Why oh Why

I posted a question in the scripting forum and less than 30 minutes later I had my answer. This is typical of nearlly every post I've made. Why oh why doesn't LL promote the forums more rather than treat us like the ugly stepchild. Is it ego?

My guess would be that it's because LL cannot/doesn't want to commit the resources needed to properly moderate this place so they view it as being sort of out of their control; not a "predictable experience" if you will. Also promoting the forums as a valuable asset and adjunct to the actual world of Second Life kind of undermines the view that SL is a wondrously flexible communication tool suitable for all manner of things, and shouldn't need help in the form of old-fashioned 2D forums.

We're too predictable..

I think it would be interesting to try promoting the content fora ourselves, actually. For example:

> Design a nice poster promoting the "tips" fora and ask the managers of the following great places to put it up, most of whom have been seen here at one time or another:

(list editted as per subsequent posts)
--- NCI (Carl Metropolitan)
--- The Shelter (FireEyes Fauna)
--- The Free Dove (Palomma Casanova)
--- The Particle Lab (Jopsy Pendragon)
--- Ivory Tower of Prims (Lumiere Noir)
--- Dublin's great lineup of tutorials (Kaimi Kyomoon)
--- Texture Tutorial and Library (Robin Sojourner)

> Contact the instructors of building and scripting classes and give them some text to add to their "teaching buddy" text and notecards.

Talking points to include in all promotional material:
-- ANY resident can post a question
-- Responses typically are posted within minutes
-- There are sub forums for non-English-speakers
.

I often point questions to the forums.... there's a wealth of info here and in other threads, maybe inworld we tend to forget the forums. Easier to give a direct answer than have the questioner do a bit of work on their own?

--- Texture Tutorial and Library (Robin Sojourner)

I love the tips forums, I've gone there for script help, and I am in the texturing tips forum a lot. Some very knowledgeable people are there.

Speaking for NCI, we have links and referrals to the forums in our basic set of SL Help Notecards in the appropriate subject areas. The forums are also referenced as a resource in a number of our classes, too. However, I'd be happy to display this sort of poster, as well.

However on your contacts, please note that FireEyes Fauna is now in charge of the Shelter and Lumiere Noir runs the Ivory Tower.

All this makes sense to me, but the point about them not wanting to undermine SL by admitting that a plain-old 2D Forum can be helpful, is particularly striking.

The shiny is just irresistible, and the Forums now has two layers of dust from successive generations of shiny blog software.

It's also interesting that the new "SL Answers" thing is being tried out by the Mentors now, without any involvement from--nor even communication with--the relevant forums, including Resident Answers.

(I can imagine a whole range of explanations for how that disconnect came to be.)

In any case, at the moment this new Clearspace blog software looks shinier than the Forums. Of course, when it was new, the Wordpress blog looked shinier than the Forums, too. But the forums are still here, after Wordpress is a fading memory. And the shiny new Clearspace "discussion" feature is pretty much a bust, lacking all the relevant features for managing discussions that are native to even this crufty old version of forums software.

One can see why the Forums might not get promoted (nor updated) as long as its very existence distracts from the shininess of whatever is the current shiny thing.

Thanks. Oddly, that's the part I thought was maybe a bit of a stretch but couldn't be bothered to backspace over it.

No, it's PR.
Their "corporate image" doesn't like having a resident area that's so close to secondlife.com. One that's filled with really perceptive people, one that doesn't hesitate to catch them at EVERY stoopid thing they do, and one that will discuss/debate/rant/boil over their bad decisions for ages. If they can't/won't pay to have it sanitized for corporate consumption, they'll just bury it by not talking about it.

Thanks Carl! Fixing the list now... and I didn't know that about the NCI source material. Excellent!

I'll try to whip together a poster, and start a new thread for comments. Given my completely lame graphics skills, what I'll be really hoping for is someone to look at my feeble offering, take some of the text, and do a good one
.

You know, forums of any place are second-rate and slower to the chat rooms.
The chat rooms in this case being in-world of course, cause after all SL is a 3D chat room. Well many...

And for that scritping thing - people at NCI Kuula would probably know a lot of stuff, there are some serious SL nerds there.

It was dead on the money. Torley was praising the virtues of vid tutorials and FAQ'a the other day. I sent a message stating that FAQ's and vids are alright but do not answer really technical questions in any kind of depth or tailored for all circumstances, you need forums for that. Please name one high end program without an active forum?

The reply skipped over all the relevant parts and gives a glimpse of how LL thinks:


So that's it in a nutshell, this is all forums are, just places for "wild discussions".
Anyone notice that there has not been even one single mention of a forum upgrade again in a few months now? An upgrade that we were once again finally excited about when they announced the blog/forum changes? Now it is just blog changes, in the singular and maybe a mention of the "answers" thingy.

EDIT:corrected speeling