Design the new Forums!!

My take is:

> LL will create new forums, which are NOT SL Answers, based on Jive's "Discussion" feature.

> They will stage a brief beta of these new forums where they will gather feedback and permit it to influence them to the same degree they usually do. In fact, they are using the new Blog comments as a beta of the individual thread format. Note that they are referring to Blog comments as "Discussions".

> They will tinker a little then declare victory, and turn off the ability to post to these forums. They will leave these up for reference for as long as it is convenient.

We can influence LL some on the time scale of all this and on the configuration and look/feel of the new forums. It's even possible to look at Jive's stuff and give LL specific configuration recommendations. For me personally, though, it's hard to get psyched to put effort into it, seeing so many folks whom I've enjoyed reading (and even knowing) just giving up when LL has just started down this route. I hope you guys at least stick around until this place is shut down.

Ooooo! I know: we make a jira demanding immediate replacement of these forums with the Jive stuff. Then we get a few thousand of our closest friends and alts to vote in favor of the jira.

Problem solved.

Will only work if you get Prokofy to open it

That's exactly how I feel, Nika. I've pretty much given up. I'll stick around and play for the duration, but in the meantime, I'm slowly introducing myself to the SLU crowd. I'm tired of the LL bullshit and non-promises. That they can't be bothered just to update the stupid Vbulletin software, and want to duplicate effort (how many employees will it take to re-engineer a whole new Forum? Quite a few, I'd bet. How many employees would it take to update vBulletin? One. And no more than a day's worth of work) just drives me nuts. LL has both thumbs up you-know-where and its head in the sand. I'm outta here.

Here's my design! I hope they use it!

I will of course stick around until they close this place, I enjoy the forum here but I am one that is not going to fight the closure as they said in 2006 that they would close them eventually and based on the Adult fiasco where they claim to listen well I don't hold out any hope for those fighting to keep these forums open, just as we are p*****g in the wind with trying to get LL to listen to us on the adult stuff.

SLapt.me will be opening its doors at the end of June with a forum, marketplace (Xstreet style, with some extra features) and of course a growing wiki. The time has come to open the doors of a new independent site for disillusioned LL customers where they will be treated as valued customers and hopefully they will help shape the site over time.

I am sorry that LL has changed its attitude towards its customers and as it has grown it has lost the art of communication with us, forgetting that it is us the customers that have shaped their world and paid a lot of their bills and salaries, but we are a hardy lot and I am sure we will survive this, we will just regroup in other places but hopefully the communications won't be lost between us all

Did anyone happen to notice that Prok posted on those new Forums? Apparently bans here have not been transferred to there.

I would like to know why this vBulletin forum can't be updated.

I don't think it's quite as simple as just running an update program, because of the customization done to connect SL avatars with forum users.

Ah well, it's a moot point now, but I'd like to know anyway.

Now don't get me wrong. I DO NOT LIKE Prok and have been on the receiving end of some of her im's etc. Nor do I agree with half of what she says. BUT..................... Prok usually does have a message and doesn't do it to troll and for this reason I do not think she should have really been banned from here. I would suggest that LL not carry over the ban list for two reasons;

A)People change over time and may no longer do the bs that got them banned in the first place.

B)The perverse side of me wants LL to suffer for pulling this forum change crap and I hope they are flooded with people that they are going to have to re-ban and a multitude of posts that they are going to have to delete. I am saying this because I read through the whole AO thread comments yesterday in the new forum and I am not pleased. It is horrid to say the least and I really do wish LL would for once get their heads out of their butts.

Indeed I did, though he has now been banned from the public JIRA as well as the forums.


I could not agree more on not liking LL's treatment of Prokofy. Banning someone from the forums, not because of what they said but because of what others said in response to them, people who felt (quite correctly it seemed) that they could say what they wanted with impunity, knowing that same rule would not extend to Prok, is insane and only fueled the fires of the FIC accusations. In my mind there does seem much doubt that Prok was right about a group of people who got much special treament from LL as it is still happening today, some of the people have changed maybe, but the concept remains the same.
It also seems to me that LL have not learned a damn thing in all these years in not only upholding the ban but recently allowing further unfair Linden behaviour to uphold the PJIRA ban.
I am neither a Prok apologist nor do I have an axe to grind against him because I would feel the same about the above regardless of who was the unfortunate victim.
It is clear that there are times when LL wants to silence a single or group of residents and that is exactly what they try to do.
I also think though that perhaps if LL's treatment of Prok over the years had more reasonable then perhaps Prok's own response would have been far more reasonable many times also.

that smells familiar!

This.

I am quite reasonably sure Linden Labs will pay just as much attention to our concerns regarding their choice of forum software as they did our concerns regarding their choice of techniques for managing the adult content on the grid.

Thanks for pointing this thread out to me Nika And thanks to Suez and others for outlining specific recommendations for new forum features/threads. I very much appreciate the effort.

Although it's still very early in the process, I had made "new forums" the subject of my office hour, specifically because people expressed concern in a recent Discussion thread (I'll post the transcript soon). We hit a number of related topics and did some quick votes to get an anecdotal baseline. Granted the demographic "People who are in the right timezone and willing to be constructive at Blue's Office Hour" is a bit different than the general populace, or perhaps this thread, but I found the results to be helpful. As is often the case, I'll be summarizing what people tell me at OH, to add to the ongoing discussion here at the Lab. (Special thanks to Oryx Tempel who did an informal survey and provided me with a long list of individuals' feedback, as well as a google doc with requested subjects that warrant coverage in any format. Perfect!)

Similarly, I'll be summarizing your concerns/suggestions in this thread. Pleeeeease forgive me for not answering all questions individually, as 1) you have me outnumbered and surrounded, 2) I'm already up to my ears, and 3) it really is very early in the discussion, so there aren't going to be answers for many questions yet.

Some points to consider....

"Blue Linden...seemed to say that they had pretty much settled on the blog format."

What I probably indicated was that the software we are using for the blogs also provides extended and customizable tools for both forums and wiki docs. We have pretty much settled on the current blog's *software*...but "blog" is not the intended *format* for the forums. I agree with Ceera that blog format is not the best choice for a conversation.

"You can see the software they are going to use in action - it is the new SL Answers area."

Actually Second Life Answers format provides different functionality than the Discussion format, and once again, the software is very customizable. If there's a feature that we decide is critical that doesn't come standard, we can very likely add it.

Here's another example of a Clearspace Forum: http://forums.cnet.com/

"I'm not even going to try. LL won't read this thread, and they won't listen to us no matter where we submit our suggestions.."

I know that some residents have felt dejected in regards to other LL projects, but I would very much advise against being fatalistic, and even more so against discouraging others from participating. If you're right, then telling people not to bother doesn't benefit you or the community. If you are wrong, then it harms your cause, the community and Second Life. You should be actively encouraging people to provide (hopefully constructive) critical feedback, *not* encouraging them to be apathetic. Seriously, I can't emphasize this enough. Regardless of your level of frustration, you guys obviously care about the community...please don't marginalize it by encouraging people to give up.

"One strange thing is that Clearspace has a really good search facility but LL has hidden a lot of the functionality."

Yes, we are starting fairly small and will be adding things over time. Better to underpromise than underdeliver....in the past, LL had to remove functionality from blog/forums, much to the chagrin of those who'd become accustomed to it.

"I think the fact that the vote was evenly split might even benefit us, as maybe it could be an option rather than a requirement at this point. (re: linking blog to inworld profiles)"

Yeah, suggesting that it be optional is definitely a good idea, if at all possible. If that was not being considered previously, I'll make sure it will be.


And don't forget....my office hour is 4SLT on Wednesdays in Grasmere!

yes, i think i have heard this before.

Functionality was taken away from the forum because it was several years out of date and had been vulnerable to someone stealing our passwords for over a year. Functionality that could have been put back in and the forums up to date now with a minor expenditure of manpower involving an upgrade.

Sorry Blue but any words to the effect of don't give up and we are really going to do it THIS TIME are nothing more then blowing smoke. You just need to go ahead and do it. Do you really want someone to spell out the number of times that LL has said they were going to fix/upgrade the forums. Every single time it was BS and nothing more.

Do not try to explain that this time will be different. Do not ask for feedback like back in October on what to do with the forum. Do not waste ours or your time in meetings about it. JUST DO IT and THEN, and ONLY THEN will we believe it.

Thanks Blue for sticking your head in here. Can I have a bear?

New different, software can be acclimated to, so can different functions. 2 non starters for me, however are:

Detached outsourced moderators. You can't build a community when those in charge of it don't understand it or aren't a part of it themselves. We have that enough with our leaders in RL.

Forum behavior tied to inworld status. Because of the moderator situation in part. Tempers can flare, misunderstandings can occur in a text only medium, people could be baited and set up by those with a grudge. How broad a power will these hired guns have, will they have to kick things upstairs to LL, and if so, how diligent wil they be in looking into situations befoe swinging the ban hammer?

LL has a lot of damage control/goodwill building to do with it's current customers as they court their new ones. You've asked the community to walk with you on this, fair enough. But are you willing to go the distance as well? At lot of us are not interested in another "October" that never comes.

Jam tomorrow!

It'll just be the same ol' same ol' : fuzzy rules haphazardly and non-transparently applied by hamstrung, biased or uninvolved moderators - or we might even get another clueless Linden to manage "communications" in the forums with a disemvowelling spell.

Pep (It doesn't really matter what software is used if the lunatics are subsequently allowed to run the asylum.)

I requested a bear from Blue in the other thread. No bear.

Blue, thanks for posting. Just for clarity, I want to respond to one thing:All good advice, but I highlighted a bit that may indicate some confusion. It's not so much that residents have been frustrated by other projects. Rather, to our perception, it's this very project, with an upgrade Real Soon Now--for years.

We've clicked our heels together many times on this one. Some specific fatigue has set in.

The people of RA have asked for so many things over the past couple of years. More Moderation, Less Moderation, 86 Strife, Get Strife some help, a new ResMod program, no ResMods at all, etc, etc. But whatever it was, it was sometimes met withvarious schemes and plans that never came to fruition. We got Big Spaceships, Communications Managers who couldn't communicate, but mostly it was met with silence.

The people who post here do care about the community it has fostered. Infintely more than LL has, apparently. But now they are walking in like the father who abandonded his family years ago, with an armful of presents looking to be accepted back like he never left. Can anyone blame the kids for being jaded and suspiscious?

Thanks Blue!!

QFT.

Oops, sorry if I missed bear requests...sending now.

So, as far as moderation...the conflict is that we have people who really hate the idea of resident moderators (and I think it's fair to say that in the past, resmods have not been universally appreciated) and those that think a 3rd party moderation service is a bad idea. Personally I think that there are pros and cons for each and in either case, I favor the concept of an Ombudsman who acts independently when disputes arise.

Brenda...are you saying inworld discipline should NOT be linked to forums? That's another issue that has no clear majority. I've had some people very strongly argue against tying the two (as LL has all these years) and others indicate that they think it's an important deterrent.

Transcript from office hour is now up...you can check out the conversation here:
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Blue_Linden/Office_Hour_Transcripts/June_3rd%2C_2009

I would like a bear also, please VV Thank you

Well i can certainly sympathize with that. And I showed up to help on this project with very little notice, so I apologize if I don't have the whole background story. My default is to collect info from residents with the understanding that LL might not act on all of it, but that I have free reign to bring it to the table at any related internal discussion. When it's a project I am personally working on, constructive criticism of my plans helps to waterproof them...I depend on your ground level experience.

So I'm sitting here with a big pile of new software and would like to help to make sure that either I (or a new CommManager hire TBD) can transition to a set of forums that has, bare minimum, the same functionality as the existing forums without losing any of the information that currently exists...more and better functionality would be optimal of course.

And I can understand if you don't have the energy to participate in the discussion, but since this forum thread was already up and running, I thought I'd solicit your opinion and harass people to come to my office hour.