Drama around Views program - Maybe just a big misunderstanding?

Heh, thanks, Siggy. Actually, this whole thing has been kind of funny. Torley IMed me, advising me to actually check my email the evening of Robin's "please reply by" date. I looked, and responded, "what's SL Views?" So smart, maybe... but not necessarily informed.

And as for your side note, yeah, I heard about that. I said, "I got picked...because I'm Aimee's partner!? Man, I have GOT to increase my visibility. Surely there's reasons to hate me beyond that!"

This is where you are wrong. The FIC is a non-existant conspiracy created by Prokofy Neva, whom incidentally has been banned from these forums for excessive trolling and multiple personal attacks.

Every time the term is used by residents, it perpetuates the myth. The FIC only exists in the brains of the social mistfits.

Sorry Weedy, but I am not a social misfit.

And this creation of a permanent advisory panel, to be wined and dined on a trip to San Francisco, and to forevermore help chart the course of SL, is . . . very precisely . . . a feted inner core.

coco

That is a great attitude to have. If you have that idiot riled up, you know you are doing something right.

..... and wasting money that could no doubt be spent on better things that would improve SL for everyone.

Lewis

Now I'm confused.

On Robin's blog, what I read was:

1. [...]how to include Second Life Residents as partners in shaping the world we all inhabit.
   
2. [...]you must give the participants some power and responsibility for shaping and leading it
   
3. [...]we believe Second Life Residents need to be able to initiate ideas and contribute to the social and technological decisions that underlie the foundation of their world
   
4. The next step is to start face to face, real life meetings and design discussions.
   
5. The Residents will be brought to San Francisco for a day to meet with Linden Lab staff to discuss feature design and policy.
   
6. Each group of eight Residents will then become part of a larger advisory group.
   

I was truly under the impression that what this meant was:

1. Linden Lab is now adding a new form of participating in the decision process
   
2. LL wants residents to provide feedback, drive the development of SL, but also accept responsability for those decisions
   
3. Designing the ongoing development of SL now needs face-to-face meetings and discussions
   
4. It's not only about "design" (in the sense on how it looks) but also "policy" (in the sense on how it works)
   
5. Second Life Views is not a "one-shot programme", but an ongoing one, culminating into an Resident Advisory Board
   

Under these assumptions, I would naturally expect the following to happen:

1. Meetings have agendas — you don't pay for expenses to a group of people and not tell them what's the meeting about!
   
2. Residents picked to attend at the meetings should do their homework: go through the agenda items, one by one, and be prepared to discuss and present them, and have a series of arguments ready to support your arguments
   
3. There should be models for assuring "representativity" at the Advisory Board. The way it's done might not be clear, but highly likely that would be one of the items on the agenda: how to best create a model to funnel input from all residents towards the members of the Advisory Board
   
4. Thus, my expectation was that the participants of the Second Views Programme would take their time to collect information, gather feedback, discuss their own ideas in-world (or on other places — blogs, forums), prepare arguments and presentations with those interested to participate, and go to San Francisco well-prepared to discuss matters with Linden Lab
   
5. Over time, channels would be opened to ensure participation — say, having different persons dealing with certain aspects of Second Life. One representative for scripting issues, one for the design of a more scalable grid, one for commerce, one for land tools, one for group tools, one for communities, etc. and so on. These would donate their time to regularly gather input in the most diverse forms, assemble it all, and create a coherent picture for Linden Lab to analyse.
   

It looks right now as if I was terribly wrong in assuming any of the above

Well, I still think it's a good start — things have to start somewhere — and hopefully it can only develop into becoming a useful tool for retrieving resident's input, and encourage participation at the decision level. If not at this round of meetings, perhaps on the next. It will mostly depend on the willingness of those who attend to make it that way!

After curiosity finally getting the better of me, I finally went and looked at the list of who were chosen. Can't say I'm all surprised there on that list. I've had a theory for a long time that LL only deals with those that happen to be within their line of sight, which covers only a small fraction of the entire population of SL. It's sorta like a horse wearing blinders. If it's not directly in front of them, it doesn't exist.

If a resident is in an area of the SL public that doesn't overlap with a Linden social circle, then they might as well not exist. I'm not all that surprised or outraged though, LL has shown many times this is how they operate. So...this is all par for the course. LL meeting up to their usual level of performance.


- Newfie

*doublechecks the list again*

Um - it's not the usual suspects? Sure looks like it to me.


- Newfie

Actually for those who know where to look, it's quite clear as day.

On a *cough* unrelated note, check out #secondlife on the EFNet irc network someday - it's a very interesting place.


- Newfie

Too friggen bad. Piss and moan about it all day and all night for all I care, the fact remains LL has selected a group of residents to come to SF despite what you call it.

Sorry Coco but "very precisely" just not exact reality to your opinion which has been molded by Prok.

It's insulting to the people who provide your entertainment, it's an attack upon those they selected, and moreover, it's an embarassment to the entire community.

BUT... BUT.... IT CAN BE SO DARN ENTERTAINING

My opinion has not been "molded by Prok." You are just one of a handful of people who can't imagine that anyone would agree with him on any subject for any reason at all besides some sort of brainwashing. This failing hampers your intellectual rigor considerably.

It is not an attack upon those they selected (they could have selected me!), as I've said several times now. However, if those chosen wish to SEE it as one, there is nothing I can do about that, which is, by the way, the nature of things divisive. It's no insult to the people who provide my entertainment; it is input for them. If I didn't care about it, I wouldn't give it.

As for an embarassment to the entire community, I don't think so. I don't think you speak for the entire community, and a community in which discourse representing all viewpoints is encouraged is a vibrant one, not an embarassment.

coco

Their company, their choice on how they spend their money.

And before you say "well I am a paying customer and they should be doing X with my money" I ask you this: If I buy one of your products in SL may I then dictate how you spend the money I paid you?

Of course not, that would be just plain silly. It is no longer my money, I have no say in what you do with it.

A sensible point lost in the rushes to contest The Other Side.

Y'all are jamming your arguments into peg-holes shaped by prior disputes that really have little to do with this. And any time someone makes a point that actually pertains to the current circumstances, he or she is ignored - or branded as one of Them.

There are alternative points of view....

Oh, and btw, Enabran! Piss off!

Hi Gwyneth. Thank you very much for your thoughtful post again - even after all those with an old axe to grind have finally found this thread, too.

As I already said before, I am not adverse to any of your ideas, I am just not sure if they can be packed into the Views programme, or, if that was the Lindens intention when initiating this programme. Personally, I would like to doubt this.

Looking at the three "packages" of points presented in your last comment, I would say that some are certainly facts. Some others seem to be more a kind of interpretation, conclusion or assumption to me. I don't say this to try to devalue your contributions. Interpretation and conclusions are important. It is impossible to communicate without them. But they are always risky, as you'll never know, if your interpretation is the one intended of the sender.

This is certainly true. I have not checked every single reference but you are certainly no one who would use citations sloppily.

I share most of your interpretations of Robins writings in this "package".


Meetings have agendas - so has this one. And I am sure Robin will publish it, as soon as she sees fit.

The following points in your comment seem to include a lot more of "interpretation", than can be done without risk. I have a different interpretation of the communication going out by Robin on his programme. I can't find any hint in her blog post which would indicate that the participants of this programme should function as representatives for other residents in SL, that they should prepare presentations, proposals, have arguments ready to support them, collect other residents opinions etc. etc.

If this was intended I would expect that Linden Lab had informed us of these expectations by now.

But it is certainly possible, that it is me, who is mis-interpretating the communication. Why not ask Robin herself? But you already did that on her weblog, I have seen. I am sure, she will reply when her schedule allows that. She is a very busy woman but has never been incommunicado for long in the past.

What an excellent description of this meeting.

"Content" is not all about money.

Lewis

Yes, like sending you and Coco off somewhere very far away

Wow! In my almost three years here, I've never seen Chip get snippy with anyone other than Prokofy. Congrats, Lewis; you've managed to achieve something I didn't think possible with your arrogant self-rightousness. Welcome to that club of two.

And for those wondering, Cat Omega was in world for a full year before Aimee came to town, and had already become known amongst scripters as a goddess among us. This is clearly not an FIC list, unless Prokofy's changed his tune over the past few weeks to become more topical instead of singing the same old opera: there's no Midnights (Cris, Torrid, Mistress, or Chip), no Aimee, no Ingrid, no Jauani, no Barnesworth, no Hiro, and no me, and we're the typical targets (The Toxic 20) of Prokofy's inane rambling.

Regards,

-Flip

But you forgot those most desperate failing ;0 No Baba ;0

hehe, oh I get snippy now and then, and really I'm just teasing. I have no real ill will towards anyone... just some lines of reasoning (or lack thereof) make me grind my teeth. I haven't bothered to jump into these threads because the whole "anti-FIC" arguments are so inanely predictable at this point, and no amount of reasoning or rational debate will deter those who are hell bent on finding fault (and conspiracy) with every interaction between LL and its user base.

I don't feel embarrassed. If Coco feels its an FIC well then I guess that's the way she feels and she has a right to feel that way. You may disagree with her but that doesn't mean her feelings about it are invalid.

Honestly if you all didn't jump all over this and feed the flames, I think folks would whine a little because they weren't picked or because anyone was picked or whatever but then, when no one respnded, they would stop with the whining.

It may reflect badly on her but the only thing that might reflect badly on you (or me) is making more of her complaints than might be warranted.