A Long Time Resident of SL Speaks

1. The Tao of Linden is our downfall. Employees are allowed to work on whatever shiny thing they want to, and no one is ever told what to do.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/07/25/the-tao-of-linden/#more-174


2. There is something you can do besides writing individually to Philip Linden. Sign the Project Open Letter, which is now going into its second phase.

http://www.projectopenletter.com/

Add your name to the 4,977 signatures already there.

coco

Are you sure? How do you know that some of the Lindens don't want to work on bugs? Why is it because you get to pick what to work on it is a bad thing?

I don't for a second claim that everything that goes wrong with Sl is your own fault, what I do claim is that a hell of a lot of the problems that people experience in SL are not SL's fault either. And to claim that there are anywhere near 15000 residents having the same issues that you are is as crazy as claiming that there are anywhere near 8 million ACTUAL users of secondlife.
(Incidently, if there WERE 15000 members all having exactly the same problems, that is only 1 person in every 500ish that has an issue... so that would mean that there are 7,985,000 people who ARENT having the same problems as the 15000...which would suggest again that the minority probably have something with their settings, computers or connection that is causing an issue.)

I spend a lot of time in SL helping people that have issues and problems and almost ALL of the issues that I have gone to help have been user related rather than system related.
AGAIN...I am in NO WAY suggesting that SL is this rosy place where nothing goes wrong, there ARE problems it IS getting worse, but its nowhere near as bad as what a lot of (very vocal) people would have you believe.

Also, I have built and deleted hundreds of things in the last couple of days on my land, I have not once ended up with the issue that you have described of a wall that is not there but that you cant walk through. That doesnt suggest that your problem isnt there or that it isnt a legitimate problem, just that it isnt happening to everyone everywhere.
(I would love to see your wall that doesnt exist actually...I love solving problems and also love being stumped by problems that can't be solved.)

Saying "the good ol days" for SL can mean so many things. For me the good ol days was when the furry community was more gathered into a single area of the grid. i used to know ALL the furries who came to SL at one point. We used to meet together in a sim called Dusun, and Batak where the original Club Fur was housed. There was also LuskWood. They been here the longest of all. Since this was my newbie days, It's a memorable time of my SL experience where i met my first SL partner, and made way more friends then i had in Furcadia. This is where i learned how to build and script. When i look back on those days i really do miss it, and it makes me think "damn, the SL furry community has really taken off! o.o".

The bad parts of the good ol days was...
1. Avatars ghosted when you log out
2. We didn't have the gray background behind our chat text. Everything sorta blended...
3. We didn't have media streams.
4. You had to relog to make almost ALL changes to your preferences panel take effect.
5. We had that annoying "Talk To" feature in the pie menu that forced your camera position to stare at the target avatar and anything you typed would only be seen by them. This resulted in peoples camera angles going wankie.

/Grammy Jellin totters out of her shack on her cane, shuffles over to her ol' rockin chair and settles down with her shawl on her lap and smiles over at that young kid Kathy.

Good post Kathy, I really think more people would be more vocal .. more RL vocal about some of the issues in SL.

/looks off in space for a second with rhuemy old eyes

Now, looking back on it, it's actually hard to say if SL is more or less stable than it ever was. It's been crashing since I can remember, for one reason or another. Overall I have to say, day to day stability is about the same as it was 4 years ago.

But that's not GOOD!! No! It's as shaky and unstable as it was 4 years ago? WTF??

Sure, it's for different reasons, but it always seems as if there's something wrong and people and sims crash. Once upon a time, if a sim crashed, well gee, it had more than 10 people in it, what do you expect?

OK fine, now we can have dozens in a sim ... but the damn thing still crashes!

2 steps forward, 1 and a half steps back. We have tons of new features, things we only dreamed of in 2003, but SL still feels like a house of cards. Will I crash in 5 minutes or 60? Will the sim crash now or tomorrow? Will I still have all my stuff in my inventory?

We have so much more stuff, but the complaints are exactely the same, and I'm tired of it.

I'm one of those people who say Stop with all the add ons already, just make what we have rock hard stable already!!! Fix the damn lag. Some days it's not that bad, others it's like swimming in thick jelly. None of that has changed one bit.

/looks down sadly for a moment then looks up

Now git offen my damn porch you little whipper snappers! Git off or Aw'll set ma dogs on y'all!!!

i wouldnt hesitate to have a yardsale and liquidate all my assets in game, jump ship and start over somewhere else where i might be treated more fairly. Id like to design clothing in a virtual world but i cant justify spending anymore energy/talent in Second Life and ive felt this way for a long time.

Yes there is a glimmer on the horizons in the form of a new system its working name at the moment is I.C.W keep your eyes peeled it all kicks off next year 2008

Are you comparing the task of stabilizing a single application to that of developing the computer itself? To the complexity of maintaining and stabilizing an entire operating system? To the complexity of maintaining the entire internet?

What exactly was in that fruit punch they gave you with the cookies and the LL brochure before nappy time?

Second life is very complex, and the lag hardly suprises me when you look at just how complex it really is, how each action you take results in data transfer back and forth, this really is leaps and bounds more work for those servers than a typical mmorpg where the graphics data and other aspects of the world are stored solely on your computer, with movement and item transfers being some of the only communication going on.

Second life has alot of processing pressure on it every minute of every day, but this is a public platform and the fact remains that if the end user experience is diminished to such an extent that the people cannont perform even basic tasks associated with using the software, they will leave as its function serves no purpose, or the function itself does not exist.

There are true fans, there are people just wanting to make money, there are people from all walks of life here that are really starting to share just one common message, make it work.........that isnt a complaint anymore, thats akin to a riot, and a large portion of the userbase simply never logging in again.

If they havnt listened in 3 years they wont listen now, their system is faulty and it seems they cant do anything about it, the innovation on their end is dying and i can forsee a competitor taking note of all these problems and working as we speak on a platform similar to this.

For the record...ive never seen such loyalty from users ever, its sad that linden labs really dont see what they have here, wake the hell up and give us what we want, fixes or disclosure, just something PLEASE.

Keep the dream alive, do it for us

I have not had a settings/computer issue with SL since my first month, and I find if I am standing in a group talking about a problem that is currently happening or I have experienced lately, they all had it too.

Deleting things that do not leave, rezzing things that do not rezz, disappearing inventory, purchase completed and no item received, rebilling problems, login problems, attachment problems, purchasing lindens problems, problems that happen friday and are not fixed until monday problems, etc etc.....are hardly settings/user computer issues.

You are helping newbies and not established residents, longtime landowners, longtime merchants.

This kind of trouble is not a big deal in other online games, which oddly have better stability anyway nowadays.....and the thing that seems to be getting out of focus is that this world deals in real currency. Real money. Real cost to a user beyond monthly payment if you mean to explore or create content.

Real money means more accountability. That just the way IT works, thats just the way business works.

If you can tell me how settings made 3 purchased items that were in my inventory when I tp'ed home, and when I tried them, disappear completely moments later, I will take you seriously. Until then, I see it as a Linden problem.

Hi Kathy,
Look we have the same join date.

I have to echo Jellin's post. There are times SL is better and times SL is worse then it was "back in the day". But almost 4 years later, I'm amazed the place isn't anymore stable then it was when I first joined. I wonder all the time why that is and why LL doesn't seem to take very much consideration of the fact that thier platform is still as unstable as it ever was.

I understand perfectly well that the internet and computers and cutting edge technology of all sorts take time to develope and perfect, and I do not begrudge LL tring to make thier product the best it can be. But is that really what they are doing these days, or was it ever?

I have posted more then a few times that I feel cheated by the lose of "Your World. Your Imagination" to the more commercial aspects of our little platform and feel sincerely that residents imagination is much less cherished these days by LL. It is not the imagination of the individual resident that drives Philip's dreams these days, of that you can be sure.

I think LL needs to concentrate on making a more reliable stable scalable platform. Period.

I think the more they hear that sentiment, the faster it will happen.

It's good that you aren't claiming that, because there are too many people on here who have picked up that gauntlet as it is.



Breaking down unsubstantiated figures is a waste of time. The problem that the "minority" has with their computers is undoubtedly due to bottlenecking, but since this forum is full of people with problems describing machines that can take over for NORAD, I'd say the underlying cause of most of the system issues go a wee bit beyond someone's "config.sys".




Once again - Alice. I have no doubt that you are probably an incredibly sweet person. The fact that you care enough to help other people that are having problems rather than shrugging your shoulders like a horse with flies like many people on this board love to do is admirable. But I have to ask you exactly what it is you think these people planned to gain by sharing their problems? Do you actually believe this many people are feeble-minded and shiftless enough to be kicking up dust "just because"?

There are a fair number of people that probably think I'm a whiny bitch and a troublemaker also. What's funny is that if you checked all my posts you might find 4 where I stood up and whined about my own performance problems. I don't have time to get into those - what with all the action I see getting into it with these "Blueskies" know-it-alls and guys that think being able to talk on SL makes them General Zod. I actually can't believe I thought today's SL residents would treat the long time residents with respect. Wish I could have counted on that, because it doesn't say much for how this place will be in the future.

I want to thank you for this post. There may be a bitch here and there but overall it lists genuine concerns in an intelligent and concerned manner.

Refreshing for a change.

My opinion.

And yes - I don't think an organization runs well like that, and I think our problems stem from it.

Might have worked just great in the beginning, but no longer. There needs to be more direction and prioritizing coming from the top.

Less shiny, more stability.

coco

I just wanted to bump this, as Project Open Letter is a worthy avenue for real feedback that has meaning.

LL is in an unenviable position. Each generation in SL has a slightly different set of expectations, and population growth makes it impossible to satisfy them all. However, I do wish LL would hold off on shiny for a while, stabilize things, let us catch our breath.

If SL is going to be the grandparent of "the Multiverse" then eventually all parts of it must be opensourced or licensed at some point in the future. This is a race against time, as we can see pressures from outside of SL to shut down the anarchy of user created content. This tells us that what we're doing as residents in SL is very effective and persuasive in making a "world."

It would not necessarily be a bad thing if a more game-like SL look alike came along and drew off the game addicted portion of the user base. They have demands that do not match up with the reality of what SL is. User created content is never going to have the slickness of professional game design, and you can't download all of it to your hard drive as you do for a game.

It might be advantageous for oldbies and midbies to group together in privately owned regions, and re-create for ourselves the experience we still desire, in loose confederation with one another. In this way, we don't have to feel that the direction LL is taking, under the new demands of a changing userbase, will disrupt our own experience.

The new Communicate window MUST be fixed. If I could, I would add it to POL.

Brenda, you actually captured the heart of my first post. Not the negativity that a few here have perceived. I do not spend 24/7 here, I am a professional person and have a "1st life" You summed up in a few words, what I tried to say in a "novel". Thank you Brenda!

Yup, that Brenda is pretty sharp if you ask me.....

You know referring to yourself in the third person is a sign of mental instability.

Now when you start referring to yourself in the past tense, that's when we need to really be concerned.

Wow, thanks for asking and the compliment. Unfortunately, a lot of people on these boards do tend to whine for the sake of whining...or to be "part of the cool gang". I had one particular member of these boards (who will remain nameless for now hehe) that when I messaged in world asking if I could help with some issues that she was having said "you can't fix them, Its SL" after not giving up on first refusal and stating that by the sounds of her problems I really thought i could help she said "oh no, they are gone now".
Now I hate to suggest she was lying... but she was lying. She had no issue but whined and complained just to be part of the gang.
Others post on here due to frustration I guess... and some to vent.
Anyway, for the most part, I am sure people post here because they have issues they dont know how to deal with.
No, I take that back, looking at the first page of the resident answers forum, most people are just having a bitch looks like.

Again, I am not just defending SL here...I am just trying to say that there is ALWAYS an alternative viewpoint.

Interesting that people are taking the "well how come everyone on the forums is complaining about SL then?..." type answers..I mean, when was the last time someone said "I AM HAPPY ABOUT SL, IT IS RUNNING AS IT SHOULD" Its the same as any business.. you will hear a thousand complaints before you will hear one compliment...why? people dont need help when everything is OK lol.

I am an eternal optimist.. What can I say?

But I would argue that SL really is complex as on OS or the internet itself. What is the internet really? A bunch of servers that are viewed with a browser. What is SL? Pretty much the same thing, but with added things like an inventory and money. Oh an the fact that every move, action, or thing you do must be able to be transmitted to anyone that is near you. I can see how simple that must be to do.

People have brought up a good point. SL is slowly becoming more stable. Sometimes it seems to move backwards. I stick with it because it really is the best thing out there for what I want to do. But who knows, maybe one day There will be better and I will jump back over there!

This is coming from a man who quotes himself in his own signature, folks.

Worse , he quotes M. Bigwig now.

*moves thread*

I too have been in SL a long time, I joined a couple months after Kathy. When I joined SL the grid was small, only 80 sims. At that time there were a half dozen developers and maybe as many as a half dozen liaisons. The number of full time employees working for LL had to be less then 20. SL was a different place then, there were fewer residents; it was typical for SL to have fewer then 1000 people logged on at any time. Now the grid is 225 times larger, 18000 sims and maybe 40000 people logged on at any given time. The number of full time lindens now can't be more then 80. In the past you could say it was 50 users per Linden, now it's something like 500 users per Linden. One constant here is the amount of time each linden has to spend in game. When I joined the Lindens in game were always busy; now they have ten times more people wanting attention. The old system lead people to think it was ok to shout at LL. With a small work load, with a small work load that can be coped with, but with 10 times more shouters it's unbearable. It is impossible for LL to listen to everyone especial when they are shouting. When SL was small getting feedback was like drinking from a water fountain; now its like trying to drink from a fire hose.

LL has consequently been trying to reshape the feedback system into one that can cope with SL growing. The solution they have presented is seven pronged:
* Support
* Public Issue Tracker (JIRA)
* In World Office Hours
* Wiki
* Mailing Lists
* Blog
* Forums

Support: https://secondlife.com/community/support.php
Center of SL Support system.

JIRA: https://jira.secondlife.com/
JIRA provides a place for users to submit bugs & patches. Other users can comment on the bug and vote on it. The voting helps LL determine which bugs need to be fixed first.

In World Office Hours: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Office_Hours
The Office Hour program allows the community to provide feedback on various aspects of Second Life. There are currently 24 Lindens hosting office hours one or twice a week.

Wiki: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki
The wiki is organized in several portals:
* Community Development Resources Portal: Building successful communities in SL.
* LSL Portal: Documenting and SL's scripting language and providing learning resources
* Market Data Portal: Historical data about SL
* Open Source Portal: SL design and documentation project
* QA Portal: Developing and coordinating the testing process used in developing SL.
* Volunteer Portal: Information and coordination for SL volunteers
* Web Services Portal: Documentation and usage of SL's web interfaces

The great thing about the wiki is that anyone can contribute; if an area is lacking all a user need do is embellish it.

Mailing Lists: https://lists.secondlife.com
Here is a list of the public mailing lists that LL employees participate in:
* Community team roundtable: Roundtable Discussions
* Educators: SL Educators
* Educatorsandteens: Educators working with Teens (13-17)
* Exchanges: Second Life L$ exchange operators
* Gateway: Community Gateway Program
* Healthcare: Healthcare Support and Education
* In-world education: A list for In-World Education Development discussion
* International: Second Life International Mailing List
* Nonprofits: Nonprofit organizations in Second Life
* Regapi: Discussion of the Registration API
* secondlifescripters: Scripters
* SLBusiness: Public list for developers and businesses interested in discussing commercial applications of SL
* Slcorporateuse: Discussion for Corporate Use of SL
* SLDev: Software development issues relating to Second Life
* sldev-commits: SL svn Revisions
* SLVolunteers: Second Life Volunteers (Live Helpers, Mentors, Greeters)
* TGdevelopers: list for Teen Grid Developers

Blog: http://blog.secondlife.com
Where LL posts news and important information about SL and lets users comment (up to a point).

Forums: http://forums.secondlife.com
pffft, you know what the forums are for, you don't need me telling you.


The biggest problem with the old system is that it encouraged people to shout their problems, and now the shouting is so bad they are being driven deaf. In the new system there is no room for shouting. Speaking from experience, not having customers shout at you is a good thing.

From my experience with the new system they basically shut everyone up. I never get replies on the support ticket system, they block the blog posting when they don't like what they hear, and they don't even look at the forums anymore.