Fix the forums now or tell us why not !!!!!!!!

I think there will be a means to get information more on a google-type search system. Chat forum does validate certain people BUT 99% of sl users never come here anyway. Only a limited few have even heard of the forum. Go in world and check on that if you dont beleive me. In fact most peopel I ever met had never heard of age validation or teens in sl or much else that we here seem overly concerned about.

Do you build or script, Jig? I often search the content forums and find answers to questions. Most of what is in the content forums is NOT ephemeral.

Also, RA is the only place I know of where you can find good information on glitches, drivers, etc. for specific graphic cards.

There is a wealth of knowledge here, and it will be a pity if it is shoved into a dead (and possibly unsearchable) archive.
.

The forums are tremendously helpful, Jig. In less than a year I have progressed from being a complete and utter ignoramus to being a thoroughly opinionated ignoramus, thanks almost entirely to the fund of advice and resources here.

Which is nice.


Oooh, Missus. That's a bit harsh, innit?

Just because your own contributions are self-serving, ephemeral and inconsequential doesn't mean that others aren't useful and interesting.

Pie (If you don't feel wanted you may be right for a change)

Jig had an opinion, Pie, which is no excuse to carp at her.

And what is it with you and these feckin brackets anyway?

Ephraim Kappler roars laughing.

Like others have said the content creation forum is invaluable. It would be tragic if all that information and contribution was lost.

I also think resident answers serves a purpose. I know the "is it cheating" type of social questions are a lot of fun to people that have been around a while. However virtual worlds are relatively new and people can get surprised and or confused by the new types of social interaction. There should be a place to ask questions on social subjects.

Oh its you.
I'm off.
I rest my case.

One change LL could make is to add a Welsh forum for Welsh people to talk amongst themselves.

Yes, it's him, but he has a point. Just because YOU don't use this forum as intended, to give and receive HELP, doesn't make it inconsequential fluff.

I expressed a relevant and valid opinion.

Pie (Parentheses, please)

If you really feel that way, you ought to switch to New Lively.

Jig.

Whether or not the forums are "really necessary", as you asked, doesn't matter. The forums are very useful and help people a lot. If it's a fact that 99% of users don't come here, as you said, then that also doesn't matter because the forum is extremely useful to the 1% of users who do come here. However, I suspect that far more than 1% of users come here. Many or most may not post, but - and it's a big but - they do know that there's a forum here where they can get answers if they ever find they need answers. A person doesn't have to be a regular poster, or a regular lurker, to find a great deal of benefit in the forums being here.

Example:
I'm a regular RA poster now but I wasn't always. I had a question, and someone, who never used the forum, suggested that I asked here, so I did. I got a quick answer, so it was very useful. I may not have come back until the next time I had a question that I couldn't find the answer to elsewhere, BUT in all that time I would have known that the forum is here, and that I can get answers quickly if the need arises. Very useful!

I'd go further than that. 99.99% of users don't compile the viewer source either, yet it's vitally important to 100% of users that 0.01% do. That only 1% participate in the forums, if true, is no argument that such participation isn't crucial.

"Yesterday is irelevent [sic] to electric 'organisms'" is just silly. Sure, my toaster isn't very nostalgic, but even Rodney Brooks' dopey little insect-minds are "situated" and hence not completely stateless. The line is just a compulsive troll-for-effect, intentional or otherwise.

And that poster does give "help"? Gimme a break.

Respectful disagree. Not trolling. In sl we are "electronic". I know a human types our words etc. But essentially the character who "plays" us is a corpus of pixils. In that regard (not trolling - but trying to understand what makes us "us" in this cyberspace) we dont have a history as a lateral line of "beginning to end" (if we even accept THAT as a human cultural sense of our past). The sl world flies to quickly to create a definition - unless it is a corporation's "books" at end f year. We, as beings, come and go with impunity. If we have a history at all its of discos, disappearing malls and alts replacing alts. That's not history. That's fast-food social life. That's fine with me. Information is soon redundant at high speed in this "space". Our history is as essential to our existence as text messages on my mobile. Hardly relevant. And often ignored.

We can't have a "history" because we dont share a commonality - do we accept this is a "culture"? If so then what are our antecendents? Our shared cultural past? Our inbuilt respect for one another? Our investment for those who follow us? Our history is at teh mercy of Lindens. We dont MAKE our history. I dont know which culture you come from but it IS a culture with its history, so regardless, you, as a human are a link in teh chain of your family/society/genesis. Here we are blips and electronic zazz. I am no more responsible for you or you for me here than if we were cds on a shelf. Nothing more or less. We must not confuse what we do here with what is essential to our real humanity.

Jig: if I raise my hand in SL to point to a building, and ask you "what is that"... do you say?

* A building!
* Your hand!
* Pixels!
* Five pounds of flax!

???

lolwut????????????
Jeez Jig, SL does not come with an instruction manual. We have several years of instructions on how to build, Texture, Animate and Script. We also go to lengths to teach people how to use other programs such as Gimp, PS, Maya, 3ds Max, Scite, Notepad++ etc, etc, etc. This is a resource which would take years to replace and some of it never would be. We already learned this lesson with the wiki, the old wiki still has to be referenced.

The lolcats and jokes and banter and fights and grid status questions and even technical questions such as best graphics card can be replaced and if this is all you use the forum for then you can not make a blanket statement saying it is disposable.

*shrugs* If you are so determined that the learning that takes place in the forums is worthless, that SL is a completely ephemeral experience, and that the interactions here are not essential to your humanity (a very high standard indeed!), then I respectfully suggest that you spend your time in places which have more value to you.

Personally, I value the humans I meet here and in SL, and I view the teaching/learning that takes place in the content fora as greatly enhancing my experience.

I understand your position well, and respect it. I just wonder why you spend so much of your time fomenting long contentious content-free threads in a place where you regard the people you are interacting with as not more than "blips and electronic zazz".

If you are doing it simply to keep yourself entertained, then you are trolling.

As imperfect as it is, I enjoy this forum, probably more than SL itself for the most part. I see a lot of helpfulness, humor, bickering, drama, and all the things that humans do. Everyone here shares at least a common interest in SL, and that is what makes a it a community. Some friendships have been forged that don't leave here, but many have moved in world, and even into Real Life.

This forum is a valuable asset to SL I think, and deserves to be put in full working order, and tended to. Or it needs to be totally disbanded. To keep it in it's current state is just an embarrasment. I know if SL were my product, I wouldn't allow it.

LL has basically run the gamut of contempt for it from ignoring, patronizing, bungling and outright lying to us in regards to the forum. it is a shame. As proven by their history LL chooses the path of least resistance, so I fully expect to see this forum done away with eventually. About all we can hope for is that they take their usual 10 times longer than they announce to do anything.

How childish of you. "waaahhhhh but what about himmmmm???!!???1111"

So what if HE doesn't give help and is just a troll like you. It doesn't take two eyes to see that there are many people here that do give help and use the forum as intended. You may not troll to intentionally irritate people, but you are just a troll nonetheless and you have no right to diminish the forum and the contributions of other posters because it doesn't suit your purposes.

I hear they're going to replace the forums with a Google Group.

I not only have benefitted immensely from what I've learned about techniques on this forum, I've seen a vast number of products that use those same techniques.

The forum improves the SL experience for the typical resident, even those who never come here, because they use products that are better because of what their makers learned here.

I've certainly seen a lot of products with scripts that came from here; sometimes with customizing mods, more often, verbatim.

I have a hard time understanding how an intelligent and insightful person could serioulsy question the value of these forums.

Last I heard that's what they're going to replace mentors with while keeping greeters around to say hello to new residents and to point them to the the support board when they are utterly confused as most new residents are.

Even though I pride myself on getting the inside dirt on LL and it's plan (which I shamelessly spread publicly) everyone inside the giant green hand is staying mum on what the exact plans are for the forums it seems which is annoying since while we wait LL is neglecting the current forums by firing the resmods and refusing to appoint new resident resmods and making empty plans.

I hear they're going to sell us to the Krull Armada in exchange for a five percent discount on sentient currency futures.

Listen. There's a good explanaton as to why the forums are so bad recently. LL moved the forums to an ultra new PC they just purchased. It's a 286 running an amazing 24 MB of RAM. That's right... a whole 24 Mb of RAM!