Should we see more Lindens on the Grid?

I wonder if LL continually had say 10 Lindens inworld visibly patroling SL would a lot of these issues be sorted before the media told them about it.
It seems LL have no real idea on what is happening on the grid, they are like the early Iraq war where the combat reports on international media were in to the Iraq command before their own communications network.
Is it to much to ask for a poilce/help service of 1 Linden per 4000 people online?
So many problems would be solved before getting bigger and a visible presense would deter many. Most of the Lindens on the list are lucky to be in one inworld group, if any showing how much interest they have in this world.
I understand many Lindens fear the population, who look like a bunch of starving tigers and logging on is like putting your head through the cage bars. But if we got to know some of you guys, and you were there to help, we would be so much nicer. If you are in accounts and can't reset a sim for us, no fear because we suspect you can get hold of someone not inworld who can.

I'm wary of just how many "media representatives" are wandering about, just looking for their next scoop, perhaps even manufacturing it themselves.

All that's really need are a couple Lindens to be in-world and LOOK for such things. If it exists, then it can be found, hell, just plug words into the search tool with some logic and you could probably find all kinds of stuff.

I mean, I guess some of the members could do this and go sweeps where they look for offending materials and report it, but what incentive is there for people to do it? We don't go near that kind of stuff anyway and those that do aren't going to report it.

I've seen a ton of 'cops' wandering around SL who look for griefers to shoot at, but end up being just as bad. If they spent their time looking for illegal materials in-world and reporting it then they could make a bigger difference.

Maybe some kind of 'whistle' points for reports you submit that are properly resolved (ie seen to be accurate and useful and reporting a genuine breach of the service). They wouldn't do anything except give you some kudos stat on your profile, maybe a badge beside your name above your head or something, but might be enough to get people to do it, even if it's so they have a high enough 'status' that they can command better prices for event security business or some-such.

I'd do it, but I spent 6 years moderating a game and forums and got sick of it (not just for the work involved but the point stands) and want to steer clear of such things, but I'm sure people would do it just for whistle points and other small incentives.

I can't help but think that if there were more Lindens out experiencing the broad variety of issues that are Second Life as a whole (i.e. avi's livin on the grid), as opposed to sitting in a Linden Village office for a few hours a week, they'd begin to get some feedback from their own that would lead them down a path heretofore unexplored...the idea that Second Life AS AN EXPERIENCE is far different from Second Life as a program/hardware network/PR vehicle! Following this same thought process, why not let US pick the sim that will host the next town meeting, and let them experience/appreciate the challenges of trying to do anything in the average/non-optimal region/server, versus ones they've set aside for just this purpose.

What an excellent idea. dress em up in Black and Brown Shirts..call them..uhmm ,the SLSS?

The number of Lindens in-world has already increased markedly over the last month that I've noticed. For example, as I write this there are sixteen of them online.

I'll have to agree on the self-appointed cops thing - I've yet to see one of these instant security agencies do anything that isn't just as bad as what the griefers do ("Instant police - just add water!". What every one of these "police" groups fails to see is that you can't solve the griefing problem by making more griefing, and that putting yourself in the role of an authority figure doesn't give you the power that comes with that role automatically. You can't just usurp it and call it yours. This has to be given to you freely by others, or it was never yours to begin with.

The idea of citizen groups empowered by the Lindens has been discussed so many times I've lost count, but it comes down to a problem with corporate responsibility. You can't control the actions of people you aren't paying, so there will never be any officially sanctioned Linden Lab citizen's force like what you describe. Linden Lab does have certain basic responsibilities to their financiers, and one of them is that they don't hand over critical controls to people who don't have a vested interest in Linden Lab's bottom line.

Also, I suspect most of them have other names that don't end with Linden.

I understand that many of them do, but these accounts are not used in official capacity and do not give them access to admin tools. Luckily, it's easy to switch over if one of them encounters a problem.

They walk among us, undetected and unseen by the eyes of mortal men.



Gah. Definitely been reading too many comic books.

Well if that is the case they aren't doing enough looking around then.
And why couldn't they have admin tools, they could probably enable them for anyone they wanted too.

If we were to use inworld citizens as paid greeters/police then the only powers they probably should have is direct access to a Lindens online group for when things are beyond them.

Then ALL citizens would contact this group first, delegating many silly problems to people who can help first rather than the scarce Linden resources.

Hmm there's 96 Lindens, 34k online and not a single Linden
In 6 months of a lot of hours inworld I've only ever seen 2 ever, and spoken to 1.
Especially on the graveyard hours of SL there is probably only 3 or 4 techs at LL whou would have plenty of other stuff to do.

Then you need to get out more, Tegg. In the last few days, I've seen Philip, Robin, Daniel and Pathfinder inworld.

Understandably, none of them use the 'allow everybody to tell when I'm online' setting..

Well being on the opposite side of the world is possibly one reason, and I do vary the places I visit too, goint to infohubs, training courses, shopping, adult areas, combat area's, Linden Villiage, sandboxes etc.
I agree the not showing online thing, but someone else further up stated they could count 16 Lindens online, so just wondering how, because last time I saw a sim crash, I looked and saw none online couldn'd do more than send a restart sim request.

Yes I agree. You never know WHO is behind the peep floating by you or lagging into the ground. I was in this game eons ago on my first avie when the game was small (50k population) and they did monitor all the newbie areas and were always right there when someone called for help. Very much miss that and how I wish they hadn't grown. Was so much better back then.

What I was proposing isn't intended as that, more just a kudos point to recognise that someone has done a good thing and filed meaningful, useful and beneficial abuse reports. There would be no power implied by it, just a kind of silly reward that might encourage some people to report things they would otherwise ignore. People are quick to abuse report someone that orbits them, but if you see someone selling copyrighted music or images to make a profit for themselves, how many people abuse report that? What about places that show up in your searches that look like they house illegal content? How many people will go there and report it, or will they all just ignore it and look at something else?
I dunno, it's still ultimately self-policed with all the power in Linden hands, just that I feel encouragement might be beneficial to getting more abuses brought to their attention that otherwise would never been seen, or might take a long time to be reported.

I used to moderate over at starkingdoms.com, which is an online browser-based game. And way, WAY back when I was mod in-game as well as the forums I offered silly things, like if someone were especially good at bringing offenders to my attention I'd sticky a topic for them for a week or create a poll (which was restricted to mods only) for them or something. It got a few people actively giving me useful reports which meant that offenders could be dealt with more quickly than with me just looking for myself.
Different game, but I don't see why that same basic idea couldn't work, as ultimately I was still the moderator and what I said went, but they would help me to find things much more quickly.

Merely as a point of curiosity...were any of these encounters distant from both Linden Village/Chalet and from planned/organized high-profile events? If not, the presence is of little practical use to the stability and growth of the grid/world itself...

This is a "device" used in a number of MMO's, and one in which little, if any, actual 'power' goes with the office. The title is given, and can easily be taken away, in the event of abuse or misrepresentation by a moderator. The office surely doesn't entail BEING a Linden. It is made clear, in those MMO's, that what you do have access to is a channel of arbitration, and the presence of resident/customer-moderators serves to keep channels of communication between the grid and the company open (via moderator-only forums/chatlines). I agree, this is a terrific idea, and should be explored and implemented.

All the sightings were during their announced office hours. Add Liana, Torley, Birdie, Rob and Jesse to the list that I've seen recently, too. Also, none filled up the sim they were in - there was room for more people to come and chat.

None of these office meetings were overly scripted or organized, though I think the more technical Lindens (Rob and maybe Jesse) will try to keep the discussion closer to topics that relate to their jobs at LL. Rob, for example, will try to get through open source issues with people that come to his office but you can also sneak some general chat in on him, too.

SL has a ginormous amount of land . Even if there were 10x as many people employed at LL, I don't think it's reasonable to expect to just stumble across one in the wild.

I agree completely with you on the point of expecting to see them, but my point is that if they stay in their offices, they cannot hope to gain any first-hand insights as to what is 'not perfect' about the grid or the programming.

Having said that, I do also believe that presence and accessibility are very important customer-relations elements. Were I a customer-proactive Linden, I would MAKE A POINT of being seen FREQUENTLY by a diverse assortment of residents, wouldn't you???


One just doesn't replace the other...that is why store managers do not simply stay in their offices above the main floor and read the Customer Service reports from the complaint desk...in addition to meetin folks at the Customer Service counter, the effective store manager must also be out walking the aisles, greeting customers, looking for spills, breakage and theft on the floor.

They don't just stay in their offices - they seen (in my limited experience at stalking Lindens) to rarely show up more than a few minutes early or stay very much past their posted hours.

I do agree that things could be better. They have agreed with this, too.

They need someone out actively looking for trouble before the reporters find it. Somebody needs to clean up Dodge.

No, but you should also not know they will never appear there either, there are plenty of popular areas they could be seen at, malls, infofubs, Help Island.
Imagine if RL cops never patrolled, only sat in their offices during office hours and attended events?
I try a bit of Lindenspotting occasionally at Waterhead, but only seen Heritic from a distance once, if I found one I would probably just say hello, no really pressing concerns to annoy them with individually.