What is the source of all Linden Lab Cock-ups?

In the wake of the recent update, many of us have experienced 'features' which have made Second Life harder to live with. What is the source of all this madness?

i) Understaffing?

ii) People in wrong chairs? Did the hiring process allow too many employees that don't fit the task at hand?

iii) Something else occupying Linden Lab's time?

iv) Too much freedom? Are staff allowed to do and venture into any project or feature they please?

v) Overoptimism? Having too many happy people that constantly give praise and being overly positive with everything everyone does?

vi) Listening to the wrong people?

vii) Lack of funds? This can't be it, can it?

As far as I know, there is no pressure on LL to actually release any updates until they are actually ready or has been proven to have a positive impact. Hence, the lack of time is not actually an excuse.

Why torment the user base like this?

Hi Cottonteil. If there's bugs you're particularly unhappy with, please let me know. You can email me personally at [email=torley@lindenlab.com]torley@lindenlab.com[/email] with specific examples so I can investigate and coordinate with Quality Assurance and the Developers.

i) We're continuing to scale. It's tough, but we will progress.

ii) No, I think it's more like one person doing too much stuff, so new job positions are opened.

I do think iii) is true, that there's crap which takes away time from good stuff. Following the Community Standards and being nice to each other is good: there's less abuse, and thus, more time for us spend on productive support. Griefers take time away from helping.

I think the forums steal a lot of my unnecessary time too because they aren't easy to search, and I have to repeat stuff over and over. The drama is really unappealing too, and yet, I feel a strong moral responsibility not to ignore it... so I continue to moderate given the current framework, with the help of the ResMods. But change must happen, this can't go on forever...

Realistically, there'll always be badness, sadness, and suckiness in the world. Balls get dropped. People die. That sounds morbid, I know. But I'm always up for making things better. Where are we missing things? Where are the cracks? And most embarrassingly, what should be really easy to do that... should have *already* been done?

iv) is certainly not true for me because the work I pick is directly tied to Resident concerns. So I'm bonded to other people's needs, really. I serve the community.

v) is definitely not true because I am a big complainer... many people just don't realize it because of the way I present my critiques. Overoptimism? Yeah, in a world where people sweat liquid platinum.

vi) I'd certainly say we don't listen to enough of the right people. There's a lot of great Resident ideas and execution out there I'm dogged to follow up on so they know we're paying attention and taking action.

Vocal ranting and complaining certainly doesn't help anyone, so to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, we are readily turning down the volume on those... been there done that!

vii) I believe we're fine in that dept.



There's a lot of pressure. All the clamoring for new features to be delivered.

We stay still, we're dead!