Things I like about the new place ...

This was exactly my point, I didn't even realise it wasn't searchable by Google so personally what I said was fair game but for those who did realise this it's an issue and they have a point.

The one thing I suggest everyone do in the short term is set up a google alert for their avatar name

http://www.google.co.uk/alerts?hl=en

I've been watching my alerts for the last few weeks now and what it doesn't do is send you a list of every reference it finds, it looks like it sends you a list links are new or that have been accessed or changed - although don't quote me as I'm still puzzling through it.

If it points to something that you're not happy with you can ask LL to remove it. Be aware that the chances of them actually doing it will range from slim to infinitesimal.

So far I've had nothing come down from here, despite being told that you no longer need to log in to view the forum (I've not bothered to log out to confirm this) so I would have assumed that the spiders would have been over this by now.

Ah, the new place... The irony, it kills, because I think LL thinks SL is the ultimate communication monster mash, and we're all supposed to be hanging out in SL, being pals. These forums and the blogs do get in the way of putting that plan forward. If they do have a practicable idea for making that work, I do wish they'd pass it along.

Quick, someone build a coffee bar where we can all hang out at the same time, because, you know, the Earth isn't round and we never sleep or work....

It was announced from the very start that the forums would be made publicly viewable:
/120/b1/10/1.html

That was from 11-19-2002, 12:20 PM .

As Peter Linden speaks, so shall it come to pass. Eventually.

Wow.

I'm not sure which I find more amazing: that they were looking this far ahead into the future, or that a Linden had a sense of humour.

Thank you O Ancient one As I said personally I am of the mind set that whatever I type be it in SL or in any forum/Blog, online etc. it will or could be made public so I am always careful what I say lest it comes back and haunts me and I will always stand by what I have said at anytime as at that time it was relevant

I can see both sides of the coin as well, the fact that these forums are a wealth of information that people should be able to search and find what they need, but also I see the points that people have said things they maybe not want to be made public outside of SL.

But these forums are a history book of SL so to speak and history should be available for all to read and its nice to see that LL are not frightened to let these forums be indexed, warts and all

Just my 2 L$ worth mind and my personal opinion

Hehe - seems I must have covered all the silver linings in my OP, then.


That's interesting. Not a lot of us were around then, though. Personally, I'd have liked to know that a bit earlier, although I don't think it would have made much difference to the way I post. I'm certainly not worried enough that I'd go back and delete or edit posts, but if I had the sort of job where potential online dirt-digging could cause problems - yes I would be concerned. It feels a bit like those dreams where you suddenly realise that you've forgotten to put your trousers on (or is that just me?), or waking up after a wild party and being not quite sure you haven't said something really bad to the wrong person.


I am very glad these forums are being archived - it would be terrible to lose all of that, but I can't see the advantage of making them available without a login. I can't see much of anything here that would be relevant to anybody who was not in SL.

It's only a little thing - anybody determined to dig dirt can just make an account, log in and carry on digging, but the solution is only a little thing too - just keep the login requirement.

TBH, Lord, I did have a few qualms back in the summer when you were archiving the Zindra threads, but that was just a few isolated threads, you told us what you were doing at the time and it was for a very good cause.

The people I really feel for are those who have been, posted and gone and have no idea this is happening.

So, a seven year old thread in a forum that has been closed almost as long as I've been here counts as public notification? That sounds like something out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... all they forgot to do was add a "beware of the leopard" sign.

I agree with you spinster and the threads I archived were just the relevant ones related to Zindra and if anyone at the time had of said please dont I would have done my best to remove them from the threads out of respect for their wishes and I do agree that there is no real sense in making these threads available to the whole world because as you rightly say, if you are not involved in SL then they will in the main have no significance to outside parties

I do not mind as I have stated but I think they should be left as a LL archive and only be available to people logged in to the LL servers as that is where they are relevant imho

There's not much I like about the new place, but it doesn't matter so much to me at the moment. I now find myself almost eager to just get on with it.

I hate that we're going to lose some people in the transition, and Clearspace simply blows, but somehow at this point I'm looking at Tuesday with more curious anticipation than dread.

Maybe it's my deadline OCD kicking in. I thought I'd cured that.

One thing that's quite odd is that there is a portion of SLA called the Commerce forum, I think, where discussions are already allowed.

The problem is, I can never find it, except by accident.

Sometimes, for some reason, Lexie will not lock a discussion, but instead silently move it to the Commerce forum.

From the blog and the office hour I've been getting the impression that LL plans to completely de-php'ify the forums so all that would be left would be static HTML pages (Blue specifically said that VB search would be non-functional so it wouldn't be an option).

That would only leave "searchable by Google" or "not searchable at all" as the only options I guess.

They could index it on their search appliance.

Bingo.

If that was the case, they wouldn't be pushing us to Facebook and Avatars United.

There fixed it for you

I just want it to happen now as well so LL can close this place and give us their usual BS that the new discussion area will be coming "soon", and I can just be done with it.

@Suzeanne - couldn't it be that your quote from Peter Linden was speaking to that particular discussion, and not to the forums in general? He was asking for comments on some issue, and saying, "Whatever you say is going to be heard elsewhere"?

Such a comment and warning reinforces the idea that the forums were NOT going to be made public. Couldn't it?

I'm not trying to be Byzantine in my logic here - it just seems bound to that context, the way you quote it.

I said this elsewhere, but one thing that would have helped LL greatly would have been if they'd gotten the new thing on its feet BEFORE telling us that the lights were going out here.

Not to counter in their defence but most providers use their user base as guinea pigs. They honestly don't know WHAT users want because they are not users and can't imagine -- even if it's common sense to us.

As an aside, the new system seems most difficult to follow in longer threads.

I was using the same system at the Adobe forums the other day and I didn't find it too bad, but then the threads were short. The longer they are, the more messy they feel and I think that will be an issue as some of the threads in RA can be quite epic

Sorry I can't buy into that. At least on the forums, we've been telling them what we want for almost 3 years. They've either ignored us or given us empty promises.

As far as the usabilty issue, fair enough. But did they look into how the software is utilized in other places, or did M just throw a dart and say "This one"? Did they consider what moving RA there would possibly entail, or did they just think we would g quietly into the night?

I use the system in other places too, including Adobe but I have other places I use it , it is decent for small conversations but it is not good for deep discussion. The package as a whole has potential, wiki, forums, blog, shared collaboration but as forum software on its own, it falls short.

october 2199 to be precise.

I have a theory that Clearspace is built on two assumptions:

1. There are never more than a dozen comments in any thread

2. No one wants to follow comments on a web page; they want to see updates in their email.

When I was with Adobe in Tech support we used to get lots of complaints about the forums and how non user friendly they were