Disciplinary Action / Town Hall Transcript

Sadly, I've just been logged out of Second Life and served up a disciplinary notice for "disturbing the peace", because I have "repeatedly disrupted a townhall" being held to attempt to explain away the recent changes to the economy. I only asked a few questions, of course, in relation to the total volume of questions concerning these latest economic "changes" that are being instituted by Linden Lab. I can only conclude that I've been asking the WRONG questions, as I am not allowed to login to Second Life for one hour, at which time this town hall will be over.

This brings me to the point of the post. Since I've been forcefully removed from Second Life, I've lost my log of this town hall. If anyone is AT this townhall (at the actual Pooley stage), and able to log it in full, could you please send me the transcript at [email]shaun@slsolutions.org[/email]. It would be greatly appreciated.

Also, before you post about the economic changes, BEWARE of the possible concequences of opposing them. It seems that Linden Lab may be adopting a new strategy, of forcefully silencing anyone with serious concerns about their new economic policies. Choose your words carefully.

Post the questions here, I'll log in as Lawrence and answer them.

DOH ah er I mean um well now Town Hall yes that's a mighty interesting how 'bout them Braves yesterday yeah boy

I've only caught the last hour of the hall but I'll paste that to you when it's done.

Seriously, post the questions here so we'll know what not to ask.

Where you asking the questions in open chat or through IM's? Usually you are supposed to ask the questions through a intermediary Linden.

I would like to know what questions you asked.

It won't let me post the whole thing. Here's the parts around where you talked. Out of turn. And were warned repeatedly to stop disrupting.

[18:52] Lawrence Linden: be to make trades at rates and times that they expect to make a minimal impact in the exchange rate.
[18:52] Karsten Rutledge: Can we have that human's phone number in case we need an emergency scapegoat?
[18:53] Supa Shang: lol
[18:53] Shaun Altman: What annual income target will this person be assigned?


[18:54] Jeska Linden: Shhh, everyone
[18:54] FlipperPA Peregrine: That the number for Linden Lab published on Google.com
[18:54] Lawrence Linden: Just to reiterate the volume that we'll be trading is very very small compared to the monthly LindeX volume. To put specific numbers to it, last month's total LindeX volume was over US$1,000,000
[18:54] Shaun Altman: So far, the volume is very small

[18:56] Torley Linden: Shhhh please everyone.
[18:56] Shaun Altman: 5% of the avilable market liquidity taken by YOU is 5% less that's available to the community.. isn't it ENOUGH that we're already selling MOST of the L$ we sell just to give it to you in the form of tier? Must you get us comming AND going?


[19:19] Shaun Altman: I keep hearing the word dynamic tossed around. Why can't we just replace this euphanism with "proftiable"?
[19:19] AJUK Baldwin: lol
[19:19] Mhaijik Guillaume: profitable aye
[19:20] Lawrence Linden: the option to setup recurring LindeX market buys on a customizable schedule. If there are enough residents would prefer getting their L$ in a way that resembles a regular allowance, we can certainly provide for that in the future.
[19:20] Nymph Goodliffe is offline
[19:20] Sera Cela: Shaun if they wanted to make a huge profit, they wouldn't be limiting themselves to 10k a month.
[19:20] Lawrence Linden: This is no way a commitment to that feature at this time.
[19:20] Karsten Rutledge: One of these days I bet the Lindens will get tired of doing town halls. It's like dropping a cat into a pool of sharks. You'll just say 'Town Ha..' and they'll dive under their desks.
[19:20] Nymph Goodliffe is online
[19:21] Torley Linden: Again--shhh please everyone.
[19:21] Shaun Altman: Sera: when they changed the TOS it was just a vague notion of something they may or may not do sometime in the undefined future

That is LL's style.. Silence the opposition so the lies LL tells are accepted without question by the weak minds of SL.

Oh my stars, is this the meaning of "compelling" as well? A whole lot of philippian marketspeak just clarified greatly.

Dropped into your inventory from where I picked it up til the end. Hope that fills the hole.

Oh please. How many of the other people who were asking questions or commenting were DISAPPEARED from the meeting? I guess I am just not as suttle as most. Say what you want about my "disruption", the issues at stake here are very important.

There was sufficient warning. Whether they silenced all those who were disruptive is not the point.

This was a meeting. The more important your point is, the more important it is to present it using the proper procedure. Pressing your point while silence is requested is not the way to do things.

In public discourse there is something called Parliamentary Procedure where there is only one person speaking at any one time. It is an extremely efficient way to conduct discussions because points are not interrupted before they're completely stated.

Unfortunately, nobody else is presented an opportunity to take the floor. A broader cross-section of the community than the small group who are willing to tolorate the nasty, confrontational nature of this forum, needs to be made aware of the issues presented by this shift in policy. Everyone needs to be talking about these issues. What are YOU doing towards this end? Anything?

Nothing. Because nothing's bothering me on that front.

Be real, there are less people at the meetings than there are in the forums. Furthermore neither approach reaches a broad audience.

I spoke as someone who has moderated numerous heated discussions (iRL) and actually managed to finish in 30 minutes what ordinarily would have taken 1.5 hours.

The front I'm active in is finding solutions to the griefer problem without adversely affecting mundane use of the griefer functions.

Got it. Thanks.

I saw Torley ask repeatedly for everyone to quite down there. There is a system for submitting questions. Did you send them through the Group IM? It doesnt sound like you follow the rules of the townhall.

From what I saw, they did answer even the tough questions.....even if they were blanket answers.

You really don't understand why you can't disrupt a meeting with your own comments at will? That it is more productive to wait until the appropriate time to state your position or ask your questions?

Have you ever been to a business meeting... a city hall meeting... a school board meeting in the real world? I've been in all three and the way it works is that the people in charge make their statements and THEN the others are called forth one at a time to make a statement or ask a question so that it can be addressed in an organized fashion. Even at a press conference reporters are not supposed to simply shout out their questions until after a statement is given and they are given the go ahead.

In the real world if you tried to participate in discussions repeatedly while the people running the meeting were speaking you would have been forcibly removed as well and in fact most likely never allowed back.

Granted most people walk away from situations like these feeling like their issues were not properly addressed and its fine to gripe about it later even, but had I been running a business meeting where someone simply refused to be quiet after they'd been asked, I would have removed them too.

It would have been nice to have your statements addressed yes, but that would have been more likely had you simply waited your turn.

I never said that I didn't get it. I said that it happened. I then speculated as to why it happened to me specifically as opposed to everyone who was questioning or commenting. Finally, I asked for someone to send me a transcript. I hope that this summary has helped you to understand my post better.

Nothing new about attacking those who have genuine concerns and aren't afraid to voice them.

Lewis

Its possible I misunderstood your post, though my advice is still valid. There is a certain conduct expected in meetings that is different from that of an ordinary conversation.



You speculated that you were asking the wrong questions. I am suggesting they weren't wrong so much as presented badly. I am glad you were able to get the transcript you were asking for however.

For "wrong" substitute "awkward that we don't really want to answer, because either we haven't thought of it, or people won't like the response".

Lewis

These are not elected officials who owe you their time. They are corporate employees. It is not a conspiracy to silence detractors, it is a business decision to not listen at times.
You are not a voter, you are a customer.

I did participate in the recent debate over the registration changes with some of you. At no point did I ever feel attacked for having genuine concerns. I did feel we weren't being listened to by the company and that upset me. But there is a difference between ignoring and attacking.

No, not in my opinion. As I said, I've been to similar meetings in the real world. You can not simply state your questions in the middle of the proceedings, there is a process followed.

I would suggest to the Lindens that a better way of handling these kinds of meetings might be to initially silence all chat except that of the key speaker until he is finished making his statement and then allow questions to be asked by each individual in turn and personally addressed at that moment.... much like a press conference. It would be organized, people would have their individual turns at being addressed and an appropriate time limit given. Granted not every person would be able to ask a question because that would take much too long but those questions that are able to be asked would be more fully addressed and more easily heard.

EDIT: Put yourself in the key speakers place for a moment. Would you be able to accurately comprehend and answer each persons question if while you're trying to address one a half dozen others are being shouted at you? No one can do that and do it well.

The whole Town Hall process could be much better handled, and despite suggesting things several times in the Answers forum they have not even been responded to.

Firstly, questions should be taken in advance by using a forum thread, enabling someone at LL to consolidate them in advance of the meeting so that the same questions aren't being answered 10 times - and proper answers given instead of "I'll look into that".

Secondly, these questions should be answered first, then IF, and only if, time permits, take questions from the floor.

At the previous town hall (couldn't go to yesterdays because of the time), I joined the group, asked my question well in advance and booked my Skype request, all as per protocol... and was entirely ignored until I pushed the point, then got an answer that didn't really fit my question because the quick summary I provided as to my subject did not get me an answer that matched my whole question. It was only by emailing Philip direct with the full question did I get an answer that matched, which ended in a "I'll get back to you on that" - two weeks later I still await a final answer.

You say that "You are not a voter, you are a customer" - correct, and as a paying customer I expect a certain level of customer service. This includes full access to Town Hall meetings and the ability to have my questions answered.

Why not blame Linden Lab for not giving proper notice of the changes - and the meeting - and the ability to submit questions in advance, rather than the free-for-all disorganised melee that usually happens?

Lewis

Town Halls used to run with a "questions" thread and they would (usually) all be answered and then dealt with.

I'm not sure Philip ever did that, and Cory's was hard work because it was a huge info dump that people couldn't digest so they asked questions he felt he'd answered. That said it *was* useful after the event.

I'm not sure that there is a single perfect answer to how to run a Town Hall. One thing that could be used would be a rotating style of the various options, one spoken, one fielding questions from the floor, one with questions pre-sent in a list. Of course sod's law will have it that most important topic for you will come up in the format you least like, but at least it would rotate so you'd have some better ones too, maybe.

As for Town Halls not being about interacting with an elected representative that is fundamentally true. However the name is misleading, Town Hall meetings, at least here are about meeting with the town's officers who are elected. LL still try to claim it's "Your world, your imagination" - and they do enter into dialogue with residents about a variety of things. They deliberately foster the illusion that it is a meeting much more akin to meeting your council than an audience with the King or the CEO talking to the "suits." Public meetings of the council still have standards of decorum of course, but heckling from the floor is much more common than in a business meeting - at least in the UK where if you look at our prime debating chamber that "robust debate" continues to all levels of our democratic process.

Perhaps not, but could it be any worse? We've made suggestions, we've tried, we've even followed their guidelines only for it to still all fall apart.



Except, of course, that the time difference often means large portions of the community are excluded from many of the meetings, which admittedly would happen whenever the time was somewhere in the world. These two about the economy, for example... one was the middle of the night for me, the other is during the time I travel home from work, so I can't get to either.[/QUOTE]

Lewis

My sympathies, I tend to be unable to resist throwing in a comment or two during these meetings myself.

Next time I'd recommend getting a repeater, sending in your questions by IM, and avoiding Pooley altogether. We all had a nice conversation next to the repeater without disturbing anyone, and we could use all the irony that we wanted.

I really think they should just drop the live audience at these meetings--most of the time there was dead air on the repeater while the live audience was mobbing the chat channel. We'd get a lot more from the Lindens and a lot less chaos that way.

Agreed.