What will be the recommended method for getting questions about SL answered? So far LL has not been replying to replies on the blogs that I have noticed, calling LL is not always effective, snail mail is too slow, bug and abuse reports go unanswered...how is LL going to improve their customer service?
Torley I know that you spend more time replying to the forums than you do in-world but what you do makes people feel like their concerns are being addressed, when this forum is gone how is LL going to make sure people have that same level of confidence in LL's desire to make their customers happy?
Why not keep the forums and enforce the rules. 3 warnings and then suspended. I've seen some very successful forums that stay on topic (having an off topic forum of course) because they are enforced. They have well screened mods. that keep the members in line and if they get out of line themselves they are no longer mods.
Communication is key, and forums have been the most successfull method that i've seen for facilitating 2 way communication. Perhaps if LL would completely spell out their plans and make it clear how things are going to be better without the forums people wouldn't be quite so up-in-arms over the announcement. This is something that LL really needs to improve on, do not make drastic changes without having the replacement in place. Do not announce drastic changes without FULL explanation about what is going to happen.
You said "lets walk together" so far all I can do is blindly follow because nothing about what will take the place of the forums has been explained other than LL's one way communication of the blogs.
Please don't push your community off to third-party sites. It will only serve to further divide the community rather than unite it. Not to mention who has the time to surf several different SL sites. Keep everything centralized. And these 3rd party sites will not have reliable LL responses.
Have you all noticed that 98 % of the comments to Robin's blog are saying that this is a stupid move? Have you considered that blogs don't replace forums for the simple reason that your residents cannot initiate a discussion about an issue that LL doesn't post about? Read your blog comments, they are very telling. Can you at least say that if people are even more unhappy after they are gone for a reasonable time that you will bring them back? Have you considered what people will do when SL is "down for maintenance" or the grid is offline to fix something? yes these are times of the greatest trolling but they are also when people come together as a community offline in a way that they can't online.