Nice try Lindal

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III

and perhaps read this

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Nightingale_and_the_Rose

I'll leave it to you to work out why I posted this.

I thought it described the welcoming committee quite well.

Agrees that much of what was said in that blog rude... on all sides... shrugs. I can only hope that there is someplace for general discussions, fun and contacting Lindens on the new forums... maybe too much to hope for.

I hope so too Jessika. I appreciate, too, your coming over to participate in the chats here. Nice to know everybody isn't like those blog cops there. As was also mentioned, in that now locked thread, the constant reference by one of them to 'tards' in various forms, is repugnant. As a board member of Virtual Ability, one who works with disabled new residents to SL every day, I find that.........abhorrent. These people also come in to SL and buy premium memberships and participate to the extent of their ability. This is in reference to people with a mental disability of some sort? But others there seem to find that just so humorous and golden. Or, as it was stated when the 'Tardtown' sign went up there, 'that's just brilliant'. Give me a break. That type of chaff is ok but what Brenda said here is not?.............I question the value system, why some things are allowed and 'brilliant' and others are 'nasty'. Because to be honest, I don't see much difference.

ETA: And another thing. A thread asking: Am I hot? is a valid and valuable contribution to SLA? and the comments that followed, all commenting on the hotness (or lack thereof) of the poster........this is allowed and okey dokey why, because it was a question???

Hi Tresure, thanks for being welcoming... i have used these forums infrequently but always with pleasure. I totally agree with you about the "tard" comments they are both insensitive and hurtful. One never knows in SL or these other forums what the person behind the avatar may be.

Who knows... I might even be a c**t (I can't even bring myself to type that word - LOL)

And yet, the "welcoming committee" happily plays a game thread, Let's play what would you do.

https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/79027#79027

Cack, indeed.

Well, perhaps a Liaison should be sent back over here, in advance...and work with us a few days on what phrases and terms are allowed over there.

I've managed several hundred posts over there, without losing my business over it....but if anyone over there messes with Treasure....a few choice words are going to pop out of my mouth, and I would like to know which ones will cost me my business, in advance....as well as a few other policies and practices, that seem to be very unclear.

Why a thread that allowed several people to be slaughtered over and over again, myself included....while being called a variety of ugly names was allowed to continue for months on end.....and a thoughtful thread which was very similar today, without the ugliness, was locked instantly.....makes no sense to me.

(((Hug))) You are llike one of those people that have in their profile, mess with my sis and you have to go through me! lol That's sweet, thank you Mickey. But first I have to give a dayum, and I don't. I can stand up for myself, I just think they're tacky, and disrespectful to others not as fortunate but that's human nature, eh. Ugly, but human nature. Pick on someone who can't fight back, but that is not me.

For what it's worth, I did re-read the SLA posting guidelines before I uploaded that long and obviously-not-a-question letter. Rather to my surprise, I did not see "don't post any general discussion here" statements. Only an admonition to keep your posts, and your replies, polite.

I judged my post met the published guidelines.

I have to laugh at Lexie posting, "Thread locked. (For the quoted reasons stated in the above post) Thank you." without seemingly any clue whatsoever at the irony.

Bravo Lindal.

I don't think you should feel anything other than satisfied with the thread, Lindal. No, it didn't get an incisive response from LL, but then no one really thought it would, did they?

What it did do was draw attention to the issues that you raised: you can be sure that Lexie, at least, understands what you were saying. And you generated support from other residents. Speaking as an activist who does this kind of thing a fair bit, I can tell you that those are often pretty valuable accomplishments in their own right. So, well done!

/me ponders whether Lindal might make good recruiting material, and wonders how she'd look in a ham avatar . . .

It only drew Lexie's attention as a moderator to close it. Do you really think she did anything other than that? I'm sure she TL;DR'd it and just scanned the responses. Lexie has no decisionmaking power for what we NEED a Linden to do.

Obviously the Lindens have not heard of the "Streisand Effect".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect


(Trying to censor something online only spreads it further)

No, of course not. But then M. Linden was hardly going to post in response, was he?

Things like Lindal's letter contribute in ways that are maybe hard to quantify. Taken together, they produce the effect of a growing consensus of opinion that LL can't possibly be ignoring. And they help consolidate a community of opinion and dissent that WILL grow in strength and determination.

In RL, this is the way change usually happens, one letter to the editor, or protesting picketer at a time.

I agree, the reasons she has been giving for locking threads are BS, the guldelines she quotes did not support her actions.

As I commented here https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/78150#78150

I have a hard time reconciling those statements with the act of shutting down that discussion when Residents are trying to communicate in ernest with Linden Labs. There were no violations of the guidelines in that thread that I could see.

.

Good post Lindal!

I was tempted to re-post it after it had been locked, but i saw Chris Norse create one, which was subsequently locked.....so I gave up the idea!

LL does a great job of ignoring us. I fear that Lindal's eloquent plea does nothing except make us feel better by articulating things better than we could ourselves.

It's entirely possible that you are right. But there is some value in registering a protest, even if it is ignored.

But not if they can't be read.

I agree with Cristalle, that it's highly unlikely that Lexie read Lindal's measured and intelligent post.

Very possibly any thread that contains some combination of terms such as "Homestead", "lag", "flaws", and "broken", is flagged and then locked.

If we find that the link to this locked thread has vanished, we will have a further clue to the company culture at LL.

It's particularly disturbing that LL is being quite blatant about NOT following the rules they've set down (as witness the fact that Lindal's thread WAS in compliance with the stated Blog guidelines, whereas threads that are not, a couple of which are mentioned in THIS thread, survive.)

We've seen this contempt for their own stated rules elsewhere.

A couple that come to mind:

1) highly selective warnings/suspensions given to those who purchase a freebie on XStreet---the accusation being that the buyer should somehow have known that the item displayed on LL's XStreet contains allegedly stolen content;

2) highly selective prosecution of those who have more than one For Sale sign up in a sim---despite the fact that in the very next parcel, one owner may, unmolested by LL, have several For Sale signs that float, rotate, are over-sized, and otherwise violate the stated rules.


Probably some of those Lindens participating in this sort of thing know how nasty it is, and just go along because this is a tough economy and walking away from a job--any job--isn't really an option.

Others, possibly, are fine with it.

Good response; possibly the best choice in the circumstances.

Bullies always multiply in an atmosphere in which they're made welcome.

(You have to wonder what Philip Rosedale makes of the fact that LL has become such a atmosphere.)

I can't disagree with most of what you say here. But cynicism -- or if you prefer, realism -- shouldn't be allowed to degenerate into apathy or a sense of futility. Nor should our distress become mere negativity or hostility; that simply makes things worse.

I honestly don't think that the question of whether or not Lexie read the thread is important. Again, change most usually occurs through a gradual, indeed, barely perceptible shift in attitudes that is usually accomplished by a gradual accretion of opinion becoming, eventually, consensus.

If Lindal's post did nothing more than to provide a little more glue to hold together those who are seeking positive responses to LL's latest moves, and SL's most obvious problems, then I think it has accomplished something worthwhile and, in its own small way, effective.

It is certainly much more likely to be effective than yet another post on what a crappy job LL is doing. THOSE, I imagine, are the posts that the Lindens most hurriedly pass over.

Well, in fairness, Linden's excellent blog post WAS about what a crappy job LL is doing.

Those of us who love SL want LL to do the best job possible, so that it can thrive and so that SL will continue to be available to us.

I think it's important to keep always in mind that the vast majority of those who post criticisms of LL actually WANT LL to prosper and grow.

If we didn't, we wouldn't bother posting.

Yes, we can scold each other about 'cynicism' and 'negativity', if the spirit so move us. But remember that those who post are fundamentally NOT cynical: we believe that LL might possibly reconsider decisions, daily choices, and company policies that we feel are self-destructive of the company's welfare.

We wouldn't post if we didn't have hope.

I would agree with this statement if it wasn't for the fact that just about everything in Lindal's post and the response to it hasn't been a prevailing theme to the point of cliche for years now. If anything Lindal's post is one of the few criticisms of LL's practices that I haven't found to be overly critical by comparison.

One of Lindal's few skills is banging . . .

Pep ( . . . her head against brick walls.)