Dear Robin Linden

I have one very simple request, based upon a simple observation that anyone with a Second Life account can make, simply by seining across all forums threads created since May 3, 2007.

My observation: Second Life, as a society, seems to be coming apart at the seams.

Evident causes: Lack of accurate information; Lack of meaningful communication with SL account-holders; lack of integration between LL Executive leadership/LL Public Relations/LL Legal Counsel/LL Platform Development entities; premature release of new information from LL; failure to establish consistent and timely feedback mechanisms to address same problems with account-holders.

My request: Suspend the posting of ALL new PR-/ and policy-relevant blogs to the Second Life resident community until you have formulated the following lists:

A. A comprehensive list of CORPORATE-level responsive goals and strategies, in addressing the following:

1. The Open Letter Forum Project demands
2. Legality/Necessity/Appropriate Implementation of Identity Verification
3. Appropriate and Legal Measures to Discourage/Prevent Use of SL as a
Server-Platform for Illegal Acvitities

B. A work-floor-level policy memo concisely describing implementation, at LL, in order to standardize and consolidate the language, intent, and philosophies of Linden Lab, as they will be communicated with residents in the course of working on-grid and off-grid with your customers

C. Establishment of a pipeline, protocol and mechanism by which all future blogs will be vetted for consistency with corporate (and legal) policy, prior to release by you or your PR office, into the www.secondlife.com (and all ancillary websites, including the forums, WIKI, and bug reporting mechanisms)

We, the undersigned (by affirmative post on this thread), wish to express our gratitude for your diligence and hard work, but also wish to express our dissatisfaction with the current level of CUSTOMER-oriented and -comprehensible communication with regard to these issues.

Thank you,

Parsimony Paragon
(as well as residents affirming these ideas below)

Agreed. The technical implementation of adult flagged parcels is either poorly worded or complete lunacy (a single person flagging their plot as adult prevents all other parcel owners access their land?!)

The whole age-verification thing, while understandable, is poorly formulated and what galls me the most is LL's complete apparent refusal to admit the reason they need it is their own fault in the first place (allowing completely unverified sign-ups to an age-restricted environment!).

Sign me up.

I would like to put up a couple thoughts of my own. I have sort of vowed not to get too severe with my criticism of SL's customer support system until it is laid out in more detail (which has been promised in the blogs)........so I'll try to do so without a tone of frustration that I'm sure more than myself have been experiencing for quite some time now.

As the original poster of this thread has pointed out it's all about communications. We all have an interest in SL's success. We all have personal thoughts about just what it requires for that success. And we all know that not everything we happen to think is best will (or can) be implimented.......if any of us don't know that then feel free to ignore the comments simply because without understanding of the enormacy of the undertaking our complaints offer nothing but dissatisfaction (and no real way of turning that around). All we want is direct, honest talk without sugar coating......vague words put together in such a way that allows so much "wiggle room" only make us suspicious and distrusting. Tell us the truth and the reasons why........in plain English. Keep the geek speak to a minimum.

And along with the above, should something change which alters what you might have said previously don't just pretend that you never said anything in the first place. Just tell us and also why you decided to change directions. But, really the OP sort of covered that with the very first part of the statement.......do some thorough investigations before you make that statement in the blogs.

Most of us know Linden Labs has to take actions that are in the best interests of itself. If we knew what those interests were it would help immensely toward obtaining (and keeping) our patience. As it is right now I don't know what LL's plans are.........I can only guess by past actions taken. That really makes it hard to give you my patience and understanding.......which you always seem to ask for. Keep it simple (we don't need to know any corporate secrets)..........but above all else keep it honest.

My two cents..........and I'm sure I have not conveyed my thoughts clearly for everyone but I believe most want about the same thing from you.

Peggy Paperdoll

I hope more people will add to this thread! I believe, in my pixelated heart, that this issue must come to the attention of the LL PR department, which seems to be caught up in the same typhoon of controversy and change as the rest of their company...

And thank you for keeping this constructive, for I feel like the moment we stray over into Linden-bashing or SL-bashing, this thread gets relegated to the same File 13 cabinet.

It didn't bode well when they announced the whole scheme, touted the company that was to do the verifying, who then promptly announced they did not have an agreement.

Very Well said, Parsimony Paragon.

We need this for sure.

I am concerned that deploying the above would seriously reduce what little information we get from linden lab. What bits did make it past "The Corporate Filter" would be neutered to the point of uselessness or far too late to be relevant.

I would not be opposed to more 'structure' in their strategic announcments, but when it comes to getting the word out on tactical issues like grid problems, I'd rather they stick to informal and responsive alerts instead of waiting to get them checked by corporate communications.

My request, as I remember it...I'll edit if need be...applies only to blogs that related to changes or additions to policies and public relations. The short term, technical issues, if they aren't imposing a policy change to address, need to be out quickly.

As for neutering by the exec's, it's not neutering that's a problem on the policy issues, it's the right-hand-left-hand problem, where the PR department is attempting to defuse volatile issues without sufficient vision of higher-level agendae and decisions needed to avoid subsequent retractions, revisions and confusion...all of which we more and more perceive as obfuscations (we ARE only human, behind the pixels, after all).

I've revisited the LL website, and I have to say, I am deeply dismayed that I made an erroneous presumption, and I provide the list of the LL Executive Board to make my point:

From www.LindenLab.com

Executive Management

Philip Rosedale Founder and CEO, Linden Lab
Robin Harper Vice President, Community Development and Support
Joe Miller Vice President, Platform & Technology Development
Cory Ondrejka Chief Technology Officer
Ginsu Yoon Vice President, Business Affairs
John Zdanowski Chief Financial Officer

These strong advice(s) have been based upon a presumption that the breakdown in communications has been at the workfloor/interdepartmental level, and that these apparent organic/fundamental problems stemmed from lack of communication between the board room and the departments. As you can clearly see, looking at this list, the problems seem to be closely-related to teamwork INSIDE the boardroom. There is a VP or CO for each of the departments, who sits in a boardroom-level position.

Therefore, I feel it is my responsibility to clarify any confusion my OP might have caused as a result.

HOWEVER, this only deepens my personal concern at the significance of these problems. With deep appreciation for what we have been given, and the hard work that goes into keeping that viable...I implore...Failure to present a single, consistently-clear message about policy plans and changes, that is both tractable and customer-friendly leads to the customer being free to believe that some focus needs be applied to repair work whether inside the boardroom or outside, and hopefully quickly. If the Walton family had been so inconsistent with their public/corporate message, they'd still be selling "necessaries" somewhere in a town store in Batesville, Arkansas, and we'd all be shopping at the malls for our throwaway consumables.