before on this thread I'm all for a voting system for features - I think that's a positive move. Where my agreement ends is with the inclusion of bugs in that.

Of course I wouldn't expect LL would divert all their resources to rewriting SL from the ground up for a proposal, whether that be a new feature or a bug fix. That's not to say such a rewrite might not have to happen at some point in the future in order to enable them to proceed in a way that is efficient and able to deliver, but doing it on the basis of a single proposal would not be in their financial or resource interest.

Kris' original proposal, that appears to have sparked Philip into making a decision to use the voting tool for bugs as well as new features, does highlight how the voting can actually be circumvented by Linden Lab to suit their own means. They accepted it but said that it's not good enough, you'll need to submit them seperately. What Kris was asking for was a change in the way Linden Lab thinks about its software, so in "accepting" it and then disregarding it they're basically thumbing their nose at that proposal and instead have opted for what they know to be the easier route - force people to have to get bugs to the top of a single list before they have to deal with them. You know I really feel they want to avoid what happened with 1.6 where the community forced their hand to do something and no doubt put the release date back.

I have trouble seeing how it's sensible for a software company to do this, and here I'm coming from a background as a software developer of many, many years managing my own company with it's own developers, support and products - if we were to make such a proposal our customers would hit the roof yet here it's wrapped up in marketing speak and it's accepted. I don't understand that at all. I pay a considerable greater sum of money to Linden Lab than I expect my company's customers to pay yet we're being told that we need to vote in order to get bugs fixed? I wouldn't insult or disrespect my customers in that way. I'm sorry, it makes no sense. But then, my company's basically not in a monopoly situation - it's in a competitive market where we always have one eye on those competitors.

The bug reporting tool does currently exist, you're absolutely right there. Will it exist in 1.7? Dunno. Will people get responses that say "yes, it's a bug, now please start or join in with a proposal on the voting system to get it into our priority mix"? I feel that's a distinct possibility, although I would love to be proved wrong. But currently bug reports don't really get actioned very much, and here I can go back to ghosting again. If the bug reports currently held any sway ghosting would of been dealt with a long time ago, as I've already said. You know as well as anybody how often ghosting was brought up over the months.

Regarding the feature suggestions forum, I don't really see the point of that unless it's to be the place where people put their voting proposal discussions or if Linden Lab will cull suggestions from there to include in the voting system. Again, I don't have any problem whatsoever with features being voted on - I think that's a good decision and is no different than running questionnaires etc. at its core.

If it was a poll and not a priority list, then Philip would not have used the words "priority mix" which he did. Specifically he said this: "Please add any large bugs that you think we should be looking at, so that they can get voted into the priority mix" - that's telling me that bugs won't be dealt with unless they get high in the voting so they can be included in the priority mix. Is my understanding of English so very wrong?

I agree that with respect to bugs, probably 10 votes = 10 proposals might be too little. There are more bugs than features for sure. If we make a separate list for bugs, we could change the weighting to allow more votes/proposals. I'm writing this from home, so haven't had time to talk to anyone else - if it makes sense to have 2 lists, let's do that. It shouldn't be too hard.

In accepting the "fix bugs first" proposal and asking for more detailed bugs to be posted, we wanted to make it clear that getting priority on specific bugs was important and would be helpful. For example, here are some three categories where we have bugs that directly affect users:

- Region crossing stutter with vehicles
- Avatar ghosting/invisible
- Low client FPS caused by inventory sorting

There are all fairly hard problems to fix for a near term release, and honestly I don't have a good feel for what folks would have us fix first. All three of these affect a lot of people. So I'd like to get data of I can. Maybe a separate list for bugs is better, I agree. I just wanted to start getting data.

If anyone has seen examples of companies using voting systems like this to prioritize software work, please send me the references. I don't know of any. I'm sure we'll make mistakes and get everyone mad at the outset, but I think it is worth it to get the data. Please, if you are wondering about our reasons and thinking on this, read "Wisdom of Crowds"... I'm sure there are some cool summaries or excerpts online. The majority of people (and I am sure a majority of our users as well) think that decision making on stuff like features should be left to a few very smart people. What this book shows is that they are wrong - that a diverse 'crowd' of people can, under right conditions, far outpeform any one person. Check it out. I find it amusing that I (CEO of LL) am having to implore you to read this, BTW. Typically the people who are the most unaware and unwilling to accept this fact are the execs.