Just Keep Us Informed

As we all know the Relay for Life was on this weekend when everything went down. Just an hour or so before the LAST Official lap and closing ceremonies. That in itself is not a good thing....but....a lot of us had been awake ALL night participating, having fun, raising $ for Cancer. Waitng for this last lap to celebrate.

Had LL just said...It will be 3 Hours...It will be approx 6hours...whatever thier estimate....some of us would have gotten a few hours sleep and been much more appreciatitive of the time factor it was going to take.

Regardless of if you had been up all night doing the Relay or doing other things in SL, all night or not.........Just give us an estimated TIME that you think it is going to take. That is a reasonable request to LL I would think. Let us know!!! A posting every 2 hours saying we are still working on it....that doesn't make for happy customers.

Keep us informed of an estimated TIME. and if it is going to take longer...then say so. If you fix it faster....woo hooo..bonus for you...don't you look good then LL.
But to keep your customers waiting and waiting and waiting.....that does not bode well and leaves LL open for slashing in the forums.

I know the timing couldn't have been worse for Relay for Life.

Unfortunately we found an exploit that *had* to be fixed. That means reviewing the code for the hole that allowed the exploit, then fixing the code, integrating it into the code base, and redeploying the entire grid. It's not always possible to provide an estimate for how long this type of problem will take to fix.

As we get more information we will post to the announcement forums what we know, as Karen did last night. Please keep an eye on that forum -- you can even set up an RSS feed if you want.

Curing cancer versus curing an online video game..... hmmm...

Wow, I'm glad everyone was speechless with my comment above.... makes you stop and think for a second whats really inportant.

More like, there wasn't anything really to be said. Leaving SL open while there is an exploit is not an acceptable course of action in my opinion, and I'm sure the opinions of many others. If they'd left it open and someone had destroyed my house, I would have lost something. Time and effort, at least. If, on the other hand, SL closes and I can't donate at SL RFL, I can still donate to American Cancer Society or any other suitable fund by going to their website and finding out how to donate. So, while it's regretable that this cut into RFL time, I'm not sorry they did it, because it was the only acceptable course of action.

"Wow, I'm glad everyone was speechless with my comment above.... makes you stop and think for a second whats really inportant."

You're right. I am going to stop playing SL entirely and use all that time instead to work to cure cancer.

I assume you are going to do the same?

Musuko.

Not the point of the OP.

Give us an estimated time.

We don't care if you say it's going to be 30 minutes then come back in 25 mintues and say it's going to be 4 hours. Not leaving a time gives the impression that it is a quick fix or that you are almost done with the fix. If you underestimate and find you need more time, just tell us. Lots less will bitch about the time getting bumped than no time given at all.

HiINT: Standard practices for things could be worked out ahead of time. EXPLOIT=6 HOURS to fix, PHYSICS PRIM GRIEFING=4 HOURS to reset grid, etc, etc.

This isn't hard. Give it a try.

~Jessy

And this is how you prove that you don't write software for a living. Robin did answer the OP's request in a sensible way:



I agree that LL should generally give estimates to the best of its ability. But when you just discovered a critical bug and face having to find its cause, fixing it and deploying a new version of the software, an estimate is not always easy to come with. Be glad they acted upon it immediately before too much damage could be done.

Wendel

"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined. Why is this cause of disaster so common? First, our techniques of extimating are poorly developed. More seriously, they reflect an unvoiced assumption which is quite untrue, i.e., that all will go well."
- Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month, p. 14

Write enough software and you will eventually discover that anything non-trivial will hit you with delays that you never saw coming. Brooks says that fully HALF of the time allocated to deliver a completed project should be for testing and debugging. HALF! And although it sounds like overkill to set aside that much time just for testing and debugging, I know he's not being unreasonable!

Honestly, in terms of trying to keep the grid up, I am not unimpressed by LL.

(It's just everything else right now that's making me grumpy.)

No I don't, but I have a brain. And no, it was not sensible from a customer relations standpoint.

-LL knows how long it takes to redeploy the grid. There is a definate timeframe that could be built upon. ie "We're looking into the problem. Looks like a complete redeploy of the grid. Once we know what's wrong SL will be up in xxx time. Give us a few to figure out how long the fix will take. No estimate on that as of now."

See? Using information known and explaining the course without nailing yourself into a commitment you can't keep. I do such every day at my work with customer relations. What you do/sell makes absolutely no difference what so ever. It's how you handle relations with those you are selling a product to.

If you're happy with LL's service, then I'm happy you're happy. I am not happy with LL's service and am letting them know that. Yes, if I don't like it I can leave. That is the question LL needs to ask themselves. Do they want me, and my money, to leave? Or all of the other unsatisfied customers who have voiced thier opinions here, in-world, or have kept them to themselves. Some have already left.

~Jessy

In this particular instance I think LL did all they could do, and did the right thing.

Sure the timing was bad - but thats life... as for the relay for life project - consider:

How much worse would it have been had many of the builds been destroyed due to the exploit?

No, it was something that HAD to be fixed, it HAD to be fixed right now, and they hopped to and did what was needed as fast as they could.

Karen gave us posts on what was going on, and updated those posts. I was there from the initial 'couldn't log back on' to the 'SL is up again' and kept an eye out for those updates.

Robin even posted an appology for the downtime.

Although I don't particularly think this update addressed important issues and that it introduced more headaches and less fixes than it should (even introducing a few rather unpleasant exploits and side effects), in the decision to pull down the grid and fix this asap - I can't fault the decision, nor the process - time - and speed at which it was done.

Agreed, Siggy.

And sorry if I came off sounding petulant. Bug on the grid have me frustrated. Made me into one of those "irritable customers". Heh.

The grid needed to come down, and on that fix I have no problem with. I do feel sorry for those in LL kept up by that. I jsut wish we knew what was going on more. I truely enjoy my time in SL and want it to continue.

Personally, I just like to know what's going on. I feel like it's comming to be an "Us verses Them" theme and I don't want it to be. I'd rather LL and the Residents work together. To me, that means opening communications better. The forums are a poor place for such, imo, but I don't have another idea either.

~Jessy

re: Resolving software issues.

People odn't realize that the vast BULK of computer work is diagnostics. You really can't get a good estimate on the time until you're already 80% done or so. This is COMPLETELY different from most other industries.

re: Giving ETAs.

This is a no-win situation, no matter how it's done.

Silence = "Waaah, give us an ETA!"
Estimate low = "Waaah, you're 2 minutes over your ETA!"
Estimate high = "Waaah, You people are morons if you can't fix it in (see low estimate)."

As someone who has repaired PCs for a living, let me tell you, people won't be satisfied with ANY ETA you give.

re: Downtime during the RFL

This is going to sound harsh, but it's a truth; Cancer will be here after the downtime, but the time and money people have invested in SL might not be if the grid had stayed up. Besides, in all likelyhood, whatever venue the RFL was going to end up in probably would have been deleted by a griefer anyways, had the grid stayed up. LL made the right decision.

And besides, who says there can't be another RFL? Shouldn't it be a regularly occuring event?

As a tech, I have to agree 100% with you. Those who shout the loudest are usually the least technically inclined. You simply cannot give an accurate ETR (it's "repair", not "arrival" if you don't know exactly where the problem lies. It's impossible. Maybe a good analogy would be looking for a needle in a haystack. You might find it in two minutes, but it also might take you a month. Could you possibly give someone an estimated time you will find the needle?