How long will Wallace Linden Last?

What does LL expect, really, when hiring a known quantity like that? Good God.

Amateurs.

ZING

Damn, you are good. LMAO

The evolution of the blog comments is kind of interesting. Blue moderated with a fairly light hand, even leaving in the entire bile-laden comment that I quoted the 'vomit' line from. But this morning, it appears that someone else has come along and removed everything that's over the top.

That still leaves a fair number of negative, but at least polite, comments. Unlike you, Brenda, I've always felt that LL tolerates dissent fairly well. They have, however, been pretty consistently insisting on civility in the blogrums.
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I think they've ignored it more than tolerated it. It's been relegated to this forum, which they rarely visit. But once it gets whacked , they will not want it on their nice , shiny, more predictable, business friendly website. It just won't scale.

FULL

While maybe we are a bit hard on him, it's a reaction to getting nothing but lies and lip service from them for so long, from the call for ResMod Volunteers, Katt's redacting and disemvoweling, to the "New" forum with outsourced moderators that was supposed to appear "In October". They've done nothing but bullshit the users of this forum for as long as I've been around.

Well, I doubt they see it that way since root cause analysis has never been their strong suit.

I'd say that everyone could criticise LL for yet again doing the wrong thing in creating an inappropriate role and then being hurt when we don't tell them how wonderful they are for getting it wrong again but his suitability can't be questioned because we don't actually know what his role is - except that it's safe to say that it isn't what we think/hope it is.

I must say the line about the blog post on the future of the forum doesn't bode well. Yet if he's about third party communications mechanisms and marketing then I don't understand why the forum is on his list. It will certainly be interesting to see what the next few weeks bring.

I think, from reading his initial post, that his role is to communicate and 'spin' Linden events and actions to SL residents via the website and related social networking tools.

So, changes in the forums would be the type of action that he would be responsible for helping to publicize and position to SL residents. I doubt he's looking to forums as a tool he himself would use (whether blogrum or VB based), because they are for resident-resident communication. His natural tools would be blogs, email, twitter, plurk, etc.. I doubt he'll have any moderating role here.

Since his target audience is SL residents, he shouldn't be dealing much with mainstream media either, I would think. But given his lack of farewells on blogs he writes for, perhaps LL has agreed to let him continue to write on general VW topics while employed? Puzzling.
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Actually, I agree with you Nika in having the sense that LL can be, sometimes, extraordinarily tolerant of dissent. Try to imagine Coca Cola, say, or Disney tolerating the open expression of the kinds of things that are often posted here or elsewhere on what is, in essence, LL "property."

I also have to say, and with all respect due to Briana, who I think meant it to be "funny" rather than nasty, that I think that the poll on Wallace's potential longevity should be removed. Critiquing LL is one thing: speculating publicly, even in jest, about the continuing employment of an individual employee, and a brand new one at that, crosses a line. It is in effect, if not in intention, mean-spirited and even perhaps threatening.

I am less disturbed by the removal of posts from Wallace's blog post than I am by Blue's reminder that a violation of the "rules" of the blogs can lead to in-world bans. The one removes posts that probably do violate the rules of civil discussion; the other introduces an explicit threat and "chill" to the discussion that will have the effect of having us all second-guessing ourselves about what we can, or cannot, say.

I don't think the polls here CAN be removed or changed, can they?

By moderators, yes; not, unfortunately, by the original poster. It may well mean the removal of the entire thread, which is too bad, as some worthwhile things have been said here.

What open dissent? Th only people who see it here are SL users. And up until a couple of years ago, you had to be PIOF to eve read this forum. What other LL "property" is there that is viewable to the general public?

Well, "open" is, I suppose, relative. The forums and blogs are "open," in theory at least, to hundreds of thousands of current users. Dissent here may not be affecting the recruitment of new users, but I don't think that there is any question that it impacts upon in-world culture. I suspect, for instance, that LL would have been able to "manage" the whole Zindra thing much more easily had it not been for the steady building of a consensus of opposition here and on the Xstreet forums. A less tolerant regime would have shut down those discussions; a "smarter" one would have squelched them from the first signs of simmering discontent.

I'm not trying to make LL look saintly here. And I do think that LL is becoming more and more prone to an intolerance of open dissent. But I think most objective outside observers would be astonished by what this private corporation tolerates on their own pages.

A smarter one would have listened to its customers.

A smarter one might try to figure out what has created such a hostile atmosphere.

That's a point in favour of LL keeping the Forums going.
People *will* find a way of blowing off steam.

If they do it here - sort of 'within the family' - then the outside won't see it.
If there is no outlet for the steam in here, then everything goes out in the open.


Perhaps LL believe that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Yep.

God knows, I'm not accusing LL of "smartness." But for whatever reason -- hell, it may just be incompetence and laziness -- they do allow some pretty nasty stuff about themselves and their employees on these forums, anyway.

Interestingly, though, I see from Prok's blog that he has been permabanned from the SL Blogs, presumably for threatening Blue with a lawsuit should he find himself facing punitive action in-world.

Not good. Not good at all.

"Smart" is not to be used with business when LL is involved. It's not like we haven't used a lead pipe on a regular basis alongside the clue x 4.

Most software I have ever used has had a forum set up. Even some hardware sites offer forums for comments and reviews of the product. The official SL forums are very mild compared to many I have seen.

Once Wallace was introduced as a public figure, he became fair game. If he can't handle the heat, maybe he shouldn't take a job in the kitchen.

Well, there's no indication that he can't, yet. As a former Herald writer/editor, he is probably pretty well inured to flaming.

I am not declaring him "off limits" to criticism: for instance, I think that Prok's criticism of Wallace's connections to the Herald is entirely valid (although I wish he could have expressed it a bit more civilly). But there are ways and ways of saying things, and kinds of criticism that, because they don't really have any bearing on Wallace's job here, aren't really valid. As for instance, implicitly threatening to make Wallace's professional life so miserable that he ends up quitting or being fired in 6 months or less.

I think it is now abundantly clear that dissent is no longer welcome on LL web properties. Air dissent at your own risk on LL web properties.

If you have something to say then perhaps it needs to be said where google goes anyway.

Try the WoW forums, Star Trek online, good grief they're up in arms over Klingons only being good for PvP and the ebay forums are a serious bout of heavy criticism. These forums are tame by comparison.

^This. There are ways, and ways, of saying things. A full frontal attack is rarely the way to encourage discourse. If you want someone to talk with you, be someone they can actually talk and exchange ideas with. Not just put up a defense. We actually don't know yet which Wallace is. The full on attacks started before he even opened his mouth. I don't know anything about the Herald thing and to be honest I really don't care. If I had a book to sell I'd want to sell it too.

I have been shopping for a new desktop, some of the flames on the manufacturer forums would turn LL into a cinder.

Yup.

And yet those places continue to have forums.

Ok, fair enough. I still can't think of many instances when a post or thread was removed from here merely because it criticized LL.

On the other hand, the apparent perma-ban of Prok from the Blogs for his comments there is NOT a good sign of LL's future attitude towards free speech.

That is because those places realize the value of having forums that they can control. If people are posting their flames there, then chances are, they aren't spreading it for the world to see. Basically, even flames on another forum or blog can count as "word of mouth."

If Wallace knows and understands this, that will do LL a lot of good, because the word of mouth I've been hearing hasn't been too good. Especially when it's "LL doesn't really care about it's residents."