Police "New in SL" or put the old forums back!

"New in Second Life -
Second Life current events"

I double checked the entry for "New in Second Life" just to make sure there was nothing in there about current real world events, the draft, or the theory that George Bush is similar to Adolph Hitler. Nope...nothing like that in there.

If the intent of removing the General Discusion forums (and the Rant forum) was to eliminate these types of threads (and that is a perfectly understandable objective) then the remaining forums need to be policed at least a few times a day I'd think. The current "hot topic" has been going since 8AM (I guess that's EST) and it's now almost 4PM. Fortunately there are a few people actually interjecting facts into the rumor mongering. They are doing so however by violating the intent of the recent forum changes. I don't feel it right to do so myself. So I sit here and read this drivel and fume.

The common rejoinder these days is that if you don't like something, don't view/participate in it. But when you allow rants and real world topics to be comingled with what is SUPPOSED to be SL news and events that is rather difficult.

So, either (a) put back the General Discussion and Rant Forums, or (b) police the new forum structure the same way you would enforce the TOS rules or lose me as both a forum reader as well as a forum poster. (Well I know that's no great loss, but I suspect others might feel the same way.) I really don't care which of (a) or (b) you do. I enjoyed the GD and Rant forums when there was a level playing field (i.e. anarchy) for all to play in. That's not the case now and I'm majorly pissed.

How bout we just stop breaking the forums every couple of months?

PLease?

LF

*bump*

There is no "or" here, there should be no policing except for the most extreme cases. It saddens me how little value modern society places on essential civil liberties.
Having the old forums back would be nifty. I preferred the first ones, though...

Well, my point was that they seemed to have SOMETHING in mind by eliminating the General Discusion and Rant forums, now those two activities are going on full blast in a forum that was clearly meant for something else, making "New in SL" topics harder to find, and discouraging SOME of us from responding to the Rants (which otherwise I happen to enjoy doing). The signal to noise ratio has gotten worse, not better. If they want to get rid of those activities (as is their right) they need to delete offending threads, and maybe suspend a user or two. If they'd rather not be bothered with monitoring the forums (which sort of seems to be the case) then the best way is to have Rant and GD areas where AT LEAST those activities are somewhat isolated from the more technical and SL related stuff.

Yep.

I'll give everyone a hint: it's going to be a lot easier putting the old forums back than it is policing New in SL.

If LL only has 24 employees, then it's hard to see how they can afford to have one of them policing---or I prefer the term "moderating"--- the forums.

I held that job for a long time in a CompuServe forum back in the day and know it's something you have to stay on top of because you never know what's going to pop up.

Anyway, it seems to me, LL could "semi-hire" about three or four residents (people with long track records as people of reason and calm) to do this job for them in return for some sort of Linden dollar payment or reduction in fees or some other form of remuneration that would be a minimal cost to them.

My two cents.

I back up Maggie's idea....it would be great to allow two or three residents to moderate the forums, and if there were a bonus in L$ payments that would be all the better. I'd happily volunteer, I may be relatively new to SL, but I am an experienced forum moderator.

Larissa

Good idea Maggie. Hire me!
As the second most prolific forum poster, and someone vehemently against censorship, I think I would be the ideal candidate. Unless Darwin also applies

Great idea, Maggie! I apply.

You did that just to annoy me, admit it

I disagree - either hire someone or do not hire someone to moderate the forums.

But please, no "semi-hire" where members have a different status then the rest of us.

[Rant Harangue and Objurgate]

The whole forum restructuring thing is so silly. Nothing has radically changed in the types of posts to the forums. It's just all there for the world to see now in Second Life events instead of rants, off topic and the real world.

I don't see how the Lindens didn't see this happening. They seem to have a blind spot for this stuff. I love SL but this sort of thing worries me. I think it could be nifty to move emotional discussions to fan boards but they have gone about it all wrong.

While I'm ranting and making feature suggestions, the Linden's seem to have a blind spot about land. This is a mystery to me. Linden Lab could be making huge amounts of money from monthly land tier fees if they would double or triple the size of the world. The price of land is white hot. If they released enough land so the least attractive 20% of the world was L1 public land they would make a ton of money and land wouldn't be such an issue.

[/Rant Harangue and Objurgate]

Moving any forums to fan sites is a cop out. I don't wanna go to more than 1 site for my SL forum fix. I want the previous forums back...NOW!