Should we stop showing hover tips for non-interactive objects?

That's a completely different question but a very valid one nevertheless

The forums, despite everything, are seen by some as the "uncensored media" in Second Life. For some ultimate reason, old habits are not easy to get rid off, and the forums have been seen as a "measure" of the opinion of "most" residents, despite being read by a tiny minority, usually estimated to be around 5% of all avatars (not "people" since it's hard to figure out the average person-to-avatar ratio...).

A subset of that type of question, of course, is who knows about the SL Forums but doesn't want to give their opinion on things like this? It could be for several reasons, including apathy, lack of interest, or not giving a damn—wait, all three of those sound kind of the same—but I also why some Resis don't wanna come here. Some of my friends are understandably concerned to be pounced on in the midst of "feature flamewars", and while I don't see it as being that bad, it definitely makes some people uncomfortable.

Now, I'm keeping something else in mind: the demographics the SL Forums attract to post. I'll start by saying I'm an anomaly, because I have many common-denominator interests, among more esoteric ones. I certainly don't speak for anyone else in the strictest sense, but my own views are shared by many (sometimes as a result of having influenced, or being influenced by). I am a composite alloy.

So, with that in hand, for some people, I suppose one question you could ask is: if you knew you could make a difference and voice your opinion here, would you?

When an opportunity comes up like this, even if it seems to be for a little thing, like hover tips, there are always outbound connections. When hover tip behavior changed, the community responded in kind—both in the forums and inworld. I heard a lot of chatter about it at clubs, from Resis looking for land, and I know from several Live Helpers that they were asked frequently about this too. Some people might have been displeased by the change but kept this to themselves, effectively nullifying an opinion because noone else knows.

That's why I'm pretty much fond of encouraging each individual Resident here to say what they wanna say, as long as it's within the Guidelines hehehe. Each of us has a voice, and each of us has more personal power than we sometimes think. I could point to the shadows on my feet, but no, I won't, I'll instead point to all the passion I've already seen here in Second Life that's helped me reflect those sparks back in kind. Grouped together, I believe it can be called synergy, and coupled with such a fast rate of change here, we're certainly in for more wild rides.

A recent example...



Several hours later, we now know what happened.

Actually, I've often wondered about that. I have some thoughts (some of which I know will be "unpopular", but I believe are valid nevertheless).

We see a "vote" proposal. The really huge ones have 500, 700, 1000 votes. According to the "# of unique voters" figure, the actual people voting can be 25% less than that. That doesn't indicate a large percentage of the SL population.

I've questioned the validity of that "voting" system from day one. Giving people a meager 10 voting "points" to distribute among hundreds of valid proposals really doesn't grant us the ability to let LL know what we think is important... nor does it properly indicate what voters think is most important. All it reflects is what people are willing to initially allocate 10 points to... and thereafter ignore the voting system because well... it's a useless waste of time.

To call a horse a horse, it doesn't really even come close to addressing what really is important. It's been pointed out by more than one user that it's the landowners who pay the bills, so proper, beneficial land tools should be given priority after initial bug fixes. I know that's an unpopular thought, because the landowners are a minority. But that minority is paying for the system... and that minority has very real and often-stated needs that are not being met. They need to be able to manage their lands so people actually have a place to play in the first place; it's just right that those tools come before toys.

Once those land tools are in place, then other features can be addressed. I would believe this to be the case even if I didn't own a bunch of land. It's obvious that those who pay the bills need the features necessary to operate their land properly-- and equally obvious that if they cannot do so for extended periods of time, they are eventually going to get tired of paying those bills-- which jeopardizes the entire system. If the landowners close up and stop paying Linden Lab (or if they go to other systems/games as some have done)... the system suffers.

Further than that though... it's is well established through history that the "majority" is not always right. In fact, it's not even usually or often right. This is true for several reasons. The majority are largely uneducated in specific areas. The majority rules with its emotion rather than its head. The majority is easily influenced by media. So for the most part-- the majority opinion quite often tends to be really, really messed up.

Anyone, absolutely anyone can "vote" in that voting system-- even 1-day old newbies. People can vote who know nothing about Second Life or Linden Lab. People can vote who are clueless about land, about building, about scripting. This is evidenced by the fact that the most "popular" votes (ie, obviously the most "necessary" things on Second Life) are held by things pertaining to avatars looking pretty. Ignore the fact those avtars can't move an inch... so long as they have bling and poses... that's top priority. That's what the vote says. And that takes precidence-- by vote-- over land, over bug fixes, over lag, over everything. Avatars are what get the highest votes.

Does that indicate that the vote system is working well? No, all it indicates is the things that people want, what they focus on... not what they and the system need. Ask a child whether he wants candy or eggs for breakfast.

So if you give people a choice between say, improved group management tools and communications (which are severely needed on SL since the groups are the center of societal foundation) opposed to say, extra makeup ability on an avatar... guess which proposal will win?

The current vote system seems questionable at best. LL certainly doesn't go absolutely according to the vote system (and wisely, in my mind... lol). They consider a vote, and if it's intelligent, in the end game they decide whether to implement it or not. The current vote system is highly inefficient, cumbersome and limited. It should be (imho) replaced with a standard vote system (ie, one vote per person per proposal). Even then, it has to be realized that all this is... is a glorified suggestion box.

[edit... a bit of a double-check. Current vote system, top vote is about 2400 votes. Only 16 proposals have more than 500 votes. There seems to be currently a wider range of proposals than my last check... only 4 of the top 16 proposals have to do with avatars. So the point about people choosing avatars as top priority may have shifted a bit.

I did find it interesting that every one of the top proposals was entered in April of 2005... which lends weight to the statement that people initially voted with their 10 votes, and thereafter just stopped bothering.]

It's slightly off-thread, Wayfinder, but I'm glad you posted that! You're completely, totally, and absolutely right. From a good idea at the start which was quite needed (I certainly was one to promote Azelda Garcia's work on the voting feature system) — a democratic system where people voted, instead of staying in the forums and yell loudly about what each one of us would like to personally have — the voting system seems to have degenerated into a "excuse" for implementing things contrary to the overall SL's common good as opposed to personal good, giving everybody a justification. See about the hilarious "pony" votation. I never understood if it was meant as a joke or not, to show how people can vote on basically anything; the truth is, we got a pony! I imagine that resources allocated to that vote were quite low — but imagine it took a week's developer time to develop that?

Extreme examples are often the ones that make less sense and it's unfair to take advantage of the system to point out its flaws picking those. The voting system in April was "manageable" and it allowed some clear-cut "winners" to emerge quickly: Havok 2, Linux client, inter-object communication, new avatars, new renderer, etc. All these are "very long term developments", no matter how often people vote on them, so it's highly likely they will take months or perhaps years to see the light of day. Still, people keep voting on them — because they have exposure which others don't have.

Base electronic democracy has several flaws. One is the one you pointed out: it's more often the case that the individual voter has his individual motives in mind, and not the group's motives. A group is not necessarily just a "collective of individuals". It's quite a different entity, and what is good for a group is not always good for the individuals making part of that group. Understanding that is not easy. Imagine if in RL people were allowed a referendum to have their government cut their taxes to zero. I can very well imagine that over 99% of the people would vote "yes". And what would a government do without any sources of income? Another extreme example that shows the very same problem with "base democracies".

Still, LL often said that the voting tool is being viewed as a "guideline", not as the "ultimate tool" for policy changes. It's also easy to "game"; some of you have probably noticed a bug that allows you to vote without being logged in. I imagine that other things are possible to do there if you take your time to understand how the code works.

How many times should we have to tell Lindens to

Make

Things

OPTIONAL!



Make the default to not show hovertips if you want, but us "power users" should be able to turn them on if we want.

GAH!

We have a PONY? Woohoo! Where?

Seriously, yeah. That's sad. Someone really took the time to make a pony? LOL

sigh...

Actually, I can kind of understand how someone at LL with a sense of humor just could not resist that one. LOL. Now, if we had a pony that could send an officer-originated newsletter notecard to an entire group at one time...

(hey, would that be like... pony express? )

This is just what I was going to say! Definitely need the "any object with a description" part added in soon, although I always use hovering text as well, I know that some people do not.

I like hovertips, for the same reason they make SL "slow". If a texture won't load, holding the mouse over it with hovertips on seems to force a load. For editable objects, going into Edit and Textures can do this, like Appearances with (modifiable) clothing. Particularly in 1.7 I SO OFTEN have problems with fuzzy objects, especially but not only av clothing and skins. Shopping - sometimes the only way to get the Picture of the Product is hovering over it with the mouse, and I think the hovertips force a refresh of the object texture...

And the point of Hovertips, to get info about an object, is vital... On by default, please... Off optional

It needs to be optional IMO. When the tooltips got nerfed, i imediatly went into my settings files and added the codes to bring them back. I liked being able to see info on all objects without having to edit them. I think there needs to be a option in the preferences panel for this. Please add it.

I say optional but i think default should be ALL TURNED ON. I respect that some people don't like tooltips so thats why i say make it optional. Why nerf something that some of us find vital? In my situation i HAVE to know this information. I'm a security officer of a sim and i need to know if a "INVISABLE PRIM" sitting next to the telehub is a bomb or if it was a normal prim accidently left there by someone.

The hovertip options were added back, by popular demand, under the VIEW menu.

cool cool. i havent checked i rarely leave SL >.>

I personally love the hover text and also added back the code (which didn't work to get them back but think giving people a choice is the fairest option.

Thanks for listening Linden