RC Questions

I haven't seen so much in terms of violence in House. Granted, I haven't watched every episode, but the heavy adult theme, the drugs, the attitude, and whatever gore is involved in depicting medical situations in a hospital definitely is pushing the envelope on what would be considered "Mature", let alone TV-14/PG-13.

i can't be bothered to listen to this. Can anyone summarise briefly what are the statements about art?

Hans

From what I understand there is no breach of contract until the contract has been broken by the changes. Hence no one can actually file anything until the changes are made.

Just saying, feel free to pounce on me for this...

Very much in agreement - so much of it comes across as posturing, even if people dress it up as "trying to educate the Lindens".

No, but they seem to think that the majority should have a say in the direction of SL, which is to my thinking, an unrealistic expectation, given the nature of LL and SL.

Yes, I completely agree. If the type of content made by people that are against this is something that LL want to keep in SL, then they should be listening *and reacting to* to the "voice of the customer".

As for those that are just plain against it, the only actual right they have in terms of this change is whether to continue paying LL to "play" in the world.

If LL believe that they will lose a significant customer base, and not be able to replace it with something else, then they will take notice. My guess is that thus far, they have not been adequately convinced of such.

I DO have proof of that. I have made many points and asked many questions of LL, WITHOUT EVEN AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT. THAT indicates strongly that, while they MAY be hearing (well, they ARE hearing, unless they have muted me; a distinct possibility), they MOST DEFINITELY are not "listening".



I come from the world of business and, most especially, customer relationship management and support. If you tell your customers "we are here to listen to you", that DOES imply that you WILL acknowledge what they assert, as well as respond to their questions. What good does it do to to say that, then just sit there with a blank expression on your face, and not answer questions that come as part of what customers say? That's not "listening". That's simpy "hearing".

I tell you what, you change the nature of a product you are offering on your customers where it will harm them and try to take the tack of "we're only here to listen to your feedback, not respond to it", and see where that gets you. It might look a tad familiar to what is happening here.

"Listening" implies consideration, while "hearing" is nothing more than the mechanical act of sound waves pressing upon an eardrum (or photons impinging upon photreceptors, in the metaphorical sense for online communication).



Try running a customer service business sometime. It's very educational in that regard.



I think there is strong evidence that they either a) do not understand what they are hearing, or b) are not giving it any consideration.

The core of communication (that includes "listening" is protocol. If you have only a one-way avenue of communication, you might as well be shouting at the clouds. Without a bidirectional channel for protocol, there's no way that the "speaker" can know that the message was received and understood. In the case where the "speaker" has requested information, when information is not returned, no communication has occurred.

No need to. You're right.

The only people qualified to educate the Lindens on legal matters are their retained counsel. Not even REAL lawyers would attempt to educate ANYone who isn't retaining them. Even if they are acting pro bono, they wouldn't publicly offer advice like that. Those who write publicly about the law, or cases, do so from a general viewpoint, not as advice to any of the litigants. In other words, they do so from an academic standpoint.



I don't think that is an unrealistic expectation at all. When the majority of your CUSTOMERS are telling you something, you better damn well sit up and "listen" (that includes acknowledging what they say, and responding to their questions, the literal dictionary definition of the word notwithstanding), and that's just for a normal business, whose sole motivation is getting their customer's money. With LL, it goes even beyond that, because LL's customers have more of a distributor<->vendor relationship than just a customer<->vendor one (i.e., B2B rather than just B2C). We make the world worth inhabiting. Not only will us leaving hurt them financially from the loss of income from us directly, but also from the loss of other customers who depend on us to give them a reason to be there and pay LL money, too. That's what makes LL screwing up so bad here.



Perhaps. Ivory Tower-ism and the Heights of Hubris are not rare or even uncommon mistakes in the corporate world. It will likely take a massive epic fail like this one for them to learn, assuming they survive it.

Where are the "Lots of places that Basic accounts can file tickets and have them answered", since there is posted on support a list of permitted ticket types and a statement that all other will be discarded unread?

I can understand american english somehow intuitive but it is hard for me to translate that word by word with my long ago learned and half forgotten school english. Maybe someone does it better. Additional to that I am too lazy tonight.

I think I understood this:

The essentials of the entry questions about art are: that any art which contains (from LL's view) an obviously sexual intention or art wich could (from LL's view) motivate people to start sexual activities (huh?)...should move to Ursula.

Then the word-filter was a theme, age verification, new phrases about to describe PG new... (while Jack Linden said last week to Carl Metropolitan that PG descriptions will be definitly untouched!) and new phrases about the description "Mature" are planned, a new TOS will appear, affiliate vendors were a theme, but somehow nothing new under the sun.

They are still in listening and developing mode was the tenor of the whole thing.

Once one Linden made a short sentence about a possible PG continent in future, but this were no theme actually, he said...

And me yelled inside myself while hearing this mp3-record: "why not doing a PG continent now?"

The last 2 sentences after the brown bag are: LL hopes that we have patience with them, they try to make all as comfortable and positive as they can.

GULP. That sounds more like a menace than a promise after the experiences of the last weeks, months and years..., hahaha

Thanks for that. I think that sheds quite a new light on all of this. For those not in the US, it may help to understand that Congress tends to stick it's nose into a lot of things it really shouldn't, the most recent being Baseball of all things. We really don't want Congress getting ahold of Second Life, if you think this plan is bad, Imagine what 436 elected officials who don't know how to operate a computer would do.

So it does appear that LL's actions are in direct response to a pending (or active) government investigation.

In case this is true and a major reason - beside the edu/corporate biz-plan - I would prefer that LL talks open to us and to offer us a chance to make this a smart and comfy deal to trick that Congress thing.

Like an old word says: "many ways are leading to Rome".

I think we still would help them to find the best one, for us and them.

Blondin, is anyone there actually paying attention to us on the forums? I guess not.

If so, you would *know* that the biggest complaint about the brownbags is the fact that you insist on doing them in voice. Just the major groups: people with hearing issues, people who can not use voice at work, and people whose computers are unable to use voice streams/files because of a variety of other issues.

I know of no serious meeting where things are done solely in vocal communication.

How about another approach if you think text chat is so bad? Allow us to submit questions in advance via notecards, at the meeting copy/paste them and the responses into text. Or just do something wildly unimaginative like have someone be a stenographer while the other Lindens talk.

You have a lawyer there all the time. Ask them sometime what the Americans with Disabilities Act is. Or ask any of your web people what section 508 compliant web design means (and why it is crucially important in some business sectors).

Good Grief!(not to use a filtered term)

There also seemed to be a few they did not realize they did not understand.

listening to todays brown bag I thought I'd stepped into a parallel universe.

Virtually all key points regarding the adult stuff made by blondin are at odds with the meeting today.

According to cyn, jp and kend the following is the policy (mind you, these are the guys who don't know what an affiliate vendor, the difference between age and account verification, didn't understand why you would want to link alts for verification purposes, can't get their head around the concept that we need the list to decide whether we fit their definition of adult since every part of the world has different standards, they claim they know nothing about elvis being used to verify, that they no nothing about issues with verified accounts not being able to access parcels, that verification status is being lost and that verification failure is miraculously down to 10% from the 20% it was only a month ago...)

but what they did say (and of course I'm paraphrasing here...)

search will be cleaned up and they don't want people using euphemisms. They frown on people doing that in fact - directly the opposite of what Blondin has been saying.

they do want anyone who advertises adult content in search to go to ursula - no mention of residents.. and no mention of judgement calls on who gets to go.

they know that people are buying up land at the moment to get the swap and they're ok with it

So it looks like we've all got a seat on the cattle truck.

they mentioned a 6 month bedding in, which is around the time the FTC is due to report

And having a) a seperate grid for kids that is DEVOID of naughty stuff, and b) a REAL verification system that'll keep them out of the adult grid, would eliminate these problems at the outset. And it would do so without destroying people's builds, committing fraud (selling one product then delivering another), or trying to stifle people's speech. Not to mention it would be far more popular than the current "plan".

Oh wait, that's what we have today, except for a working Verification system. Gee, maybe we should just fix what's broken instead of breaking everything else to match it?

I do not want the adult grid to be overrun with kids - period. And because a combined grid will never ever ever be safe for any teen to visit, no matter what LL does, my children are not joining; not now, not ever unless LL publically tells parents like me that the teens shall forevermore have their own place to play. Say the kids will have a kids zone and they'll be joining. Try to make the whole mainland kidsafe, and you'll see nothing of them, and less of me and my filthy green money.

And as for the issue with adults needing a place to interact with the teens, a simple continent called Crossroads where adults (minus their inventories) and teens can mingle and classes can be taught on the teen grid is far, far simpler than this silly Everything-must-be-on-the-same-net idiocy. Thank God LL didn't create the standards for television, or we'd have a single channel for all the shows to be on.

I can't help but wondering why LL does not point at this as a reason it would certainly make more sense then the "A more predictable experience" line, especially with the way it is being implemented.

Yes so do I. It's very important to be VERY clear with your customers what mode you are in. I tend to tell them very specifically "I am here to listen to your concerns, and work together with you to find a solution with which we can both be happy." or "I know you are upset, I am here today to listen to what you have to say so that I can take it back to my upper management to discuss further." I then give them a rough timeline when I will get back to them.

This is one example where LL fall down in the Customer Relations and, being on the Internet, tends to make them more susceptible to the more extreme reactions. They have listened, have presumably deliberated (we have no proof one way or the other on that one) and (hopefully) will come up with revised definitions before this gets rolled out (Blondin has said as much).

This isn't the first time a distinction has been made between the two words. I have read around a little and they seem to be equivalent (and yes, English is my first language). It is very important to be precise when communicating, especially with people whose first language may not be yours (which is the case in my line of work). I therefore am very careful to use commonly-defined and documented meanings of words.

I have never said that how LL are approaching this is good, in fact I have repeatedly said exactly the opposite. They haven't laid out any sort of roadmap yet about hos this is going to happen, and have spoon-fed us with whatever information they thought we would need. They were not clear as to the expectations of the dialogues they opened up with us and this has led to a lot of bad feeling.

But this is par for the course with them - they have done this countless times. Anybody who has been in SL long enough has seen the various heavy-handed and non-transparent methods that LL use to manage its product. This is the norm for them.

Good job they haven't been successful with their methods - I mean it's not like they are the leader in the market.. oops.

..and that's the problem - they have got away with this management style for the life of their product, and customers haven't yet left for the competition, because there isn't any - just vague promises of an "SL-buster" (I've been hearing about those ever since my first avi in SL and none have yet come to light).

They can treat us exactly the way they feel right, because only a very small number leave when treated this way (even though many make a lot of indignant NOISE about leaving). They get away with it every time.

I would LOVE to know from where you get this definition. I have an interest in the language and this is really new one on me. So a reference would be appreciated. The closest I can get in terms of a difference is that hearing is when something reaches your ears, and listening is when something reaches your brain. "Active Listening" is a technique I use a lot with customers, where it's more asking supporting questions to make sure you can truly understand what the customer's issues are and what they aren't. Nothing in there implies that feedback to the speaker with answers is required.

LOL How delightfully condescending!

possibly because if they admitted they were trying to accommodate them then congress might get even more pushier..

"Corporate English" really is a different language.

No, sorry. Temporary derailment here.

Workers who own shares in a company is not communism, it is not even socialism. Under communism, workers own *nothing*. Everything is supposedly held in common by everyone. In practice, this means everything is owned by the state.

Contrast this with a worker-owned enterprise. Under communism, workers have no incentive to perform well, since the state as a whole gets any benefits. "To each, according to his needs" means that nobody ever gets a bonus or a pay raise. On the other hand, if the worker-owned company succeeds, the workers' shares rise in value. They are rewarded for their efforts.

The USA isn't communist. But neither, I am forced to say, is it capitalist. "We are all socialists now". Government is the majority owner of many banks and of much of the auto industry. Government regulation now intrudes on every aspect of life, down to the level of college football and basketball Big Brother is alive and well.

Thank you. We now return your thread to the important topic of why the heck LL is doing something so supremely stupid, in the most painful and silly way possible.

..and that is what makes their actions and words even more reprehensible (not to mention lying through their corporate teeth).

If they had come to us and said that this is an important consideration to address, and asked us for input on how to deal with it a year ago (not to mention giving us a reason to go after our congresscritters for their stupidity), then this would not be anywhere NEAR the disaster it is at the moment.

That is possible , but they have also denied any such pressure. They could have put it in more generalistic terms tho. "Preparing for an anticipated general social and legal trend toward stronger filtering of adult content in online environments". That at least makes more sense then their current tag line, or the invisible people being scared away by the adult stuff. Or simply "To minimize future legal problems"
The current stand just looks foolish.

Exactly- The numbers don't back up LL's claims. that would, I think, make an well-run poll on the log-in screen a hard thing to rig. Simple chart- two categories, whoever has the fewest votes is the one to get their own "game preserve"

Of course, it'll never happen, but I keep on mentioning these things on the off chnace that Blondin might be reading up


^V^

Agreed!

Darlings,

I'm sorry to say this latest round of bullshit has finally done me in. I'm going to hang on as long as I can, but I'm fairly convinced that my version of the SL world is coming to an end and there's nothing I can do about it because Linden Labs is flat out lying to us and keeping us here to twist in the wind.

I've had it. I refuse to be treated like I'm stupid. When the end comes, I will not be surprised. I'm just going to stay with my partner as long as I can. When it's all ruined for us, I'm hoping we can move to some other place.

It's been a real slice, kids. If you want to keep in touch with me, let me know in world and I'll pass you my email address.

Tired of being pissed on and told that it's raining lemonade and sunshine,

Thorn