Forum Facelift!!!!!!!!!!!!

SL is very good at sunshine pumping

If there are volunteer mods ..

NONE should Moderate under their normal account names .. give them each a dummy account for it.

If possible don't even tell the volunteer mods who the other volunteers who were chosen are. This will help in case a mod posts themselves on some subject in their normal account. To avoid favoritism.

I for one welcome our new Linden Overlord.

I am glad she did
(it showed me that either my name was missed or tossed aside heh)

When I saw the blog post at first I thought they were finally turning BBcode back on. darn

Yep, compared to newsgroups where people track each others post headers so they can track each other down to post real life details and anything you might have typed anywhere else on the internet.

this thread makes me feel nostalgic

...and abandoned.

...and necroposted.

P2

Last update about this was early June:

/341/4f/250134/11.html#post2022263

I guess every society needs its myths.

`


But don't worry I'm sure Kapor looks at his LLabs underlings the same way.

M Linden did it, with the lead pipe in the study.

If there was any doubt about LL being out of touch with how to manage it's customer base, this should quell such fantasies. I'm glad we have a new Linden at the helm, and very happy that the forums are about to get a (much-needed) makeover.

BUT.

Take a good look at the list of reasons LL considered for closing down the forums.



Let me dissect this list, in the mind of someone who has been wandering around forums for different game companies for a good many years now.

- Linden Lab has other ways to communicate and gather feedback
Yes, and LL should use those ways. However, a forum allows discussion, and I'm willing to wager those 'other ways' do not.

- people aren’t always very nice to each other
People should be nice to each other, but that's not a reason to shut down a forum. That's a reason to warn, bounce and/or ban a miscreant.

- there are other forums run by Second Life Residents
Yes, there are. How many of them are read by LL as a source of information on the wants of the user base? I'd wager it's a damn low percentage.

- we don’t have the staff to manage the discussion at the level we think is needed
Probably the only item that comes close to a legitimate reason, but most game forums I've hung out in were player-moderated, not game-company moderated. You'd have the staff if a few Lindens hung out in here and participated more regularly than they do, because they'd know who the good people are for those volunteer positions.

- people should interact in Second Life rather than on the website
Oh, come on now. Forums are meant for this type of discussion and interaction, and they belong on websites! You folks do realize many of us use computers during the day that cannot run SL, nor is it appropriate to install and run that software where we happen to be (work environments, libraries, university kiosks, etc.).

I get the feeling some people at LL have no idea at all what a game forum should really be for, or how LL can best use it to their advantage. The forums are necessary, not just for the old hats but for new people as well - and I'm glad they are staying. I'd have shook my head in disbelief if they had been shut down with any or all of these notions as the reason given.

Ghosty.. this was the reason we lost the General and a couple other areas of the forums:



They only banned a handful of people in this forum's history. LL did not like reading the negative things residents were saying about them as a company or SL as a product. So rather then listen to and respond to those issues.. they just shut down the voice. that is why you will see older posters sometimes have an LL hand logo over their mouth. It was a time period that hurt many long term residents as it was the first big "we don't want to hear you" statement by LL.

Resident Answers was brought out as a test. The rules were way too tight for too long and I would bet you are seeing them rules lax some now so Katt and co. can monitor how people react/respond to each other these days. I even think some threads are left open for that purpose as it is a reflection of a General area.

So, LL would deifinetly kill the whole forum for that reason above. They almost did already.. they just let a little release come in through RA so that residents could help each other to save on LL support.

LL does not treat this like a game forum. It is 100% at their pleasure in their mind and they will pull the plug when the negative seems to outweigh the positives. Even if it is at the hands of a minority of negatives that just speak louder then the rest.

Amazing. Thanks for the history lesson, Macphisto. I'm sort of glad I missed out on those times, as I probably would have left SL altogether, and I'm likely right in assuming that many did.

These guys could take a big lesson from EA. The Ultima Online forums have been going strong for years because they are not only have a volunteer moderator force, but because their 'lindens' have their developer discussions *right in the forums themselves* where everyone can see what the designers are thinking. There's a lot of players that have had impact on the shape of the game, as much as the developers have had at times. While that game has things going wrong for it, their community is spot on and it's because of the forums they have.

It's a shame LL doesn't see this.

yep.. LL is missing out on a great resource from these forums. They decided blogs were far better at communication. Nevermind they cap the responses at 150 (usually dominated by the same people/topic everytime) or close comments all together.

LL only likes positive vibes and happy thoughts. It is almost scary. lol

We will see what happens here for the future. You had good thoughts on your rebuttals to the reasons.

Oh, and Ghosty. If you want to see a fun video that show ancient SL history check this link:

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/other-grids-virtual-worlds/13902-lindenworld-august-2001-moving-water.html#post301478

It surfaces every so often and is always fun to watch.

Not sure about the other *forums*, but Lindens do read other blogs, and the comments folks leave on those blogs. Evidently they follow those rather more closely than they do these forums. How I know this:

Although I try to stay fairly positive--or at least constructive--in what I say about SL and LL (at the cost of being forever a "fanboy" in some accounts), I apparently disparaged LL's communications, in a comment to some SL5B-related blog post somewhere. Of all the things I've written about SL in these forums or in LL's own blog comments, that one post to a third-party blog was the only thing that ever prompted a Linden to ask me about what I said.

(Which is not to say that Lindens should be posting here or discussing every gripe residents may vent. A glance at the forum archives shows that, when Lindens regularly posted here, they were often treated unfairly--rather like the current official blog responses, only moreso. None of that really led to a better experience in-world nor in the forums, so it's not like it was a rich communications opportunity lost.)

Also, Ghosty, if you want to see how bad it got, go to the bottom of the SL forums and look for Archived. The General Discussions are there... in all their flame bait glory.

Irony: I am the last poster to that forum, in a post concerning them closing the General Discussion forums. Nowhere was there an IBTL in that post.

Edit: Not enough caffieeeennneeee....

You weren't aware some people here were and have been drooling and having wet dreams over being named forum mods? After all this time and the many, many, oh, so many threads about their wanting to be moderators? You're kidding.

The entire bunch, all mod-wannabes. I never could figure out what the infatuation was/is over wanting to oversee the forums. To be able to close down threads at their whims?

But you know what they say, some folks get turned on by the slightest things.

The official forums are no longer FIC enough for them and presumably the blogs are

You know what they say...Power is one of the greatest aphrodisiacs