Open Letter to Appropriate Lindens:

Philip blogged that the Lindens get to choose which projects they wish to work on. I guess that means they get to ignore the ones that don't interest them, which could explain why some very annoying problems are ignored.

I don't know how we can get them to fix these things. Bug report submissions don't do it, complaints dont do it, but since they can pick and choose their projects then perhaps an open appeal will move them to fix these things.

If you agree with any part of this, and would like to see the problem fixed with some kind of priority, then I hope you post your support!

Open Letter to the Appropriate Linden(s):

I know there is more interest and glory involved with developing a new feature that you hope will wow everyone, but the SL membership would really like to have these broken features resolved before we get new features.

TO THE LINDEN(S) WHO BROKE CHAT:

Before you broke this the cursor would stay in the chat field when you clicked your mouse on something else in world and all we had to to was type and the chat would be right where it belonged. Now the cursor leaves the chat field and you end up jumping in the air and having to click the chat field each time you want to chat.

How incredibly annoying. Was the intent to make working morw difficult or to discourage chatting?

Did you ever actually chat with anyone in SL while working during the testing of this feature?

Will you please fix this since you broke it?

TO THE LINDEN(S) WHO BROKE INVENTORY:

Just look for something in your inventory, then rezz it to see what it is, or try a texture on a prim to see how it looks, then delete that in world object. Do you see your inventory scroll to the top? Why did you do this to us?

Why do all the folders have to open up for no reason?

When you move items from folder to folder why does the inventory scroll up to the top?

When you drag contents from a prim to a folder why does the inventory scroll to the top so you have to search for the folder?

Did you ever actually use SL inventory to find or move something other that testing this nifty scrolling feature?

Will you please fix this since you broke it? You broke it some time go as a matter of fact.


TO THE LINDEN(S) WHO BROKE CUSTOM COLORS:

Before you broke this we were able to save our custom colors. Now once you log off they are gone,and if you use the default system color picker you can only save one custom color at a time even though there are at least 10 spots for custom color storage.

Will you please fix this since you broke it?

TO THE LINDEN(S) WHO BROKE RESET CAMERA VIEW:

Before you broke this when the camera view was borked and focused on some odd unidentifiable location,we were able to select reset view and the camera would reset to your avatar.

Now when you click reset view, nothing happens.

Will you please fix this since you broke it?

TO THE LINDEN(S) WHO GAVE US THIS NEW SNAPSHOT SYSTEM:

Can you please tell us who you are? I really would like to understand your thinking because I just don't get it. I mean, sure the ability to select a snapshot size inside SL would be useful, but this is what you came up with to give us this feature?

Can you tell us why the snapshot function has to grab the whole screen?

What is with the white blank screen feature, is this a necessary function or just a feature you thought looked cool?

Why is chat disabled during this snapshot process so you can't communicate with another person who may be in the picture by saying something like "move to the left" without having to discard the pic, exit snapshot, and start over?

Did you even think about those who want to take snapshots in rapid succession in order to get the one postioned just right when photographing a moving scene?

Please, can you just explain why you had to ruin snapshots for us just to allow us to choose a snapshot size. Did you ever actually spend time in SL using snapshots in a meaningful way or did you just take a few to test your new bells and whistles?

Is there any chance that you can get rid of the parts that make this new snapshot system unworkable?

The Lindens are all dead to me

What a great list, Katy -- and if I had enough time (and thought it would do any good) I could probably add to it.


That's not all. Before yesterday's update, if you held down the SHIFT key it didn't matter when you pressed ENTER, your chat was still sent. Not anymore. You have to release the SHIFT key before your chat is issued -- huh?!

I love the new friends' list, too. I've never had so few IMs in one evening since ... well, since I started SL.

To the Lindens who broke the building tools:

Yeah, you. Fix them. Please.

Thanks Katykiwi. I have to agree w/ all of the above.

Add to your list:

Borked building tools, specifically the type-in fields that do not want to let you type in them or tab thru them reliably.

Spontaneous prim retexturing or change in repeats/ offsets in duplicated or resized prims (especially on hollow faces).

Sim ground textures that take what seems like forever to load. I get this super slow load in textures/ snapshots in inventory as well.

Off and on crashing for what seems to be no apparent reason. (Happens when doing anything or nothing very frequently-- Lindens see my crash logger- I have had loads of them for like 2 months now after buying a new graphics card, new drivers etc)

I do love this world, but would love these things to be fixed, as they become incredibly annoying. I should not be spending my time in world gritting my teeth like this.

Yeah, the Lidnens don't see that oddly enough. Every time I talk to a Linden about it they say they can't reproduce it.

I recently got my first build job in SL.... unfortunately I can't really work on it anymore because this terrible, terrible version makes it so frustrating.

SL is almost unplayable for me anymore.... broken (borked? haha) build tools, bad friends list, and being lost IMs. Oh, and all the crap from previous releases that they ignored.

I honestly don't think the programmers even -use- the product. And they certainly don't, as we can all tell, listen to the mass of users.

If there's ay truth to the FIC conspiracy crap, would you guys please complain a little louder?!

I love this list. It is well thought out, and explains each feature's functionality before and after the recent changes.

In regard to the inventory, another thing im finding when dragging items around in my inventory is that not only do all of the folders open and close like magic as i move up and down the list, but the entire inventory list scrolls to the left out of view causing me to have to try and play with the scroll thingy at the bottom to try and bring it back into view to work with it. All this while still pressing the mouse click down to keep it from dumping my inventory item into the wrong place.

Needless to say, trying to coordinate changes in my inventory gets to be quite challenging sometimes. Which might explain why my inventory looks so retarded most of the time. I can never find anything. Its almost as bad as my rl closet. Although I would have a hard time convincing anybody in this house of that. But yes, it almost is.

PS: Oh and is it just me or can we no longer delete and item in our inventory by highlighting it and pressing the delete key?

I would like to see the old snapshot mode return, with the possible enhancement that you can pick your snapshot size. But I also find the new mode useful. For example, I took about 30 pictures of couples at a dance this weekend. It was very nice to wait until the couple was in a nice part of the dance animation, snap the shot, and then worry about framing and composition. So, that being said, perhaps we can have two snapshot modes, normal and advanced?

I would like to add to this list:

To the Linden(s) who broke the building tools:

When I resize a linked group of prims using the "Ctrl-Shift-Click-Drag on the White Corners" method and click the "Resize Both Sides (?)" check box, the prims resize in a wobbly and jerky manner, making precision impossible. Occasionally, random prims will spring back to a previous size, effectively destroying the build.

This costs time, introduces an aggrivation factor tatamount to wearing paper-thin flip-flops to the airport and still being required to remove your shoes "in case they have a bomb" and occasionally can be quite expensive in the event that one is forced to attempt modification on a "no-copy" item that doesn't quite fit on one's avatar.

/signed

I strongly agree with katykiwi. It's a great list of things which should be a high priority.

It also shows a pretty strong pattern for many of the recent updates. LL has pushed through a number of changes to the interface and added new features without testing them properly. Please, when introducing new features, get them properly tested before you rush them out in a release. Make sure that you don't introduce new bugs or break things as fundamental as chat. When you add new functionality (i.e. snapshots), don't do it at the expense of ease of use and don't do it at the expense of old functionality.

In short, please slow down your development process a little and get things properly tested before you push them out. Beef up your QA and usability departments. Hire residents who use the building tools a lot to go in and test new systems for a couple of hours. Please do something to change your current development process because it's not working very well at the moment.

While I agree with every suggestion improvement on your list, I could not help but think that your suggestions might be more seriously considered by the Lindens had your letter been a bit more professionally diplomatic. Asking loaded rhetorical questions, suggesting that LL doesn't bother to test anything, asking for the names of specific Lindens who implemented changes you don't like, and eluding to the fact that Lindens don't have any fuctional experience with their own program.. well, those things seems to blur the distinction between very good points of constructive criticism vs. emotion-laced complaints that the General forum is already full of. While I can understand you might be flustered, I just don't think that's the best way for them to review your recommendations as objectively as you want them to.

Thank you Katy for a very well written letter. I agree with all of them, but the most irritating one is the chat one, because it is used all the time and it is very frustrating.

Please.

Signed in blood!
even considering creating 30 or 40 alts to each come in and sign!

/signed

/Signed!
(through tears of frustration...)

It's beyond frustration for us by now, Ryla. The basic things we NEED to do to function within SL have either become cumbersome or impossible over the last couple of updates. Come to think of it, starting with 1.7 I think we've had exactly one update that measurably improved client functionality (and it sure as heck wasn't 1.7).

I will say that I don't think it's a problem with not testing updates so much as it is not having the kind of critical mass needed in Preview to really give features a thorough tire-kicking before it's released on the main grid. Questions of any differences between Preview servers and grid servers can only be answered by the Lindens, but I think it should be obvious by now that the testing methodology is missing something important.

My suggestion would be to make a full copy of the main grid client and, say 100 sims, over to Preview. Then offer residents who log in and use the Preview an incentive - say, a small boost to stipend - to insure that it sees something more than the low grid load it gets right now.

If something isn't done, we're only going to see more and more errors compounded on errors, eventually resulting in SL becoming the Buggiest MMO since WW2OL. Trust me, LL doesn't wanna go there.

Please I just hope the lindens really do read this forum and at least try to do something about this problems and bugs. If a large corporation were to look at this now as a platform for their business I am sure they would back off. But, it is still the best there is now. I still enjoy SL, just wish Linden Labs would concentrate on fixing the broken items before introducing new things. PLEASE!

Also, I would love to see a response on this thread from the Lindens!

Well said Katy!

Briana Dawson

Perhaps you would be willing to post a version that strikes you as adequately diplomatic in the Answers forum?

Let me add to this:

-To the lindens who broke building tools.

.............

-TO the lindens that post on the forums.

You know who you are, other then for help features you are not needed, go away.

-To all watermellon humpers.

........*snicker*...... (you all know WHO I am talking about [no joke isn't original, I got it from someone else])

-To all the lindens that are in existence.

......... we need a new batch of lindens, the era of the evil phillip dynasty will be over soon, now we will create the second era (no thats its name, the second era). Everyone who wants to be a linden in second life's second era say I!!!

-To all people who support what the lindens have done to second life.

............. yeah I bet you suppport GWbush don't you.... you sicken me.

-To the lindens who broke secondlife.

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!! NOT AGAIN! is that all familiar scream I hear every week or two when the lindens break everything..... oh wait I think I can hear screaming.. again..... oh sh*t....

-To the linden who will try to ban me for tellign the truth about them.

...HAHHAHAHAHA! Nice try. *shudders with fear for just one second*

-To the lindens who keep making new features without fixing important bugs, just adding more and more and more features and more and more and more bugs.

DIE>>>> BURN!!!!

-TO the lindens who are readign this right now...

*look at the previous statment*

-To the rest of you that donot like what the lindens are (not) accomplishing!

Amen, haaaalaloooooooooooooooooooooooya, praise the lord.







---------------
God I love ranting. Hope it doesn't count as trolling

I've overlooked a bunch of bugs and annoyances cause they didnt bother me as much and I really like SL.. But this is going too far, and... I dont get it.. Why arent the lindens listening? What possible use is the flashy bit on the snapshot tool? And while the new "frozen time" snapshot is cool, not everyone wants it. Make it an _option_. Not to mention the new focus behavior is driving me buggy.. and you broke the building tools? Why and how would you do that? I just dont feel like the develop lindens are paying attention anymore.

I like new features, but even I'm wondering if maybe LL should concentrate on bug fixes for the next 6 months or so...

/signed

Signed!!

LL has clearly put quantity above quality. This is so sad that they have started with such a fantastic concept and created a really good product/service in SL, and is slowly making it un-usable. I cannot believe they do not hear the complaints which means that LL just doesn't think it's important enough to address properly.

I really hope this thread will spur LL to fix some of these issues before they create more problems with new under tested feature, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Just too sad.

(Waits for next wednesdays "upgrade" anouncement )

They also killed holding ctrl then pressing enter to shout.