Lindens should speak plainly

Lindens seem to have a way of speaking to each other, which is probably good, but, when they wish to speak to the rest of us, how about if they speak plainly?

I realize the Lindens mostly have a technical background, and that's probably good. I have somewhat of a technical background, so I partly understand when they request we stop certain activities due to "database overload", but I think of a lot of people, those who play second life but wouldn't know a database if one came up and shook hands with them. How about "We have some issues causing you lag, we're trying to correct it" instead of "We have database overload".

Just now, there is a message, "...We are aware of what is going on, please do NOT IM LIVE Help or the Lindens regarding this issue. Let us handle it and get it taken care of. Thank you." Now, which issue are they talking about? The griefer with the scripted baby maker that's running around propogating babies in a lot of sim? The teleporter not allowing me to teleport off the Island I'm on? Or the fact that my land has a couple hundred available prims but won't allow me to create a new object? Or some other issue?

Then there was the "asset management server incident". Land is my asset, so is my land affected? Why don't they just say "your inventory is hosed for a while, we're sorry, we'll fix it, but don't take or rez things".

What is obvious to the very technically oriented person, is not so obvious to all the Second Life citizens who wish to enjoy Second Life. How about speaking in ways understandable to the common person on the grid, not just speaking as the grid monkey. And, I've been in technical fields for years, and I've never heard of a grid monkey, either. That sounds like an issue that's got to be fixed. Is something hanging on the grid causing it problems? That's what a grid monkey sounds like, get rid of the grid monkey! (I know, from asking, that the "grid monkey" is a systems administrator trying to keep Second Life running smoothly. Does everyone?)

Thank you for saying this! Ahhhh...

While we're certainly all Lindens as a group, Gnash, each of us is a unique individual and we contribute with our personalities as a team. Looking through each of our profiles will hopefully shed more light on this, or at least show you all our avatars don't look alike.

I'll go at this one because: I'm not a technical Linden. I am, actually, an "enduser Linden". In other words, many common problems like lags, various bugs, and useability issues--hey, that's what strikes me, I've rolled in that mud, and I'm eager to communicate it to my fellow Lindens to help get things fixed, so the improvements will ripple throughout the whole community.

Yeah, a lot of big words, they confuse me. I like simple analogies and colorful ways to describe things. Kinda like Forrest Gump!

Few things here:

1. Your point about notification sounds like Gigs Taggart's related post. I wasn't inworld at the time to see if those gridwide announcements were made, but it's what we like to do. They aren't persistent so if someone logs on shortly after they're sent, they won't get 'em. But, point very well taken.
   
2. "Gridmonkey" is a part of the SL Lexicon (SLexicon?). Basically means: a developer on a weekly rotation who watches over the grid, including in the wee hours, so when things go wrong, they can be righted. Not so much as a "technical" term as our own cultural word.
   
3. I think one tricky thing, in using a broad term like "lag", is it's understood to mean many things and can be misinterpreted, e.g. Resis (short for "Residents of Second Life" thinking they all have the same problem when it's acutely different. But as for the direct accessibility of a message, yeah, when you say "I'M LAGGED!" people take that to mean "Geez d00d, you are slowwwwed down."
   

There's currently a programme underway to improve F1 Help and put in a guidepage of SL-specific terms for convenience, so one doesn't have to run amuck and ask around. It really is a world all it's own in here.

AND I vow that if I can translate anything from my programatically-brilliant brethren into easier-to-understand bits, I will.

Thank you, thank you Gnash.