Should LL stop bothering to communicate with their residents?

Seeing as any attempt by Lindens lately to communicate with residents at large results in a) a flame war b) cries of favoritism, or c) complete misunderstanding of what the fuck they're trying to say, is it time they just shut up and let us simmer in our own juices?

That means, no IRC, no Infonet, no SLH, no Terranova, no SLUniverse forums, no talking in-world (unless it's a Liason telling someone to read the wiki), and absolutely NO emailing the Lindens for anything other than billing issues.

I think that's what the vocal minority here wants. Let's see what the lurkers think.

Tiki Wiki Techi Literati,

LF

i think the question should be "should LL START communicating with their residents?"

Are you serious?

There's two Lindens idling in IRC right now, who generally respond in 15 minutes when you mention their name in the channel.

Any Linden online in-world responds to questions or help requests.

Every Linden has an email address you can send correspondance to, and get a reply (even the CEO)

Lindens in-world are always chatting with residents and listening to what they have to say. Even the CEO and Vice President pop in from time to time, and they're ALWAYS swamped with people talking to them.

They communicate in blogs, in user blogs' comments, in unofficial channels (second life herald, metaverse messenger, infonet), and post on the forums.

What else do you want them to do? Call you personally for a fireside chat every day?

nope, all i ask is for a acceptable customer service.

Just give me absolute power over the forums... all problems will be solved and the trains will run on time.

The question is "Should LL think harder about when, how and in what way they announce things." The recent eBay thing is a good example of how they announce later and in a far from 'complete' manner. That's the problem that I see with the community. Well that and the amount of spin that generally drips off their announcements like treacle.

We've been providing LL with feedback for months and months concerning their lack of effective communications with residents - and yet it continues.

It won't change until there is a new CEO...Not saying there should be a new CEO...

Founding CEO's are not necessarily the best qualified to provide the leadership & vision to grow the company effectively.


Just saying....

I think the biggest thing has been the lack of content, not the lack of communication channels.

Like... tell us "we know there's a texture problem, we're working on it as a high priority".

Or "The reason we don't show the old loading textures for intangible objects (particles, phantoms, attachments, ...) is because...".

Stuff like that.

This poll is absolutely poinless - equivalent to asking some guy, "have you quit beating your wife"? It presupposes that not communicating is possible.

What an absolute waste of electrons.

Nah, I don't think that's really what they want, but like so many issues people just have knee-jerk reactions and don't think them through to their logical conclusions. As far as that vocal minority is concerned LL is damned if they do and damned if they don't unless they're catering directly to their particular whims. I doubt it would matter much what they do. Some people will always find fault and see a conspiracy hiding behind every tree.

Lordfly, get your head out of the sand.

I'm glad I didn't have to say this.

Are you serious? Apparently some of us are so special as to be singled out for untimely (if we are lucky to get any at all) responses to email, IM and Hotline Posts.

Oh, yes, communication is evil and the Lindens are immortal beings, entirely different from you and I. They should not breach the barriers that God placed between us. It is inapppropriate!

Huh?

You mean they DO communicate? Sorry, I must have blinked then...

Surely this kind of snarky ill-mannered rudeness couldn't possibly have anything to do with why they don't.

Ive had to use live help, and had Lindens on the other end, and ive ran into a couple in world, Ive found them, as helpful as humanly possible on each occasion, and extremely corteous. Im pretty much a newb, and certianly not one of the "FIC".
I try to be corteous in all my dealings with others and tend to find this is reciprocated, so, I can only imagine those with "major issues" with the Lindens started off with an attitude.

Absolutely.

Muzzle them!

I suppose I must have entered the FIC via the back door, because the Lindens have always answered to any questions I've had, and they have always been quick to ask and extremely polite.

But of course, some people are natural whinners

The problem is, there is such a wide variety of vocal minorities on the boards here that an outroar is practically guaranteed regardless of what the Lindens do.

edited because I felt like it

I said they should as many here in the forums want them to speak 2 seconds after something happens no matter what it is or how surprise it was. I view what the people demand and think "Didn't soccer moms go out in the 90s?". There is a total lack of restraint and understanding and I would love for many of these people to actually be in the shoes of the lindens facing the "I'm gonna sue", "OMFG the grid went down 2 seconds ago we want answer now", and all the 259827459 posts that come out that take away from the lindens being able to get the answers the people demand in a timly fashion.

EDIT: also forgot some of us can't get into IRC to speak with them or get the fast update. Seems that IRC thinks I have an open proxy so tier communication medium there could be leaving residents in the dark.

Lindens posted 59 times in these forums yesterday. That's just these forums.

The "snarkiness" started only after many bouts of no communication, suggestions that things be posted to feature suggestions, then to voting, then e-mail to support, then to smoke signals, then to postal mail, then to walmartsucks.com, then (not making this one up) the recent tactic of "please mail me at foo@secondlife.com so we can discuss this issue you mention on the forums further".

Linden Lab was never what one would call wildly open; they have reached a nadir for them which only seems to be worsening.

Furthermore when, for example, Karen Linden posts that they think they've got the texture problem solved, even some of the most vocal critics pile on with sincere thanks for the crumbs of information.

Any rudeness LL gets from their customers is extremely well warranted by their own conduct. To paraphrase Steve Martin:

I was always raised that one should try to avoid being rude at all costs, as it is a very poor reflection on how you were taught to interact with people.

I'm truly sorry that your experiences with LL have caused you to have such a pessamistic outlook. However, your overgeneralizations are hardly accurate. I can think of a number of times where Lindens have dealt with extremely rude people (who had little reason to be so, except for the fact that they felt they could be) - and the Lindens in question still kept their cool.


Truth is, rudeness is rarely warrented in a customer service setting. It certainly doesn't advance your case any and it greatly decreases the chances that you'll get what you want in the end.

Cory Edo for President!