ZOMG! Is the sky falling on the Forums? :)

https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/18259#18259

The real question is - Does anyone in LL other than Lexie realise that one tool does not do all jobs?

oh, yes, by all means, send it to the forums. it's never ever been discussed here. i'm sure it could become a very enlightening discussion with all kinds of new insight. i wonder why no one has ever started a thread about it before...

The nature of the Blog thread isn't the point.
The point is "The Answers site follows a question and answer format, not lengthy discussion"

Lexie Linden's request/suggestion/demand could apply to all discussion of a tech or social issue raised by a Blog posting.

could apply... but has it?

/me grabs her hardhat

i hope you've had time to find another pole, too.

(and i do find it curious that a section clearly titled "Discussions" isn't a good place for discussions... surprised? no. just curious...)

Duuh! Lexie isn't making any comment on the tool, just saying the 'answers' site is for Q&A not discussion!

Lengthy discussion IS allowed in the Commerce Forums, using the same tool, but this is not a commerce subject. When these forums are migrated to the new tool they will still be the place for discussion.

Yeah, we don't need to revisit the topic of that particular blog discussion; however, that post by Lexie gives me the impression that LL is beginning to realize that shunting all of the forum traffic to the blogs, and that using the blogs as a replacement for true forum software is a big...


Methinks this forum might not be going anywhere for a while after all.

Something that's just occurred to me ... you have to log in to see these forums whereas anybody (including potential new customers) can see Second Life Answers. If I was LL, I would preserve these forums just for that reason - so that we have somewhere not _too_ public to air our dirty laundry. "Kid avs in Zindra" threads, and the bunfights they inevitably turn into, don't make a good first impression of Second Life "community".

Absolutely. We need somewhere to air our dirty laundry. And our dirty Smify . . . and our dirty Jig . . . and our dirty Immy . . . and . . .

I think Immy took a bath this morning, she was running aorund nakid..uhm wait never mind, she always runs around nakid.

LOL!

I've just been over there again and what I noticed is that these forums are much more visible from the main site than SLA is. It's really hard to find that section of the website. I lost the page and had to start from the home page again and ended up going all round the houses to get back to SLA. Meanwhile, there's a great big box with a link in the bottom right of the community page, directing people here, as well as a link here from the drop-down menu, visible on every page. Perhaps there's hope for us after all. If they really are going to close these forums, it's strange that they gave us such high visibility in the new web layout.

And where will they send discussions when they close these forums?

It would be nice to think that they will not close these forums, but I do believe they will, its just a question of when. I thought from the time they migrated the xstreet forums to the new format that xstreet regulars were the test bunnies while LL ironed out the problems with the new borums.

So I wont hold my breath in the hope that these forums stay as they are as they (LL) love their new shiny JIVE software

Assuming that's a serious question, the intent is to do unto us what they did unto the XstreetSL refugees: Make a new "discussion forum" similar to the Commerce "forum", and try to herd us all over there by making it impossible to post here. Whenever that happens, of course, any extant threads here will be frozen forever, at best only linkable from the new place--which is perhaps not a huge problem for RA, but many content creation threads quite legitimately live on for years.

So it's a giant snail race against time, really. At some point in the future, inevitably, the Jive stuff will be replaced by the Next Shiny Communications Software. Before that (or not) it will be necessary for a VP to declare the migration to Jive a complete success, thereby meeting their objectives and soliciting Love™.

If we can just stick it out past either of those events, we're home free.

With hindsight, I should have titled the tread something like "Perhaps the Forums will survive?" - which was more my thought.

I think that the new blorum navigation is awful. It's very hard to see the structure of information.
I have a theory that the Dashboard thingie is a model of LL's information management structure.
- no clear drill down
- no sense of relationship of one section to others
- highlighting of a very limited number of recent items simply because they are recent

If you look at the blog thread that I referenced in the OP, there is no indication of where it belongs in the structure, other than the browser address bar saying that it's a thread 'somewhere' in blogs.secondlife.com

Knowing LL, there's not a lot of point in bemoaning the fact that it sucks.

However, it was interesting to see a Linden possible voicing a clue about what works for what type of communication.
If LL see any value to them or us in having a place where extended discussions are better enabled, then perhaps the forums are not in immediate danger.

The point that the extended discussions could take place behind a login is a good one too.

It was. I even asked it over there:

https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/18376#18376

In the spirit of open mindedness I visited the Blogzilla again last night and spent over an hour lurking. I hate it even more now. It's slow, hard to navigate, I keep getting security warnings, I hate the Q and A format. I honestly could not have posted if I wanted to. I had no answers to any of those questions, I rarely do, and I had no questions to ask, as I rarely do. I use forums mostly for social conversations.

If I gave a crap anymore I would suggest that LL just keep this forum as it is as asequestered place for those of us so inclined to jump up and down on the mattress and yell at each other, away from general view. Maybe call it The Speakeasy. You have to know where it is to find it.Everyone else can have their "More Predictable" (tm) online experience.

I did notice that Blue talked about still making the Dashbored customizeable. I hope so. The only part of that thing I have use for is The Account page, if I could remove all that other useless (to me) stuff it would help.

/me primes her ballgag. (^x^)

Speaking of the Dashboard thingie....

At the time of writing this, the top of the list in "Popular Discussions" is the Child Avatar discussion.

It got too popular is all. - so LL locked the most popular discussion.

Echoes of popularity v. traffic-ranking.......

There may be a new market for them.

*Wonders how her logo would look on a ballgag.

I think she was just putting out a grease fire.

An ABC extinguisher is best for that.

I can't point to the posts, but I have heard (and seen) that other discussions were sent over here. Simply because they were discussions instead of simple questions.