If LL truly wants reliable feedback from residents...

Over the last week there has been quite a lot of argument, anger, and thought put to the notion of improving both resident's ability to communicate and LL's ability to parse and understand communication. I think we all can admit the process on both sides is less than effective, efficient, and smooth.

Knowing that LL doesn't have a lot to spend on things like focus groups, perhaps they should consider taking a page from a sister world -- A Tale In The Desert.

Those of you who have played will immediately know what I mean. Those who have not, allow me to share with you... A Tale In The Desert is very likely one of the most purely democratic voting systems I have ever encountered in an online world. Every citizen can vote or choose not to, and every citizen may propose items to be voted upon.

Every item brought to vote must receive a certain majority in order to be escalated for review by Pharoah (owner/developer). Once a majority vote has been won, that review occurs and a determination is made as to cost of implementation and time to market.

The resulting information is relayed to the citizens and the item is placed upon the schedule for completion.

This process applies as much to 'laws' in the world as to new ideas, items, and functionality.

The difference between how LL is going about it and how ATITD is doing things is that ATITD's system is part of the game. No need to comb forums, no need to keep up with long arguments or detailed discourse. All relevent information on what the citizen's desire is delivered in a compact and tabulated form.

Of course, all that disucussion is readily available upon the forums if/as needed... but the impportant point is that in ATITD's system - the process of getting customer feedback as well as empowering customers to push issues through the process is something that the developers do not have to do... a huge savings of effort, time investment, and money and one that only increases with time.

I strongly encourage LL to consider speaking with the folks of ATITD and the possibility of licensing the government/voting system. I truly believe it would be a quantum leap for LL on many levels and put to definite and final rest the ongoing issue of having and managing quality communication between LL and its residents.

Sounds like a betterified Feature Voting system.

Cienna,

While I agree that ATITD's voting system is both unique and wonderful, I think you're going to catch a lot of flak for suggesting this be implemented here. Actually I take that back, I think it's going to be largely ignored as a concept, in hope it goes away, and then if it proves to be a popular idea then at that point you'll catch a lot of flak.

The problem with this suggestion of yours is answers in the affirmative a question that a lot of literally vested interests here disagree with; namely "are we equal?".

Nearly every argument on the major drama's of the last week has centered on this question, and until LL gets off the fence and makes it's final determination on the matter, the arguments won't cease, and a proposal that assumes either answer to this question will be met with hostility by the opposing camp.

Taco

p.s. Personally, I love the idea

Um . . . I'd have to ask my two friends from TSO and SL who have played ATITD to the exclusion of almost everything else for the past year or two what they think of importing this system into SL.

But from all the comments they have made about it, I think it would probably be pretty sucky. I'll have to ask them.

coco

I would be strongly against an ATID type "law" voting system. As noted above ATID is a game, which I played, and can have strict rules based on the wishes of the majority. People there even voted to have woman as slaves, since it is based on ancient Egypt, which caused an uproar. That system absolutely would be against the open and flexible nature of SL and I am sure Philip would never allow that to happen.

I added a proposal for a vote feature about a week ago. Check my link below if you have any interest.

actually the ancient egyotians had both men and women as slaves, Sounds like another gor fest to me. Still its an interesting notion.

It sounds like a wonderful concept, except for one fatal flaw - it presumes the 'Pharoah' is willing to listen to the populace and consider their words. Ponies, Benshees, an all-but-dead votes page and stolen economic models are plenty of examples to show that our own Pharoah doesn't care much about what the populace thinks.

Until that part changes, I really have my doubts that any community-feedback solution would stand a chance of working.


- Newfie

as long as the "Pharoah" is benevelont, smart and does not impose laws that restricts the system I don't have any problem with that. The big difference between SL and ATITD is that, latter is a closed game with an end, whereas SL wants to be an open system like Internet. You can't have a majority voting system that dictate the laws in a system that should inherently be open to all ways of life.

That doesn't mean we should not provide feedback and brainstorm. As long as Philip keeps the system open, flexible and more importantly stable, (in both economy and structurally), and remain neutral, the societies in SL can grow on their own.

I see a few folks are getting stuck on the 'law' aspect of ATITD and missing the overall point of my post -- that the system also provides a means for resident proposals and in-world voting that trumps what LL has by light years for immediate response and easily accessible data on what residents really care about (as opposed to what they say they care about, there is often great difference between the two).

Yes, the ATITD system also allows residents to submit 'laws' for consideration and, if the majority rules, they are enacted.

Let's not toss out the baby with the bathwater. LL says they want to know what we think... and a system such as the one ATITD has in place would provide that in a way that assigning resources to read/research/extract information from these forums or keep up with the voting page (which obviously is not an automated process outside of allowing one to cast vote points), etc. simply cannot manage.

I just tossed the thought 'out here' because for all the folks saying 'something must be done', most aren't really offering ideas and thoughts on solutions unless they involve their somehow being a power player in the process. I figure a real solution will be less dependant upon who is involved than it is on providing the most convenient access for MORE to be involved.

If LL truly is interested in consistant, quality feedback, then something like the ATITD system is the most efficient and effective method.

I dont understand, how is that so much different then this:

http://secondlife.com/vote/

It is different in several key ways, most of which deal in-game availability and automatic update to status based upon success or failure in meeting the required majority to receive development attention. Rather than expect the developer to spend time and energy on every proposal, it requires only that proposals that achieve a majority vote of interest gain developer time. This in turn insures that development budget is spent on those things that a majority of citizens desire.

553 proposals to date, 34_000 votes cast, 10 acknowledged, half of those are abandoned, one of which is literally a joke and the remainder were already part of LL stated plans. It really doesn't seem like the manner of voting matters one iota.

The point here being threefold:

1) It is obvious they do not have the staff to adequately manage and address something like 'vote'.

2) It is equally obvious that if some means of filtering were in place, so only the things most universally agreed to be important reached them, it would eliminate the wasted time and money associated with managing 'vote' (which is not currently being done to a level of quality anyway).

3) An internal mechanism that both allowed for residents to create proposals AND self-enforced through code the voting process and required majority to escalate to development would be an improvement on all levels for all involved.

This already happens in LambdaMOO... has since like 93 or something. Anyway -- needless to say, it works. The problem is that is seems over time it starts working against its intended purpose. Too many proposals get created without enough foresight for whatever reason.

Just create an account on Lambda and ask about it. There are now a lot of rules that are irrelevant and most people ignore the feature system. There was also a time when the system became bloated with proposals.

The thing is -- a resident created proposal passes, LL implements it, and 3 months down the road nobody wants to log in anymore because the passed proposal had some unforeseen social/cultural/economic consequences.

I'd rather leave the development plans in the hands of the developers rather than wanton users who think they know what's best. Communication is fine, but giving users power over developers is just plain wrong.

Someone isn't paying attention.

The system used by ATITD doesn't automatically do a damn thing except tabulate and report on votes and allow citizens to create their own votes/hand off copies to others, etc.

The results comes in and it is still a decision gate on the part of the developers as to which/what/if they will actually do it.

But having the process automated and available in-world means less time, effort, money spent on following/keeping up with/managing the process of gathering information.... and it insures that only items which received majority vote even make it to the point of developer consideration.

Aging out old proposals is hardly impossible to do, and I'm certain if LL found a change negatively affecting things, they would reverse it.

The point isn't 'how many holes can we shoot in any possible solution that isn't what we have now' -- the point is 'how many ways can something else be better, help reduce time to decision, help manage things, make participation easier for residents.'

Here's a thought -- maybe this is only a perceived problem. Maybe a bunch of people in the community declared the need for this solution to the sky problem and the problem gained enough mind-share via discussion to become substantial enough to maintain its illusion of existence.

Just a couple weeks ago this 'problem' wasn't on a single person's mind -- then this whole guffaw comes into existence, a bunch of people argue about it, and suddenly it's a very real problem?

Come on -- LL doesn't need the residents wasting their time with this. They know better than any of us the technical considerations and decisions to be made regarding the development of SL. I think the current system we have isn't broken...

and what isn't broken doesn't need to be fixed.

So yes indeed.. I did read your post. I just don't think you're right. And I shared why.

Please to be getting your position squared. You initially said you were against such a change because it meant things happen automatically and what if they find out a particular change is a bad idea. Quoth you:



When I point out that isn't how such a thing would work at all, suddenly that wasn't your position ... it was something else entirely? Yeah. Right.

Suffice to say just because a problem doesn't get much talk doesn't mean it isn't a problem. And if you spend any time whatever browsing history here or in the wiki, you'll see that folks have been interested in a better way to vote and be heard for a while.

Hardly something that has jumped up out of nowhere, more like, in typical fashion, something of interest is highlighted by current events and people once more pick up a thread of conversation.

At least try to understand the solution suggested or the history involved before pretending you know it, eh?

If LL truly wants reliable feedback from residents...

Then stop asking questoins.










Please don't.


































































-Flip

Huh? (grin)

Teppie? Where are you? We need you here...I vote we put Teppie in charge.

I am not sure what you are thinking Cienna but I am not in favor of spending my Second Life toiling in the field and servicing every male who happens to walk by just because the majority voted for it and some Pharoah approved it.

A "perfect democracy" only benefits the majority. The rest of us are left mighty sore at the end of the day.

And, by the way, this post is not meant in jest.

Drama much?

Ok, ok, I give up. Obviously no one but me is capable of seeing past the people or environment in which the code/functionality I'm talking about exists at present.

Sad.

Au contraire. They understand too well. They just don't want what the system implies, functional or otherwise: limits in Second Life. And rather than say that, they bring up technical and methodological issues, on-point or otherwise, that appear - superficially, at least - to be reasonable.

Apples and oranges: argue for functionality till you're blue in the face, but the issue is philosophical, political, and behavioral.

Or maybe you're just not convincing anyone.