Defining the FIC (Seriously)

Yeah, but Starax typed a smiley at me so it's all worth it.

It'll take more than that to kill this thread!!

I might have a commission for you later

Oh my, look at these shameful backroom business dealings.

That they are friendly and involved in their world is one of the best things SL has going for it. I don't know that there is any other game/platform/okra out there with employees that are as accessible as the Lindens are.

But you know, although it doesn't say this anywhere in the service agreement either, if a business acts in a clearly unfair manner to many of their customers, while clearly favoring some, then their customers just might walk out the door.

If, for example, that bartender spent all his time talking to the one guy at the bar, giving him drinks for free, offering to let him test new drinks whenever he likes, sending all the girls his way, whispering in his ear, maybe, that the slot machine on the wall is due to pay off on the next roll, letting him choose the television channel, and so forth, then the other customers at the bar might just get pissed off and leave.

That sort of thing causes a business to fail, and SL's success is what we should all be wanting.

Fortunately, I think the Lindens realize this, and have taken steps to try to resolve some of these issues left over from when they were small and just sort of horsing around. But as I said before, they do have a ways to go.

coco

Absolutely, all customers/clients want to think they're getting as many or as few favors as the next paying customer. But as a former bartender, let me tell ya that it just ain't so.

I wouldn't have given a brand new and unproven customer the same perks as a long-time customer I knew I could trust. I wouldn't let them watch the bar for me as I ran next door to get change. I wouldn't let them pick the music, because what if their tastes sucked and it was bad for business? I wouldn't offer them tips, because I wouldn't be on friendly terms with them.

This kind of thing happens with almost every business, across the board. Early-investor programs, club cards, membership perks, frequent buyer discounts... The only difference is, you don't want the new customer to know that others are getting perks they haven't earned yet, unless there's some business savy reason to dangle that carrot (like a membership fee), so you do it on the sly. That's the part LL needs some work on.

I think that horse done already left the barn, Jonquille. (About doing it on the sly.)

It's a bigger game/platform/okra now, and the order of the day needs to be fair, open processes and equal opportunity.

Mainly, though, what is to be lost by having fair and equal opportunity? Not a dang thing. They still get to choose who they want for what. As I said earlier, it's a win-win situation all around.

coco

Whether it's a good idea, and whether we have the right to demand it as paying customers, are completely different topics. What I contest is our right to demand anything from LL other than what we pay for, which is a usable platform and decent customer service. As I said before, anything else they offer is icing, and we're only paying for cake.

It would be nifty if LL considered every single interested party for jobs and perks, but they are under no obligation to do so, which is what you, among others, keep implying. It simply isn't true.

that's right. so

stfu NOOBS!

here's my offering on how to end The Corruption™

1> Look outside the window.
2> Remember to vote.
3> Volunteer in your candidates campaign.
4> Run in an election if you aren't satisfied with the candidates.
5> Probably stop displacing your pent up frustration and feelings of powerlessness against a small private tech start up.

but first and foremost, look outside the window.

My apologies for the long post. It starts with a bit of a rant - but the end is worthwhile I promise!



I believe you'll find that what we pay for is decided by LL. They have, in their good grace, given us the Forums and Features areas to 'suggest' those things we'd prefer them to work on - but the final decision is still with them and stereotypically they ignore the opinions of the masses.

That group of people that have, through personal endeavour or long service, become part of the group of people that are known as 'FIC' (I use this only as I am left in want of a better word to identify this group of people collectively), are in a position to give comment to staff within LL about ideas for new features, updates and projects. This is because, through ordinary social processes, their opinion has become trusted and accepted.

This is not to say that these are the only people LL should be listening to - and this is where the problem is. LL have largely ignored all other forms of communication with the rest of the populace. Forum questions aren't commented upon; the feature suggestions are not updated, but left to rot; the results of threads where LL have actually asked for comment from residents is ignored in favour of what they think the answer should have been, without giving damn good reason why.

A large part of the problem is the huge number of people in SL now... and the fact that LL are not coping with them. There is no way they can please everyone, the best they could ever hope to do is please the majority whose opinions generally do not fall into LL's ideas for the software as a 'development platform' or 'content creation tool'.

So they listen to the group of people whose ideas do fall along their own lines of thinking, rather than those of us that are just worried about where the money to buy the new Gurl 6 'do', or a new bling-ring is coming from to show off at the club tonight or pool party tomorrow (yes I'm stereotyping. The thing about stereotypes is they hold a lot of parodied truth - I know you can identify someone you know in that description).

There is very little that can be done about this situation until LL bring in a much better way of handling new features and communicating their intention to the residents. What is needed is a revamped and vastly improved in-world voting tool, and LL must be prepared to give updates on:

o What they're working on right now
o What the latest status is of each of those items
o When they plan to bring them in
o What their order of priority is for the items they're not currently working on
o Why they're not going to/can't bring in each suggestion they turn down

The only way to achieve this with any degree of effectiveness is to attach a Liasion Linden directly to the development team to update the voting tool with information directly from the developers. And by this it would actually be nice to see comments like those we saw with 'Browser on a prim', where we were able to see comments about why they were having problems with a particular feature, what a painful time it was. Real insider comment. This is the news we should have been getting from Hamlet before he left - not just the big flashy head, but comment from behind-the-curtain too.

The key to any good relationship is communication. LL... you are currently guilty of refusing to talk to your partner and stand suspected of cheating because you won't hold a proper conversation. The only way to put this situation right is to talk as I suggested above and, with a little counselling, things could be wonderful between us!

If you don't we can only assume that you don't want/need to be with us anymore and that having us arguing over 'FIC' behaviour serves you better in some way than having the buy-in and input of your residents.

My 2L$ (much too long for just 0.02L$) - It's just a shame that no-one from LL will ever read this post.

Because we all clicked "I Agree" on the little Terms of Service window before we logged into SL for the first time.

It's like there's a whole other world out there

and it's population is growing at amost 2% a year! it's not catching on as fast in SL but what it lacks in sex balls and tringo it makes up with a robust physics engine and low lag.

I suspect the real world has FIC, too.

LoL - the I Agree button!

OMG, if I read the wording I'd become paralized and not do anything...

Read your credit card user agreement, or your doctor's and insurance agreements, or mortage docs., etc. etc.

Seems no one in the world is responsible for anything except ME via. requred user agreements.

yeah, and each religious faction will give you a different story on who the fic is.

ok, i guess forum wars are better than rl wars.

Damn you and your sense and sensibility!

You think there is no lag? You ain't been on the moon!

coco

Thank you for the clarification of what happened for the thread. I am not necessarily pushed off my thread tail between my legs, I just don't care that much to be posting, I have a real life to live like going to see a concert last night.

I agree with what happened to thread, other than saying that it has necessarily been hijacked by FIC, but several people have joined in that were labeled as FIC and also attempted to change the topic or etc. Which is interesting to me, why join in unless you feel guilty or feel like it was directed at them. Which it really wasnt at all directed at any individual, but rather a human behavior observation and how it might affect our community. Though as always some people were just having fun like many serious threads get derailed lol.



But it is in every community, I just felt like it needed to be clarified as such. It is in RL and in most online communities, but there isnt or doesnt always have to be major favoritism along with it etc. It can be in different forms in different communities, as innocent as a perhaps somewhat exclusive social group to as I said an active conspiracy of collective favoritism that is unfair to others in the community..

I don't know what it is here, but I think it is something that needs to be discussed, and looked at.

Who'd ya see?

And, BTW, I don't think you can really complain about what happened to the thread. Using an unecessary reactionary term, like "FIC", to get get more of a response to your thread is all well and good, but it's always a risk as to the reaction you're gonna get.

Not quite getting what you mean, here, Nolan. Are you saying that most people don't like the concept of fair play?

Feminists are a group like any other political group, but with a critical 'practice' of fairness built in to the contemporary paradigm. We are a group comprised of many people who have many viewpoints. It is, however, a feminist ideal to embrace diversity and let all be fairly heard (some feminist organizations, for example, only make decisions by consensus). It is the embracing of this diversity (the party line comes from the people) that make feminists so easy to attack. If feminism was more about "this is the party line, swallow it and stfu" it would make for easier press conferences, but a weaker movement.

Any organization, business, political or otherwise, does well to keep in contact with members from diverse segments of its user base. When an organization becomes insulated against particular segments in order to further the interests of any other segment, it is in danger of operating without all necessary data.

I hope that LL does try as much as possible to not only appear to be fair but to actually be fair. That said, there is no reason why LL shouldn't work most closely with those who most closely parallel its own goals. How does the brownie scouts song go? Make new friends... but keep the old... *hums*

Just going on what I have heard in these forums (especially in OT) from some self-proclaimed feminists with respect to people who play that card in situations where (they said) it's unwarranted, and does more harm than good, i.e harms public perception of the movement.

It's not my opinion, as I am obviously not a feminist, although I do support feminism.

It was just one example - it could have been made using ethnicity or any other of a number of unique identifiers.

I have no idea how you got that I may not like fair play out of that. The point I was making is that when things are exaggerated or just plain speculated about, without any concrete proof, it can do more harm than good.

If one wants to advocate for fair play, that's wonderful, I am all for that, and more power to them - it's when hyperbole and outright invention of "problems" occurs, that my ears perk. Such claims do nothing to help maintain fair play, and usually foster an atmosphere of division and distrust.

All I'm saying is...if the FIC really have all that pull-why do we still have all this lag!?

-Kiamat Dusk

You do, but the FIC doesn't. LL paid to have fiber piped out to all their homes - the ones that they didn't lease a townhome and a Lexus for in SF that is. There are some limits...