When the forums are gone....

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.

You made me think of a very good point, musicteacher, and that is: I get *heaps* of email and private correspondence about many of the same issues aired on forums and public channels, that do not get heard openly. Sometimes, sometime wishes to do it for the sake of discretion. Othertimes, it feels more personal to the sender. Many, many reasons. And many in private run contrary to what's in public. I hear it from all over--all across Second Life!

Please keep this in mind: I'm more of an AND person than an OR person, recognizing that sure, it's great to have lots of ways to communicate, since we have such a wide variety of Residents.

You don't even have to think of the blog as a blog--think of it an easy email newsletter because of:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/08/11/subscribe-to-the-official-linden-blog-by-email/

Is it one-sided? Well, my posts on there have all been response to questions I get asked many, many times. And then I get thank-you emails and IMs and PMs afterwards... of course, again, these aren't publicly seen.

So I think there's a lot of perception issues I'd like to improve on. But as those familiar with the blogosphere know, no, it's certainly not one-sided at all. Right now, I have 100+ issues all brought up by the Residents of Second Life. I'll investigate each one personally, and then bring up the updates on the blog so... they are easy to find. And then I will get... well... more email, IMs, PMs, forum posts, blog comments, etc. etc. etc.

More evidence:

Sally's reply to the numerous concerns we got about the front page counter
http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/08/11/what-is-that-number-anyway/

beez's reponse to comment moderation on the blog
http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/08/11/about-the-blog-and-comments/

and of course, my own on "blogs are hard to use!"
http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/08/08/how-to-use-this-blog-video-tutorial/

more and more to come.

We receive no shortage of feedback. What I am also concerned with are people who have no present--or past way--to feel comfortable expressing themselves, and did not do so in the forums because they didn't want to be pounced on.

That's very, very important to think about--and do something about too. Expect it to be an emerging growth.

So I just wanted to make it clear that there are things which aren't openly seen or may not be the most obvious, but they do happen, and as I'm a reflection of the spirit of Second Life, my actions are all in response to Resident feedback, and I'm certainly not the only Linden this applies to.