Re: Lindens not answering questions

Just a comment in reference to Andrews post here:

/139/30/147397/1.html

As a resident of closing on two years and a long time forum poster I can say that my impression is that Lindens rarely answer questions posted in the forums and the bigger the question the less likely one is to get a reply. I appreciate that you people are trying and all, but I find it kind of offensive to suggest that most questions are answered when many people's experience is quite the opposite.

I have personally posted many questions, occaisionally out of frustration or anger but most often not. I have asked technical questions with detailed background and data supplied, calmly and politely phrased and I don't remember ever getting any answers.

Just to bring up three technical and easily answerable (one way or the other) questions:

- I have never got an answer about "pulse lag" despite numerous bug reports and forum posts (complete with diagrams and pictures!).

- I have never got an answer about why texture repeats and offsets can't hold more than two digits of accuracy anymore. Just that old "let me look into it" routine.

- I have yet to get any answer about why the torus mesh was changed or if it will be changed back.

One only has to look in the forum and one can find numerous threads by informed residents with big problems in regards some feature of second life. Often many intelligent and experienced residents go back and forth on some technical issue and rarely if ever does a Linden ever join in on the thread.

The most important questions are always the "big" policy ones too, and those questions as you yourself note, are rarely answered. Couple to that situation the fact that many of the things that irk or mystify residents (and thus demand answers), are things that are sprung on us without notice or announcement and you have a recipie for a customer service problem.

Communication between the residents and LL has always been a problem, there are posts on the forum every single day of the week that reference this perception, so my question is..

What makes you think that questions are answered by Lindens?

Yes, there are far more questionst than can be answered. There is probably a balance that must exist between answering everything and nothing. Few Lindens have a duty to answer the questions here. I think Torley and a few others in the 'community' group are exceptions. Instead we are all encouraged to answer questions that we can, and the easy mode for any developer is to not bother. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of detailed knowledge, to answer some stuff which is why developers are often asked to weigh in here and also why not all busy Linden's seldom find the time to look for questions that need answering. I think keeping this channel open can help a lot of people, and provides a good feel for the current important issues for any Linden who needs to know. So ultimately it is a Good Thing, despite the fact that it is Not Good Enough.

Pulse Lag -- sounds like something I could actually answer. Send me a link to that question and I'll see if I can answer it.

Limited significant digits on texture repeats -- sounds like a bug. It could be server side, but is most likely a problem in the client UI. A busy developer would probably say something like "I'll look into it". Alas, my plate is way too full right now on other stuff, but I'll keep an eye out for it, and I'll try to remember to make sure it is on the Big List Of Stuff To Do.

Torus mesh -- I don't know the answer to that question. If I ever find out I'll come back here and post an answer.