Forums getting a new "Conversation Manager"?

Some one new to lie to us. Yay!

Experienced might be a better word.

Why does LL have to speak corporate gibberish? I mean, their gibberish is even more made-up than the rest of the corporate world's gibberish!

Just call it "Customer Feedback Person", PLEEEEZE?

Isn't that a bit of a big assumption, though, Scylla?

I distrust meaningless job titles, I'm afraid. I've been holding conversations with people for years and no one's yet suggested my interlocutors and I need someone to "manage" them for us.

If Wallace is supposed to be in charge of making sure that points are taken up and answered in a timely manner and that all his colleagues are singing from the same hymn sheet, then all well and good, but why not then give him a job title that suggests as much?

Yes, it is an assumption. Or, a hope, if you prefer.

As for the job title, that's just corporate speak, and shouldn't be taken to indicate anything very meaningful. But if you want to analyse it, surely a "conversation" is a two-sided thing? I confess I don't like the term "manager," but that needn't suggest that it is the conversations themselves that are being "managed," does it? "Manager" is generally just a catch-all term for someone with some sort of responsibility and authority in business.

Again . . . this is all speculative, of course. But the INTENT to use this position as a kind of liaison between residents and LL seems to be there. At the very least, I think this is what they want us to believe. And who knows? Maybe it will actually work!

Indeed.

The failure is not in hiring a person to do the job, the failure will once again be in failing to allow them to do the job they were hired for. An experienced person who has logged a whole lot of moderation time and learned how ease anger, gracefully dispatch trolls and build a vibrant community would be welcome. Giving them the authority and tools to do the job would indicate that LL was serious about it this time. Until they either upgrade this forum to the latest VBulletin or kill it altogether, Wallace's hands are tied and his fate lies along the same road as Katt's.

If we walk into this expecting a fail, the odds are that much better that that is exactly what we will get.

It seems to me that we have, generally, been asking for better moderation and more direct communication here for some time. Now LL seems to have, just maybe, responded positively. What do we lose by taking that positive response at face value, and trying to make this work?

It would be terribly ironic and sad if it is WE who end up sabotaging what may be an earnest attempt to establish better communications with residents.

The "Conversation Manager" title is a bit marketingspeak for my tastes.

A repeat of my comments to M on his blog:


If that's what the CM actually is, I'm ok with it but still like my names better. If it's just somebody to police the forums and pimp decisions that LL made, it's a step in the wrong direction.

I wonder if he will manage these forums or the "new" forums. Will he be the one to close this place down.

I don't recall asking for more moderation here. These forums moderate themselves quite well, IMO.

I know she is your sister, but she would probably end up needing to go away or learn how to post something relevant to Resident Answers. The daily (multiple) posts about sex or reflecting her inability to appreciate other people's points of view probably will not sit well with the "Conversation Manager." They likely won't want to hear it.

My feeling exactly.

/me gives Scylla a cookie. You are so cute when you are optimistic.

True

I thought I was optimistic -

/me hand Scylla a crown - and a new set of rose colored glasses - back ups you know, just in case..

Agreed. I liked what you had to say in your response to my post there:




Depends on what one means by "moderation." If we mean merely policing, then I agree. If we mean "facilitating," or acting as a go-between (which is surely the root meaning of "moderator" in this context), then I disagree; we very much need someone here who will both convey what we are saying to LL, and provide some (REAL) explanations of what LL is doing, for us.

Well, someone has to be . . . yeesh!


heh. Well, if this doesn't work, I'll be the first one handing out molotov cocktails on the streets . . .

My problem, I guess, is that conversations generally involve the different parties trying to communicate with each other. The fact that Wallace has agreed to a job title that we both think is "just corporate speak, and shouldn't be taken to indicate anything very meaningful" -- which, in other words, communicates very little about what his job is supposed to be -- isn't, in my view, a good omen, since it suggests a rather cavalier attitude to communication.

When you throw out the royal "we" you lose me. There is no hive-mind "we" that has a consistent opinion on anything to do with SL. Just because a lot of people think X does not mean that there is a community consensus of any kind and certainly doesn't apply to a consensus on the whole of SL. I suspect that when you say "we" you mean any opinion that you agree with and none that you don't.

It's probably true that a properly moderated RA forum would no longer be an appropriate place for the posting of threads about non-SL related subjects, or personal anecdotes and perspectives. And, personally, I'd be fine with that, if it means that this forum again becomes a real conduit for two-way communication with LL.

Ideally, LL would reconstitute a "General Discussion" forum here. Failing that, there IS SLU and SCII.

You may be right about this. I suspect that using corporate-speak in the creation of positions like this is just an automatic reflex. A clearer job title WOULD be reassuring, but, given the prevalence of labels like this one, I wouldn't want to read too much into it.

Much, of course, may depend upon the abilities and intentions of Wallace himself.

You know what they say about the road to hell.

What Wallace intends may be meaningless if he is not allowed to properly do his job, or if his job description is functionally irrelevant to what's going on here or on the various blogs/forums.

Not at all. My use of "we" implies nothing more than the collective community here, with all of its many many disparate viewpoints about things. Communities can be communal without falling prey to the hive mind. Our notions of liberal democracy are based on the idea that there can be unity in diversity. Indeed, I'd argue that a truly civil society is strengthened by diversity.

The whole point of a forum is DISCUSSION: the working out, through conversation and the exchange of differing opinions, of ideas. For a "forum" to work properly, differing viewpoints are not merely a desideratum, they are an absolute necessity.

There are different and more effective ways than a venue like this to present set and established "positions." That's never been how I've viewed this forum.

Which I did, in IM, I sent Wallace Linden (born 31Dec2009 by the way) this message:

"Hi Wallace, welcome to Second Life. We are naturally curious about what "Conversation Manager" will mean to us residents. Remembering that over half of the SL population is from outside the US and is not fluent in corporate-speak, could you give a simple description of what you actually will be doing?"

Whether he responds at all to my IM, and what he says in response will be telling. Even no answer at all will tell us something.

Of course.

I'm not sure, though, what we gain by dismissing what COULD be a legitimate attempt to establish a channel for communication before we've had any opportunity to judge its efficacy. Again, if we begin from the assumption that this is going to fail, we are doing nothing more than contributing to the likelihood that it will do exactly that. Why not give this a guarded "benefit of the doubt," and see if we can make it work? I'm not suggesting that we suspend our critical faculties, merely that we take a less judgmental approach from the outset.