Forum Facelift

There are enough forums out there that you dont need to concern yourself with a linden one. Let the communication come in-world. Good Luck with everything!!!
www.slmediasource.com

My 2 cents:

Don't forget that by opening up a General Forum, or allowing General-type discussion to go on, you are intentionally/unintentionally creating a forum social community. Even though the forum we've been currently living in is called "Resident Answers", all types of conversation has been intermittently allowed, and a social community has indeed formed (Again).

Unless you're going to enforce thorough, 24/7 moderation policies, and have the commitment to back it up with Liason resources, Linden has *no buisness* running a social forum, and should be leaving that to the 3rd party community who has all of the time & none of the liability to ensure that new folks get a positive impression of SL.

I'm genuinely impressed that you've tagged Katt Linden to moderate these forums - I think that's a massive step in the right direction. However, unless Katt is an insomniac that can watch over us 24/7 - I think she'll need some help.

You could tag Resident Moderators to help Katt... but history has shown that that's not a very good idea either - because the actions resident moderators have to take to do their job invariably upset those being moderated - which results in a negative affect upon that resident moderator's in-world reputation. Frankly, its just not a fair position to put a ResMod in - regardless of their noble willingness to help. (ResMod Pseudonyms might be a way to fix that problem )

I think the most important question Linden needs to answer for us & itself, is whether they truly want to support a forum Social Community under the secondlife.com domain name. If the answer is Yes, then make sure that community is sufficiently moderated. If the answer is No, then you need to clearly route us to 3rd party forums.

Up until now, we've been receiving a mixed message: On the one hand, you want social conversations to go on at 3rd party forums, but on the other hand, you've taken few if any steps to stop the formation of a social community here. Ultimately, I think the success or failure of this new plan depends upon a consistent message - which is spoken not only by your blog posts, but by how you end up moderating as well.

Closing the forums would be a really bad move.
It's good to know that this is not Plan.A.

I've learnt a huge amount from discussions here. I've learnt many things that are not in the Knowledge Base.

It's clear from recurring questions that some basic information is not getting to enough people via the "other ways to communicate". This is not to say that most of the basic information does not exist elsewhere. It's just that many times, something explained in a different way and/or in greater detail and/or accurately(!) suddenly becomes more clear.

A problem with a channel like a Knowledge Base is that the content tends to be a collection of static brain-dumps. It may grow, but in general things don't get revisited often.
Knowledge Bases also tend to focus on the way things are assumed to work, rather than on how they might actually work in the hands of users.

It could be argued that all of this extra/extended material could be hosted by third parties. Technically it could, but the result would be a fragmentation of the resource as a whole.

The Forum postings are a storehouse of valuable information. The information is structured and easily searchable.
Every Resident should have at least read access to it.

As a Concierge-level resident, any time I have a query, I get ushered into a palace, where I recline on a couch and get fed grapes while my head is massaged and a team of top Lindens sort things out for me.
That is not the reality for all residents.
Actually...........
OK. There isn't a whole lot of help - nevermind timely help.
There used to be. When I joined over a year ago, I met two really helpful Lindens after asking for in-world assistance. Those days are dead and gone. The numbers don't work any more.
So, where does somebody go for help?

If there was nothing offered by LL other than the Knowledge Base and wish-and-a-prayer sent in as a support ticket, then that would be a clear message to users/customers.
If a valuable resource were actually removed, the message would be even clearer.
"Got a problem? Tough. Google is your friend. Third parties care. We don't"


It's a tough one.
The more accessible the Forums are made, the greater the probability of some anonymous unaccountable idiots trying to grief the thing to hell and back.
Moderation and filtering of new posters is a bullet that has to be bitten.

Poor Kat

Although... Maybe I just filter stuff and ignore nonsense. The Forums here are pretty mild.

There should be a separate GD section where people can have pie if they really want to.
The tech and RA sections should be moderated to encourage a culture of building up an information resource that is on topic within categories. That can permit robust debate as long as it is on topic.

Very brave of you Robin - this is quite the can of worms. Thanks for looking into it. And welcome, Katt!



1) I'd say a good start might be a general amnesty. Clear the forum ban list. That may set a really warm tone, and perhaps a token of goodwill that may be taken up. Say such a gesture fails - it's simple enough to remedy.


2) Don't permaban anybody. Make it a month, 90 days, what have you - but that's a completely different matter than a permaban even if it is a long time.

It will even be more effective. All too often, permaban simply means: come back tomorrow as an alt!


3) De-link forum suspensions with inworld suspensions. Because to do so sets up a very uneven enforcement. For one person it's just another free signup. For another it's the destruction of their business and horrific consequences.

I'll be very blunt here - say I make a forum mistake myself. Should I get in trouble here? You bet. Should the residents interacting with me pay for it dearly too if I get suspended inworld? I'm running well over 100,000 USD of resident business on the grid here annually, and have to be inworld just about every day. If I were to be suspended two weeks, there would be 34 regions and hundreds of residents in deep, deep, deep trouble.

Alright, maybe that's just my problem and I can fully accept that position. But if so, it would be pretty foolish for me to continue to risk posting here at all, especially if there will be reporting by a team of rookies coming in. I'd like clarification just so I can keep my nose clean and protect the residents that deal with me. For me, it would also be a plus if I could stay on - I like SL official forums. I'd like to believe that others find my presence here a plus, too.


4) A comment with regard to resident reporting/moderation.

With any group of residents there are going to be conflicts of interest, friends, enemies and so forth. There can be substantial abuse even with regard to whether or not to report a thread.

I can almost guarantee problems, looking at some of the names on the list. No I won't get into who, but there are definitely very strong, longstanding negative feelings between some of the names there and other grid customers I know.

I'd watch it like a hawk. (For the record, I don't have any personal issues with any of them myself.) So what could be done - I'd say have a mandatory moderator turnover. No matter what. Most people come and go from forums anyway on timescales of three to six months; their interest waxes and wanes.


5) Plainly and obviously repost policies, and ease into them.

Because there's policy and then there's enforcement. To make a bad analogy, releasing a bunch of rookie officers into a neighbourhood can make things a lot worse for a while. Even if they are just reporting.

From what I've seen on the grid easily 90% of region owners are too quick to report others for the slightest infraction, leading to more trouble and nonsense, not less. Am I biased and think I know better? Okay maybe my personality is showing a little Take my commentary for what it's worth. I'll put it this way, I've probably got fewer people on my estate ban list and less trouble in my estate than most people with estates 5% of mine's size. Something to think about.


6) The forums haven't been too bad lately anyway. For real success, ditch the punishment system altogether except for extreme cases, and offer a reward system instead. Perhaps a general discussion area for people who are civil and helpful in resident answers, and so forth. Give people a way to rise to the occasion, and reward them for it.

If I had more time to think up a less dramatic way to say this I would (I'm not trying to be dramatic) - a horrible overstated analogy would be: don't duplicate the Stanford Prison Experiment. There are other, more successful ways for people to interact, and it's very important to be mindful of what happens when some are percieved to be 'in control.' Turn it into a fun place, not a game of 'guards and everyone else.' It's super important.


7) These are Company customers, and as such the very best move is having employee-only moderation if it is at all possible. That eliminates a lot of conflict of interest potential and assigns consequences to abuse. If there is any way possible to make that work - I think that would be the long term goal.


This is the hardest one. I'd strongly recommend that Katt not be social with us at all - but simply do moderation. That will make a lot of situations a lot less sticky and a lot more even, as hard as it may be to do. Otherwise she will inevitably come to like some of us, and then have to moderate us - not a good situation at all and the job will be just that much more difficult.


Good luck, and I hope things work out - Second Life official forums are a very, very critical place that takes a lot of loneliness out of the cold, hard grid for a lot of people.

Well I would definitely agree with a lot of what's been already said..

BB code ...etc

I've learned so much about SL through these forums....and would most definitley not be in favour of taking them down, and as someone has already said, I think that bringing them 'in-world' would not be a good idea....When SL is down, we come here..etc

A seperate 'general discussion' forum would be very much appreciated ..... it get's slightly tiresome and in some instances upsetting to have to wade through so many political threads that have absolutely nothing to do with SL... Personally I hear enough about politics in RL without having to deal with it here also..

Other than that....I enjoy these forums and would hate to see them go...

"Negative" posts need somewhere to go.

If they have no proper place, then they end up being posted off-topic anywhere angry residents can get into.

For a "Complaints, Rants & Protests" area to work though... residents need to feel like at least someone at Linden Lab is listening, even if only to say "We hear you, and hope to have an official comment on this issue at some point."

Of course, if I were to have it my own way, next to the "Complaints, Rants & Protests" forum would be the "Polite Constructive Criticism" forum, for people who want to give LL their feedback without being arrogantly self-entitled, vague, ignorant and irrational.

What Desmond said. twice.

As a basic account holder, I have found the previous posts on the forums invaluable when looking for answers to problems or queries when I have been unable to find/understand issues on the support pages or inworld at help island.

Although I do not often comment, I love reading other ppl's postings, as often I find that someone else has already asked the question i want answering or something very similar that then leads me to explore and experiment inworld more.

Having said that, I do think that a general discussion forum would be of benifit, leaving the current resident answers forum to inworld questions only.

Sorry that I cant comment on the technical side but I dont know anything about that side of it.

Thanks for listening to us.

Yes, but "arrogantly self-entitled, vague, ignorant and irrational" is only done by *other* people

Just putting my two cents worth in.

Personally, I think the forums provide a wealth of information that otherwise would be difficult, at best, to have access to. "interact in world" is not the answer because finding that nagging problem you are having with a script or finding new solutions to working with sculpties just isn't something you can adequately search for in world. Here you can interact with people who have had similar problems and may have solutions. Let's face it, I'll be generous to assume that Linden Labs does have all the answers, but do they have to time to answer all of them? The forums provide a way for other users to help each other with problems.

Yes, there is a problem with a lot of egos in the forums and a lot of senseless "chatter" that divert discussions and create general mayhem, but it really is no different than any other forum - proper moderation will go a long way to curbing those problems. Proper moderation keeps discussions on track and monitors for people who find their enjoyment in "trolling". Of course, it is important to have a moderation team who is concerned with actually moderating the forums and not "getting in on the fun".

I used to use the forums all the time (under my other name), but when the moderation got out of hand, I stopped finding any use in it. I look at them now when a search has pointed me toward something useful, and I have found a lot of information that is valuable and should not be lost by closing the forums. But as far a participating in them, this is the first post I have made on the forums in over a year now, and I only make this post to state my opinion that they should be revamped, a careful selection made of moderator team, and re-opened with clear cut guidelines that everyone is expected to follow and moderators implement uniformly.

I've had my say...back to silent mode

I'm trying to choose my words very carefully here, because I don't want to sound like I'm referring to the individual who received the most notable forum suspension. I am not.

Taking a quick mental review of some of the names on the forum permaban list, some of those are folks who, due to their psychological makeup, take great pleasure in the art of trolling. A single troll can spoil the enjoyment of hundreds of users.

Blanket amnesty resulting in the return of certain trolls will result in *anything* but a warm tone. It may indeed be simple enough to remedy, but typically that doesn't happen until long after the damage has been done.

Perhaps review the ban list on a case-by-case basis. But I respectfully disagree that general amnesty will result in a round of warm fuzzies for everyone, nor will it incite goodwill in those who never had any to begin with.

Resident Answers became the new General Discussion, so that should make it emphatically clear that your customers want/need/benefit by having a General Discussion forum.

Also Resident Answers (along with the technical forums) is an essential function: Other places set up to "explain" to your customers are so badly designed, and their search functions so fubar, they are good only for people who really like looking for needles in haystacks where the needles are hidden in the most misleading ways possible. (Full disclosure: I do my own taxes in RL, and even I won't go near them. I have seriously tried them to look up issues that matter to me, and trust me, they are a waste of time. But RA works quickly and very, very well.)

BUT MAINLY THESE FORA ARE VALUABLE, EVEN ESSENTIAL, TO LL!

Let me reiterate why: They give LL the kind of feedback from its customers most service-oriented businesses pay a fortune for and would kill for. And more than that: There are Residents with the kinds of IT and other skills LL can probably not afford who from time to time provide professional-level input that would cost LL six and seven figures to buy anywhere else - and they give it for FREE. Free is good.

(Want an example? It was in Resident Answers that you learned that the wonderful folks at Aristotle would age-verify one person's dog, another's six-year-old, and another's altogether fictional avatar that existed only as a Facebook entry. I trust LL is rational enough to appreciate the heads-up it got here on that issue FOR FREE. How much would it have cost LL to hire an outside consulting firm or private investigator to do the same thing for you? How many moderators' salaries would that have paid for? And that is only one example.)

The assertion that there are other ways for LL to communicate with the Residents is bogus. Most of the "other ways" are one-way tracks for LL to force-feed take-it-or-leave-it announcements to Residents. The rest are like the download/upload stats on your ISP: megabytes/sec. volume down to the Resident, kilobytes/sec. at best volume back up. Posting to the LL blog, for instance, is limited to the first 100 posts, 50 of which are taken up with useless junk or repetition; and that's when posts are allowed at all. If LL thinks it does not want or need better feedback, then for god's sake, hurry up and get a competent CEO in there who will take LL by the throat and explain reality to it. Before a competent competitor arises who does understand.

You can see how important these fora are for a significant slice of your Residents. I hope you understand why these fora are even more important for LL.

And are cheap. Frankly, they are to a surprising degree self-regulating - a more mature crowd, payment-info-on-file only, and a stable of regulars who throw their posting weight behind helping the fora to work are probably the main reasons. Moderating something largely (though not entirely) self-moderating need not be a big cost. As I trust LL is finding out.

It would probably work well to separate General Discussion from Resident Answers. It might be useful to add an Off-Topic forum for the spouters and ranters among us. And restoring BBCode would be very useful to posters and grateful Residents in search of Answers.

What would be most useful of all is for LL to appreciate what it has here. Thank you for starting this thread; that action suggests at least some folks at LL do.

Robin...Thank you for listening!

Qie and Nika...Thank you for working for a solution rather than raving in the forums (myself included).

Katt...Welcome!

A. I agree that the ban link with the forums and in world should be lifted. Probably not entirely, such as divulging a persons RL information, but the list of what could cause an in world ban should be only for the most very extreme cases and should be clearly posted.

B. RA moderation must be the first priority. Active moderation is a must to ensure it becomes RA once again.

C. An Off Topic thread. No moderation should be necessary. Let it be a free for all. Let the residents report posts that need to be reviewed and then only act if it's an extreme case (such as revealing identity), not just because it's a bitter argument or someones feelings were hurt.

D. Clear out the old policies stickies. Create new ones making the new policies plain and clear.

E. Like Desmond, I think it would be best for the mods to not interact with the community. Too easy to start pointing the biased fingers. If the mods are all Lindens then I think they should interact.

F. Before locking a thread because it's gone off topic, moderators should give a nudge, when possible, back to the topic at hand. If that doesn't happen and a lock is necessary then the reasons should be clearly stated so that we may learn from them.

G. A rants and raves thread. Keep those separate from RA.

H. As I stated in the blogs. Please review the volunteers posting history very closely and reject those who have been a part of the problem in making RA a General Discussion forum.

Again....Thank you for listening to the community.

EDIT: I see from your blog that there will be no Resmods. My idea for "H", can be ignored.

I hear what you are saying, but I'll bet the trolls that care enough to persist are with us these days anyway, just under an alt's name. A few recent Friday threads seemed to be clear troll material, and not the typical newbie troll type.

For the banned residents that do care - yes, I do believe in second chances. Many were simply trying to hold their own in the much tougher environment back then, and got called on it.

In the end, we shall all be measured not in how we treat our friends, but how we treat those who are not our friends.

In a civil, compassionate environment I think trolls will find very little traction. That's how I run my estate anyway, and it seems to work.

This forum may be different enough that you are 110% right, but a few weeks of experiment might be worth it, no?

I wasn't around for the old forums so I can't comment on any of the individuals on the list, but I do think granting them reprieve would be a good measure. Let's start this forum fresh and new and see what happens and deal with those that need to be dealt with.

How about giving more structure to the german forum for example like it was discussed with Lotte Linden and in this thread? /220/88/244946/1.html

Here are some thoughts from the german section about LL forum vs. resident run forums: /220/e7/248091/1.html

The one thing that I would like to see most of all was, if reported posts would really be looked and acted on. Direct personal attacks, insults etc. should be deleted to deescalate flame wars.

cu
Aleco

I sincerely hope your assessment is the correct one, Des, not my own. Perhaps little harm can come from a 'few weeks of experiment', as you put it.

Just to point out, however: I know of no case where any individual was permanently banned from these forums due to a single offence. Like you, I believe in second chances as well, and even third ones.

Unless I'm mistaken, each individual banned received at least three chances or more before they received a forum permaban. With many of these folks, I completely agree they deserve to be given another opportunity to redeem themselves. But its not a second chance - its more likely a fourth chance or more.

turn on BB code
add a general discussion area for those who like to post about anything and everything, for socializing and such
keep the resident answers and hopefully with a general discussion area, resident answers will be what it should be
more lindens posting would be nice

clear out the old stickies, clean them up, then put them back (with reply turned off) so that the info is easily assimilated

have it so we can choose how it looks individually (chose our own skin as it were)

can't think of anything else off hand, will post again if I do

Robin, I'd put it more strongly than that, even.

I'm a forum junkie. Whenever I develop a new interest, hobby, passion...I look for a forum of like-minded people to discuss it with. I've bought products primarily because there was an active community of users for that product, and a forum for them.

And forums with participation by the MAKERS of the product are especially attractive. They show that said makers have close ties to their user community, that they care about them and listen to them. (Or maybe it's all just for show, as one cynical poster said. If so, it still looks good.)

SL itself is fine...but where can we go to talk about SL when we're at work, or when the service is down? The forums, that's where.

I was upset by your initial blog post. It gave lots of reasons LL had considered shutting the forums down...but there was no balancing list of reasons for keeping them open. I felt that boded ill.

This thread, and your comments, give me renewed hope.

My votes:
- bring back General Discussion
- enable BBCode
- Have Strife Onizuka provide training for any Forum Moderators, either ResMods or LindenMods. He knows how to do it right.
- Before appointing anyone as a mod, go back and take a look at their past posts. Find out how they handle themselves in controversial threads. Do they stoke fires or put them out? Do they take logical stands or take sides?
- Fix the Events forum so that it is actually for events, not advertising.

There was a long thread in RA previously about suggestions for re-ordering the forums. Have a look at that, as well as the replies to this thread.

Yeah, anyone who supported that annoying adfarm ban must be silenced.

One suggestion: We learned that some of the VTeam folks are No Payment Info On File, so couldn't even see the Forums. So, the first step of making the Forums readable by NPIOF folks is good, but may also want to consider giving posting privileges to specific resident accounts. It's a data maintenance burden, but I'd think some members of such teams would have questions and answers for which the Forums would work well.

First of all let me say that it's wonderful that Linden Lab is focusing on improving the resident community, and asking for OUR feedback? Oh my!

I believe an overall differant forum style is in order - To give a Second Life flavor to the community boards would be nice. Maybe have the Second Life logo replace the bulletin board icons on the sides of all of the boards, change the colour scheme to better match your logo ect.

Just simple things...

I really fear that this smells of closing the forums. I hope that will not be the case. I disagree that all communications and interaction should be moved in world. There are times that we cant get in world such as when traveling or in the hospital and the forums provide a way of staying in touch- not to mention that they are often up when the grid is down!!

That said here are my suggestions:

1. enable bb coding

2. allow residents to run and mod the resident portions of the forum and decide what the topic areas will be and what can and cannot be discussed. Give us our own voice here.

3. allow a section that is manned by LL in which residents can communicate with Lindens and in which Lindens respond.

4. Don't confuse the value of the forums with the blog. The blog is a place where Linden Labs communicates TO us. It is a one sided conversation- thus not a conversation at all. It does not encourage or support interaction either between LL and the residents or among the residents themselves.

Please separate Forum punishments from SL-Account punishments.

Also.. can we PLEASE get the forums opened to ALL.. instead of this class-system we have now? the people in this "game" who NEED access to the forums the most, are the ones who are still "on the fence" about putting their payment info on file. Just like hiding the Knowledge Base behind a login.. these forums are useless behind the Payment Info wall.

Oh.. and BBCode.. PLEASE?!?!

(the ability to do searches on 3 letter words would help too.)

-----

PS... I dream of a 100x100 forum avatar.

VS

Comment # 50 on her blog post:

Regarding allowing the forums to be viewed by non-premiums or those without payment history on file:

If you're concerned about newbs, or those considering SL being disillusioned by negativity then don't make GD or Off topic threads viewable to them (If that's possible). Resident Answers, however, should be viewable by all. It's ridiculous that new people who are learning, but not ready to plop down a credit card yet, can't even view the forums.