Resident Action Committee -- Log, Comments, Addendums

I am glad Hiro brought the whole thing up because now Lordfly has a new set of guidelines now that will hopefully set things into motion much quicker next meeting. That kind of communication (even if it makes you want to bash your head in) helps.

For the majority it did go orderly but there were still roadbumps along the way. Such as, people continuing to talk past the timeframe of a discussion. Also, those who felt it was unfair cause their topic could not be brought up only because those certain people never IM'd Lordfly to get into the queue. Lordfly stated to IM him to get queued.

I think a topic discussion averages about 30 minutes. I wonder if we could knock this down to 15 minutes per topic to fit more into the meeting or just save them for other planned meetings. Hrm. If a topic finishes up earlier then so be it.

Three hours is hard (especially if you keep crashing, like I did last night), but not unexpected, really, considering the open-endedness of the thing and lack of a previously prepared agenda to discuss, and the fact that it was the first meeting. Actually, a lot was accomplished, I think.

I think it went very well indeed! Considering not just the open-endedness, but the diversity of people in attendance. And Lordfly did a great job!

Bear in mind that it helps enormously when the people there are all sincere and acting in good faith and trying to cooperate.

When you have people in a group who are just there to make fun of the group on the group channel, or to make trouble during a meeting, then naturally it's not going to go very well.

Since I'm still a member of MJW, I would appreciate it if those who are in the group merely to grief it would kindly take a hike. No one from the MJW at last nights RAC meeting was there to make trouble.

Please return the favor to MJW. I really don't like sitting on the game, as I did last night, and listen to a bunch of people who think they are real cute - such as Pandastrong and Nolan - spam the group chat channel with a whole lot of derisive and ridiculing (and not particularly witty) remarks.

If you don't want to participate in Lordfly's group, or you don't want to participate in MJW, or if you don't want to participate in any other such group in existance, or if you don't like the group, JUST LEAVE.

It's really not fair for us in MJW to simply have to wait till you get tired of it and go away. And yet we don't want to kick people out. We will wait you out, but it isn't improving my opinion of any of you who are doing this to have to wait out these childish antics.

So please: Grow up, fellas, and leave the group. Act like men, if men you be. Let us get on with what we want to do in MJW.

coco

Yes, leave coco alone! She might actually ATTEND a meeting of MJW one day if she's not pestered by all your im's.

Below the belt, Lynn.

I've already explained that numerous times.

coco

Aww. I think you're being unnecessarily harsh to Panda and Nolan. They're usually exceptionally witty. If you two knuckleheads aren't using your A material, then I think you owe the MJW people an apology and/or a better show.

Doesn't have to attend, she's an officer remember

Like some kinda creature from Greek Mythology.... 2 heads and one voice

You know I went to a lot of trouble to post and summarize some of the remarks for comment, we now have a thread about another group going.

Does anyone have anything to add about the issues posted???

1. Voting System
2. Texture Permissions
3. Reducing Conflict of Interests with Lindens
4. Improving communication in SL (events, forum, etc)

If you have something to post about the MJW, go post it existing threads about it.

boo hiss.

I don't wanna be annoying, so as long as these "discussions" and "committees" and stuff stay in the realm of discussion and can stay there, I think everything will be okay.

I am staunchly against regulations and standards.

This is OUR world.

OUR possibilities.

I didn't sign up to SL to have to sigh and deal with this crap. Sorry.

I participate therefore I am.

No representation is fine by me.

Why is the benevolent dictatorship suddenly not good enough for anyone?

Think you suddenly know what's better for the rest of us?

Go create your own vw and leave this one be. I have been enjoying it so far.

Ahem... I'll go have a cookie now and walk away from this thread.

hey! put down the cookie, sit and elaborate.. I think you point is missed by several people.

I know exactly ONE person who actually tried to make another VW and decided to stay in SL and appreciate what was available. Letting SL be a dictatorship is fine for many! As the meeting itself showed... "do whatever you want" can break down!

I for one just want a better connection when Lindens are doing things "at the users request". There is tons of stuff LL needs to do to SL completely without our opinion, consent, or review. However, there is a huge area where we could communicate better.

That said, I'm sure there is a bit too much of "Look LL, this is how it needs to be or I'm leaving".

There is nothing wrong with that attitude... cept for the fact that people get in that mode and have not left for a over a year now!

Wasn't able to attend, but read the 'script with interest.

I think as a means to organize things that matter to folks and present them in a solid fashion, this is a grand idea.

With that said, I think Linden Labs should proceed very, very carefully in taking anything to come of this as representative of the entire customer base. Indeed, should that manner of focus input be desired, an official focus group should be undertaken.

I agree with this completely Cienna!

I very much enjoyed this meeting too. I apologize for not being there for the end. My cable went out and did not come back up until late in the am.

But I'm thankful for the transcript, and for the time that I was able to be there. I think this was the start of a really good group!

What I think would be really interesting would be the 'harvesting' of facts and figures from these groups and individuals.

While their concerns and insights are valuable, even more exciting (at least for me) would be to get a detailed consensus of how these individuals are spending their time in world, what they are spending L$ on, what they are selling L$ for, and perhaps each individual in the groups could write up a sort of personal history of how they found out about SL and their progression from new user to veteran.

I believe that an extensive report on this information as well as some background on the people themselves and then carefully organizing and anonymizing the information could go a huge distance in assisting the Lindens in improving our world.

What Iron proposes is based on a superior level of patience than is usually seen in SL. Here he's said something akin to "lets sit back, get real data from EVERYONE and what they do, why, and how much time and effort the spend on it".

I'd like to think that this is a direction the RAC meetings are going.

The current plan is.... 1 meeting on Sunday (not a Euro friendly times btw) then a linden meeting on Wednesdays.

Maybe it would be better to have many meetings at many times before submitting anything to the lindens.

The direction is a good one so far... we want to show the Lindens what is "on our mind" not "a list of demands".

Here is the first press on the meeting from an embedded reporter

*Reprinted with permission from The Metaverse Messenger

By KATT KONGO/staff writer

The group Resident Action Committee held its first meeting Sept. 4 to discuss various concerns of the residents who attended.

At the onset of the meeting, Digerido said of the group, “This is half of a reaction to the other semi-political groups going on in world right now, and a fermenting of my own ideas.”

He then laid down a few rules, saying, “Everyone will have an equal voice during this discussion. There will be no officers, no official spokesmen, none of that political brouhaha.”

He said, “From time to time, folks can request a few moments of quasi-silence (like I did) to speak a longer line of unbroken thoughts.”

Digeridoo said that at the end of the meeting, the log will be collected and posted to the forums and his website. He added that the log will be scanned over, and the main points that were brought up will be filtered down into bullet points.

“These will then be mailed off to Robin and Philip Linden for their readings,” he said, adding, “Later in the week, they'll meet with the residents again for another open-ended discussion.”

After his comments, chaos broke out as attendees argued over the best way to run the meeting. It was eventually decided to let Digeridoo act as a temporary chairman to direct conversation.

Bluemane Steele began a discussion on “the disconnection between the voting system in place and the issues and bugs being dealt with.”

Said Steele, “We currently have a voting system that encourages a ‘priority list’ order to solving bugs.” He added, “Your ten votes are locked into issues that are getting passed over.”

After a very lengthy discussion on the topic of the voting system with many suggestions on how to improve that system, the group moved on to another subject, one brought up by Drift Monde.

Monde said she would like to see the issues of permissions fixed that give texture creators the same protections as the other content creators. “And I speak for all texture creators,” she said.

Said Monde, “I know that LL knows it’s a problem.. but after almost two years they have done nothing to try to fix it.”

She said she feels there is no support for this issue as there are just a handful of people in the business. “But as you know 90 percent of my collection is out there for free, passed from one to the other or is being sold by someone else,” she said.

After discussing that subject at length, Prokofy Neva said that in the Metaverse Justice‘s last meeting with the Lindens, they asked for and obtained an agreement to get a code of conduct from them, extracts from their own employee manual. “Which I suspect is deficient precisely in the area of how to minimize conflict of interest,” he added.

He went on to say, “On matters like endorsements of resident businesses, participation of resident events, giving bids to residents from banks on secret sims and all the rest.”

He added, “When we can establish what their rules are for engagement, we can understand better how to next address the problem of their ruination of resident business as happened with GOM because we'd learn whether it is ok to have side secret negotiations with any resident business with an aim to take it over or give stock options or whether that is a conflict of interest.“

The group had a long discussion of various aspects of Linden behavior, from approachability to showing favoritism.

Jeffrey Gomez then asked, “How do people feel about communication in Second Life, in general?”

He added, “For example, the events browser. The fact we're forced down certain venues that are under watched and don't necessarily work. The fact the MOTD [Message of the Day] works better than the damned forums for communication.”

He then asked, “Just, how do you feel about the systems we use to talk to residents and the Lindens? Can they be better? How would you improve the chat interface, especially for those here expressly for it?”

Most present said that SL could greatly improve on its communication venues. Said Prokofy Neva, “TSO was so much nicer and human because you could type in clean paragraphs instead of these choppy sentences.”

After much discussion on that topic, Blueman Steele proposed to give an official number, title, and status to all proposals to facilitate talking about them in the forums and referring to them at future meetings.

“The status might be (just ideas here) 1) open for discussion 2) moved/combined/replaced by a new proposal 3)Dead moot, impossible stupid,” he added.

Not much was said in response to Steele’s proposal. Ellie Edo was then given the chance to speak, and she said, “I would like it on record that at least Ellie Edo would like to express support for LL in refusing any compensation, and standing firm that business risk is risk, and LL must progress regardless of hurting some residents in the wider good.”

Jeffrey Gomez said that he agreed, “Simply because certain matters like these are precisely why a good business diversifies.”

Edo asked, “Should LL compensate people when they lose because things change? It’s yes or no.”

After a brief discussion on the possibility of point to point teleporting and the possibility of losing telehubs, the meeting was adjoined.

Digeridoo plans to hold meetings every Sunday, with a Linden follow up meeting midweek. For more details on the meeting, read the complete transcript on the Messenger’s website, www.metaversemessenger.com.

I *think* what we're all waiting for is a way for the Linden's to communicate better inworld so that everyone is involved with their responses (if any) to these types of committees.

LL has stated in the past that they want our input on various subjects, such as permissions, bug fixes, new features, etc., etc., and they have stated in the past that they were surprised that the general population felt strongly on one certain subject that they moved it up in priority for fixing.

These types of committees, while serving a good purpose of letting people air their griefs, have them on record and having them sent to the Linden's will not do any good until *all* residents of SL have been able to review them and have a very easy way to communicate their feelings back to LL.

LL needs and has needed a better way to communicate with end-users WHEN they want input on various subjects; and SL users need a better way to communicate these to the Linden's.

Maybe this will come about with meetings such as these and long logs set to the Linden's showing some of the concerns that are (or are not) posted on the forums that might be buried.

But the ball is now in LL's court on how to create a communicative system on these types of issues, give updated responses to the issues presented; and make the communication easy for the SL community to receive and respond. LL also need to make sure that each and every one of their employees are up-to-date on these issues as well, we've seen previous examples of "I dunno" when asked about a hot topic.

One of the things that should be presented to the Linden's is "How do we communicate to you when hot-topic issues do occur? How do we get a verifiable response back from LL on this topic(s)?" And most importantly, HOW will this be communicated by LL to the entire SL community?

Forum responses are fine for some subjects; however, not everyone in world reads the forums, and there could be a very large group of SL'ians who are affected by any of the proposed changes that should somehow be notified.

Could the top-20 bug problems be listed in the interface with work-arounds outlined as well as the fix listed in future releases? Could a SL Top-10 Hot Subject listing be created as part of the interface (like events) that list the concerns of the SL'ians and the official LL response? Could the message of the day be tied into those interface changes to announce when an update to any of those itemizations occur?

I'm trying to think of a way that LL can communicate with everyone, SL'ian, employee, committee members, bug-reporters, etc. so that everyone is on the same page with the same information.

Communication -- flowing both ways is so damn important.

After reading countless posts and threads about gov't in sl in recent days one thing that stands out above all of these ideas and posts remains with me...

My opinion is two fold and is as follows;

Until these groups are willing to pay my monthly fees I will not support there agendas in SL. There are enough laws, rules, and such in rl and in rl I pay my taxes and fees to both local and federal governments. This may seem like a very selfish approach, and in fact it realy is. Why? Because I am paying monthly fees for a service in which I am free to enjoy any way I wish, presently (well as soon as they stop changing shit ever week lol). As long as I am the one paying the fees I have ever right to dictate my own existance within SL.

Some will tell me things are wacked and I need representation. That is all fine and good but it is my understanding from King Philip himself that no gov't entity will be recognized within SL except LL. Therefor I am currently represented by LL and under the dictatorship of such.

Games have governments, businesses fall under the rules of the state in which they run that business. In this case we all fall under California, USA laws.

If anyone can get the go ahead from King Philip on this issue of government I will then listen but right now its a matter of my money and no choice in the matter.

Cat

Exactly. Our world, and our possibilities. One of those possibilities of any free world is the ability to get together with people to push for common causes.

If you don't want to do that, you don't have to deal with it.

The benevolent dictatorship is probably suddenly not good enough for people most likely due to what happened to GOM, I think. (Although I will point out again that SL's hidden negotiations with GOM in the first place was already favoritism.)

This benevolent dictatorship has never been good enough for me when it includes arbitrarily promoting a few businesses or people over others and giving them special benefits.

None of these resident groups has the power of a government to tell others what to do, nor does any, to my knowledge, claim to be any kind of government.

What they have is strength in numbers to present their desires to the Lindens with greater hope of having an effect. As most of the desires of all three of the groups are benign and would actually benefit SL citizens, fear of them on that count (the things they want) is actually kind of misplaced. And if that weren't true of a group, they not only still have the right to form, they won't get anywhere if they have an unpopular agenda, so there is no need to fear them, either.

What is the opposite of having groups band together to try to effect changes they want?

The opposite is PREVENTING people from banding together, and forcing them to approach the Lindens on an individual basis. That right there is a sort of limitation far more threatening than the existance of any special interest or lobbying groups.

When you have freedom of assembly - and we do, in SL - then you are going to have the formation of these sorts of groups.

There really isn't any way for anyone to stop this train, nor should anyone want to.

coco

Lordfly, get a book of "Roberts Rules."
It's the only way to run a proper meeting of that size in less than a day and a half.

I'm looking at those now... and though they stand the test of time they are really overwhelming me in the complexity of the 'full' set of rules.

I'd like to see a condensed set of rules for meetings that would aid with the chaos we saw.

This is the shortest version of the ideas I could find...

1, All members have equal rights, privileges, and obligations; rules must be administered impartially.
2. The minority has rights which must be protected.
3. Full and free discussion of all motions, reports, and other items of business is a right of all members.
4. In doing business the simplest and most direct procedure should be used.
5. Logical precedence governs introduction and disposition of motions.
6. Only one question can be considered at a time.
7. Members may not make a motion or speak in debate until they have risen and been recognized by the chair and thus have obtained the floor.
8. No one may speak more than twice on the same question on the same day without permission of the assembly. No member may speak a second time on the same question if anyone who has not spoken on that question wishes to do so.
9. Members must not attack or question the motives of other members. Customarily, all remarks are addressed to the presiding officer.
10. In voting, members have the right to know at all times what motion is before the assembly and what affirmative and negative votes mean.

(my god is there ONE we didn't break?)

The rest is quite log but found here

http://www.csuchico.edu/sac/parliament.html

I have a group setup to discuss with LF. It's scalable - a fully distributable group.

Did not the meeting with Philip take place, with hardly anyone there ? I think Prok said he would go, but for him personal chats with Philip must be getting quite routine by now, and with him as a leading representative, RAC is hardly a counterbalance to MJW, which was largely his creature from inception.

I may have this wrong. Perhaps there was after all, a good diverse attendance. I cant find the report, or the transcript. Anyone know where they are ? Why not here ? Why make it hard to find ?

I reiterate the need for a group forum, keeping everything together and easy to find, if RAC is to have a worthwhile existence.

I was mildly amused to see that my having raised the issue of the move to demand a "compensation culture" was totally omitted from Bluemans first meeting summary.

Since this was a major feature of MJW's representations to Philip, surely this was a hot topic of more concern than some of what did get reported. Nice that the press report, in contrast, did notice it, even recording some assenting voices.

Maybe Prok managed to restate MJW's ("we traders want compensation for any change that damages us" position on this to Philip, but through RAC's voice this time.

I really need to find the transcript to see if I am being unfair, as this is all somewhat prejudiced conjecture. But where is the darned transcript of this Philip meeting ? Did it not happen ?

I'll have to have another search..............
Confusion....confusion...
Group Forum....Group Forum.......

I would like to see the transcript myself.

I tried several searches. eg "meeting, transcript, philip". Nothing yet.........

There must be another whole thread here somewhere, surely ?

Ok, I found the new, separate thread. Difficult to find because, of course, the forum wont let you search on RAC. Why my original attempts to insist on a group forum to obviate this difficulty attracted no support, I just don't know. I'm about to read the transcript (usually a long job), to see what three topics Prok raised , and if there was any difference from his last time. And who else was batting for what.

The thread is here:

/120/5d/61206/1.html

Are you kidding me? I actually posted to that thread. I feel dense. I think I meant to go back to it, but I may just be colosally stupid