I declare this thread to be open discourse

someone say cunt? I guess douchebag won't be far behind

I warned you about the font! Fire will rain down on your cottages and they will be burnt to the ground!

I'd like to agree with you, but I'm not sure I do... and this was really the point I was trying to get at. LL is very reactive. The whole reason we now have resmods, and the reason behind many other changes that have come along, is because they were responses to a perceived need... a perception born out of certain groups of people complaining loudly and often about pervceived problems and injustices. When LL reacts and comes up with ideas like the resmod program then suddenly that's the new problem and injustice and is decried by some of the very same people who helped generate all the noise that was eventually reacted to in the first place. Sometimes I think we need to just shut the hell up and appreciate what we have, and be careful what we wish for or demand. It's a bit like the genie in the bottle who always answers wishes in a way that makes you sorry you didn't spell out the wish as verbosely and with as little vaguery as possible, because what you get often ends up biting you in the ass. Don't like the resmod program? Well what would end up replacing it and would it really be better? Isn't it likely we'd end up wishing we'd just kept our mouths shut instead?

I'm all for player government now. Hey why not? Its OUR world now! The Lindens want to have nothing to do with it obviously, so, the players should take over. I'm all for it!

All things considered, I'd say it looks more like "here, this is your problem now." Forum whining is by its nature correlated to the popularity of a product.

The problem as I've seen it, and for a long time now, isn't the channels of communication themselves. It's finding them under a flood of diatribes, rants, spam, and other nonsense all shoved into one or two areas. I mean, look at the freaking events browser.


Given the structuring of these forums, that browser, and - hey, Second Life itself! - I don't think they quite grasp that concept. It's not that this stuff exists or that it's uncalled for. It's the fact it's finding the wrong target audience and we, as residents, are not empowered to choose to go elsewhere since it's all crammed together. To quote source forgotten: "If you have to dig through trash to find a diamond, you're still digging through trash."

Kinda like how this response probably won't be read by a Linden because it's buried in Yet Another Thread On Resmods.

Every MMOG I've ever been involved with is the same way. Those that shout the loudest generally end up causing change, and more often than not it's not the change they intended. It's the nature of the beast I think.

Pretty much. The problem is it's still "they must change it" instead of "we must change it." Bit of a common thread that's driving me away from this little world day by day.

And no, Resmods don't constitute "we" being able to change things by any stretch of the imagination. It's just a very limited position of power.

Well in a way it does constitute that, at least in theory. I can understand the reasoning behind having community members do it instead of more detached LL employees. Whether or not I think it was needed or is a good idea is beside the point. People complained and LL tried to give them what they wanted in as much of an "our world" way as possible. Regardless there's no doubt that this was in response to people complaining that the forums needed more moderation.

no that wasn't me who reported it, i told you many times chip, az reported it , but i did not, i liked it. ok? said it before and i will say it again. I did not report it, i didnt do it, i did not report it. ok? got it?

I wasn't really complaining. Whether you or Az did it you made a valid point. I brought it up because what you're fearing will happen already exists. LL reacts when people complain through AR's, so in essence the grid is already policed by the community.

Can you imagine the uproar if there was an inworld resmod like program where an army of Linden appointed resmods patrolled the sims, deleting what they considered to be M rated content in PG sims, or shutting down businesses because in their subjective opinion there was some TOS/CS issue, issuing warnings to us....that would not be acceptable. But our posts on these forums are our content too, and our discussion is part of SL.

It is no more appropriate to have members ruling us here on the forums than it would be having them rule over our in world content.

Oh, I agree, but the only change would be the frequency of policing, not really the nature of it. As it is now LL only acts when people file a report, so those who file reports are already basically the SL police force.

As a matter of fact, just to really get this incident out of the way since it seems to have become an issue between us and what was once a really nice relationship between us, I was present that day to speak to Lee after Az managed to get Lee to your store to see that pic. The only reason I was there was to speak to Lee about a warning I had received for which, to this day, I dont know the reason why it was issued.

Back then Lee was a liason helping with customer support and I had been trying to speak to him for days. I was in Aqua talking to Mort who had a shop next to yours when Lee appeared and entered your shop. Mort and I followed to catch up with him and Lee led us right to Az and the pic.

It came down totally that way Chip and I really hope that you acccept this. I told you then that the picture, very cleverly titled, "A Little Light Bondage" was wonderful and I liked it a lot. I hope it is still on display somewhere in SL so other members can see it.

Now lets go back to the old chummies we had when you were a twig or root or whatever it was in Aqua and I was in my cave in Mauve

hehe, no worries, Katy. There's no bad blood. The only point I was trying to make is what I said in my last post. We already police each other and always have, and we did on the forums too before there were resmods. Jeska responded to reported posts. It was our fellow forum participants filing the reports.

In my heart I totally agree coco and I remind those who think we are just whining for the sake of being disruptive that those who speak out to debate our liberties are those who protect them.

You and I are in agreement Chip. Its funny how such a controversial subject has actually brought otherwise differing minds in sync.

The point I'm trying to make is we're limited to one set of forums owned and maintained by LL. There's no room for "alternatives" because this is the "official" one that the Lindens use. By that token, the only power we might have over them is that which the Lindens appropriate, not that which we create ourselves. (Ignoring "social influence," anyway)

As for the main stimulus, I think they just got tired of policing the forums. Could be wrong, but given the common solution has been "let someone else do it for the privilege," I'm not seeing the ResMod program as straying very far from the party line. Sure, debate here was probably a factor. Highly doubt it was the determining one.


Now, I'm big on applying aspects of niche theory to these situations. My opinion is the system needs to be structured away from the "one set of devs, one forum, one world" program and allow for alternative niches to form on a managable level. Because that cannot happen without major redesign... well. Futility sets in.

I am not really able to tell if you are making a joke or if you are sincerely suggesting that the use of the word General in the forum title and the fact that you said "open discourse" causes you to think that this forum is intended to be and can properly be used to discuss anything at all.

The Purpose section of the Forum Guidelines, in its first sentence, states the purpose of the forums available at forums.secondlife.com

"The purpose of the Second Life Forums is to promote discussion and education about Second Life."

There are specialized forums for discussion of somewhat narrowly defined aspects of this, namely the Design and Texture forum, the Animation forum, the Scripting tips forum, etc.

The General forum is for discussion and education about Second Life, for ideas and questions which don't seem to quite fit into the more narrowly defined forums.

It is not at all the case the General forum, by having the word General in its title, is open to everyone to to discuss anything at all.

The main difference being that each of us in that circumstance has an equal voice - anyone can file an abuse report. When you then set aside a group of people whose voice is taken into consideration more, and who have additional powers over others, then that equality is gone. It is not an apples to apples comparison. As the resmod program becomes more and more the front line of things, obviously Jeska is not going to be reading every AR anymore because that would be pointless (since this is supposedly to help scale the workload of the forums). However, in that circumstance, we no longer all have an equal voice. It becomes the whim of the resmods, a group of people we have zero say in choosing, that will determine what gets pulled aside for review, what topics get stopped, and who gets targetted for disciplinary review.

So again, you are going from a situation where we are all equal and have the same abilities to a select group of people having more power over us. I have a fundamental problem with that in a service that I am paying for, especially when that power is tied to our disciplinary record and access to the service.

It is also a slippery slope into the poor beleaguered Lindens who are unable to adequately supply support resources claiming they can't handle the volume of abuse reports in world, and outsourcing those for review and handling to members as well.

People have been seriously hurt in these forums, and have left Second Life because of it.

People need some perspective.

Yes, I agree.

In that if someone saying nanny nanny boo boo on an internet forum causes serious hurt, they need to reevaluate what really matters in life.

The problem is that when you appoint residents to positions of power over other residents, you introduce corruption, as surely as night follows day. We have already seen the merest beginnings of it in the resmod program. And I was interested to read another thread today, about how some Mentors regard, and describe, themselves as 'the police'.

I am not being critical of the people concerned; it is a problem with human beings. Which is why no system like this should be set up without adequate scrutiny.

well that I can agree with you on, most certainly.

Addendum: any member of a group thats had such sterling citizens as Imogen Best and Jenna Fairplay involved that thinks they are the 'Police' is suffering from serious delusions of adequacy.