Who is it who needs to know?

Posted at 11:36 a.m. today on the Status blog:-

Posted approximately 2 hours later:-

Almost 2 hours of risky rezzing and transactions and who didn't they tell? The people who were logged in - the very people who actually needed to know.

This stupidity is nothing new - it's common. I despair of Linden Lab ever being able to do anything right.

who watches them making the watchmen? ;0

i understand though... i wonder if it wasn't an overblown format-response though by now to the 'tp's not working' call probably placed a handful of hours ago now. noticed it myself today...

if tp's aren't working, then shoot maybe probably estimate currency transfers could be suspect too. not like that's any way to run a country, but...

considering the state of the world, checking up on such things doesn't seem so abnormal quite right now.

You mean everyone doesn't run their twitter feed inworld to get the status blog updates?

i would venture to guess that of the 72k logged in at any one time, only about 1/3 even know there is a blog to check. they really need to do an inworld blue box pop up with this info.

I can guess at the thought process.

An in-world message about transactions looks bad.

However, there's no downside to a bunch of failed transactions and lost objects. The failed transactions are disputes between residents, in which Linden Lab takes no interest; anyone complaining about a lost object can be pointed to the TOS, where Linden Labs denies responsibility for lost data.

The reason for taking grid status off the blog, and putting it on a different, obscure domain was to cut down on the number of people who could see the actual grid status, wasn't it?

I'm not sure I understand the problem. Even when I had a clunky older computer that barely ran SL, I could still have a browser window open. I think the programs took turns with the CPU or something. SL certainly used a lot of hard drive virtual memory, but it still worked with a web browser.

So anyone in world could check the status page at any time it seems to me.

I run across tons of people in-world who don't even know about the forums....nevermind anything else on SL's web page.

But ya know.....I'm gonna have to play devils advocate here. I always check the grid status....I made sure I familiarized myself with the web page when I got involved with SL. I concluded....logically.....that any pertinant information would be available via the main web page.....and it's really not a hell of a problem to open up a web page while I'm in world and check to see if things are wiggy. I like to think of myself as a relatively intelligent and logic minded individual. If I can find an answer myself....I don't expect it to be spoon fed to me.
That isn't to say that everyone who is uninformed expects that.....but come on....if people are smart enough to get in-world and figure out SL.....then they can navigate the web page and find out all kinds of answers to basic questions. People aren't idiots....and maybe LL likes to operate under that assumption. Maybe they're wrong a lot of the time....but then again....it's getting to the point where people are going to be pretty computer savvy at birth.

And...in defense of my devils advocate stance.....I used to work in customer service for a large corp. that used a web page as one of it's main sources of information for it's member/customer base. Things were laid out pretty clearly .... and the types of people using this site were business professionals. Yet.....daily we would get phone calls with THE craziest questions.....simply because people were too lazy to navigate a couple menus and find the answer themselves. It provided a lot of laughs for us, but it also used up a lot of time and energy on our part......that should have been focused on solving more critical customer issues. In this regard, I feel for LL...I really do.

Ok...you can throw rotten fruit now....I'm putting on plastic...

They need to have an Emergency Broadcast Crawl at the bottom of the screen when you're inworld...

# RISKY REZZING ### DO NOT BUY! ### RISKY REZZING ### DO NOT BUY! #

The problem with relying solely on the Status blog is that, probably miost users are unaware of its existance, and those user who know about and who even keep it open in abrowser can and will fall fould of problems like today. Who is going to refresh the page every 5 minutes?

There is no excuse for LL not to make those announcement inworld. No excuse whatsoever. The people who need to know are there.

The problem with relying solely on the Status blog is that, probably most users are unaware of its existance, and those users who know about it, and who even keep it open in a browser, can and will fall foul of problems like today. Who is going to refresh the page every 5 minutes?

There is no excuse for LL not to make those announcements inworld. No excuse whatsoever. The people who need to know are there.

That would be cool, not all after the fact and mishaps.
oh wait ... We get those blue dialogs, all after the fact and mishaps.

yes i suppose i should have known to keep a browser window open, hammering the refresh button just in case there was something posted about financial transactions being risky.
of course ll could also send a grid-wide message as well. if its important enough to be posted why wouldnt they?

I have taken to wearing the grid status hud for that very reason. And no, I don't mean the mysti plugin, that is useless to me. I mean the RSS feed reader.

Why should we have to?When I run SL, I shut down everything, inclusing Windows Explorer. I don't need an open browser window. SL is the product we are using, a service that many people PAY to use. Why must people jump through hoops and make like Maxwell Smart walking through a bunch of doors in order to get essential information about the product? I'm with Phil. There's no excuse.

So instead of sending a global message, I need to open and refresh the status page browers every time I make a transaction or rez an item?

Somebody should make a little round hud that changes from green to orange to red and which flashes when there's a major warning, all tied in to the status page. And click it to see that page in a browser.

I don't know if this is the same one, Cristalle, but I wear it all the time. I got it as a freebie when Simon was still tweaking it. It's only L$1:

http://xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=672489

That device is pretty close to what you're describing, Osprey. It doesn't change color, but you can click it to open a browser window for more info.

Great! Although I don't need it, I bet lots of people do.

neato misquito!! :0

meantime, seen worse days... not to be an apologist, but really... you youngsters!! ;0 (oh shit, did i just wrap around?? ;0 )

But it's annoying that we have to go to all that trouble when an inworld warning message (or crawl) is more reliable and universal.

And it's even more annoying that apparently the only reason it doesn't happen, is a decision to white-wash the company's image. (I know I've seen such messages inworld in the past---so it would seem that the decision to put Image ahead of the actual welfare of the company's customers is a recent one.)

Interesting. I've seen some ladies in the Amsterdam sim who should be wearing those same banners.

I lean towards a different reason for it - the person writing the Status post simply can't be bothered to spend the 2 minutes to tell the people who need to know. And who ends up spending a load of time because of that idiot's decision? All the people who bought and didn't receive - they each spend time searching their inventories for the item(s), then spend more time finding out who to write to (the store owner), and writing to him/her. Then they wait......... wondering if they'll ever get the item(s) they paid for - sometimes for days or more. Then the store owners spend time checking if the sales actually went through, and more time contacting the buyers, often not being online at the same time. And then they deliver the item(s). And all that time is wasted because one idiot of a Linden couldn't be bothered to spend 2 minutes sending out a message to people who need to know.

No wonder they don't put the name of the Linden who posted on the Status blog. We have no way of knowing who the idiot is.

Another problem with all of this:

The amount of time the problem exists before anybody says anything anywhere. Even on the status page.

It's really helpful when transactions have been failing for an entire hour before they bother to put it on the status page. Even if you do have the RSS reader that's an entire hour where it won't alert you to the problem because the problem doesn't exist as far as the reader is concerned.

Why the long delay before posting it? This coupled with the fact that they never say anything in-world anymore, yes, it's pathetic and we should expect better, shouldn't we?

is this a trick question?

LOL!

If the status page is operating like the forum has been for the past week, it won't matter anyway.