Second Life Forums Archive - If the Answers 'forum' is a non-starter, where to next?

Oryx Tempel

Registered User

Join date: 8 Nov 2006

Posts: 7,663

06-03-2009 11:10

From: Nika Talaj

Interesting question. Blue was not part of that effort, so may be completely unaware of the engagement, which went on for a couple of months. In any case, here's a pointer to a cleaner Google Doc giving the proposal for restructuring we gave to Robin and the one or two other Lindens who requested it:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddhpv2fg_2f4cqj9g7&hl=enThis. If I make the meeting this afternoon, my first questions would be, "What's realistic to talk about? If there is no possibility of keeping any non-blog software on the website, then should we focus on finding another site to which we should move this community? Or are you interested in making extensive changes to
clearspace to support threaded discussion more completely?"
.

Thanks for the link. That's cleaner than pasting your whole post there.

_____________________

Seven Okelli

last days of pompeii

Join date: 4 Dec 2008

Posts: 2,300

06-03-2009 11:14

The Answers "forum" is a big step backward from these forums as far as usability and features are concerned. It's also quite ugly. I won't go there.

I won't go to SLU, either. I don't like it, though I don't know why.

If these forums close, I will go to 2lf.informe.com. I already signed up and post something there each day, to try to help get it going.

What I *wish* would happen is that LL would replace these forums with something more up-to-date. There is a ton of forum software out there that could easily be branded. If we started over from zero it wouldn't be a great loss since ppl ask the same questions over and over again.

Some things you can see from these forums:

- users have a lot of knowledge
- people like to help
- questions get answered

The age-old dictum "if it ain't broke, don't eff with it!" ought to be applied. What is broken about these forums? What exactly are they trying to fix? What is so great about Yahoo Answers, if that is the model? (I have never found it useful.)

_____________________

:
: I met most of the people I know in Second Life through these forums.
: I learned most of what I know of Second Life through these forums.
: When I couldn't get inworld, these forums were the next best thing.
: And sometimes these forums WERE the best thing.
:

Pserendipity Daniels

Assume sarcasm as default

Join date: 21 Dec 2006

Posts: 8,839

06-03-2009 11:51

From: Love Hastings

Interestingly, askoxford.com wants nothing to do with that word. I had to "resort" to an American dictionary to find a quick reference to "gullible."

Oh, and let me guess: you're going to claim you meant to misspell it...

So you found out the meaning eh?

Pep (Do you *honestly* think I would make a mistake? PMSLMAOTRDMF

)

PS Try looking at definition 1 of "gullable" in the Urban Dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gullable

PPS Hook line *and* sinker! You have made my day, my month, my year, my decade . . .

_____________________

Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!

Pserendipity Daniels

Assume sarcasm as default

Join date: 21 Dec 2006

Posts: 8,839

06-03-2009 12:04

From: Nika Talaj

... Pep, Love, can we take this dispute elsewhere? I'm deleting my little joke as well ... this actually is a thread that Blue will likely be looking at, since they didn't get many comments in the Blog thread about Answers.
.

But surely this is why LL wants the forums closed down; why should they provide a platform for small-minded paranoiacs like Love to carry grudges and parade them in public, having broken her promise not to do so?

Pep (Check who it was who lit the fire in this thread; petty little Love, not me!

)

PS I'm glad you deleted your "little joke"; it would be terrible if the Lindens were to think anyone here had a sense of humour.

_____________________

Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!

Pserendipity Daniels

Assume sarcasm as default

Join date: 21 Dec 2006

Posts: 8,839

06-03-2009 12:12

From: Seven Okelli

If these forums close, I will go to 2lf.informe.com. I already signed up and post something there each day, to try to help get it going.

You mean the forum where they have *already* established a thread called "just ignore and let this one die"?

Pep (Think you might miss LOLCATs, serial sequences of "me too" posts to up post-counts, and compulsory complimenting of poor quality vanity photos because the posters are thick or sick or both? Go there!

)

_____________________

Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!

Seven Okelli

last days of pompeii

Join date: 4 Dec 2008

Posts: 2,300

06-03-2009 12:16

From: Pserendipity Daniels

You mean the forum where they have *already* established a thread called "just ignore and let this one die"?

Pep (Think you might miss LOLCATs, serial sequences of "me too" posts to up post-counts, and compulsory complimenting of poor quality vanity photos because the posters are thick or sick or both? Go there!

)

*You* may call it "just ignore and let this one die" but that is not its name.

All the things you mention are standard forum fare.

.

_____________________

:
: I met most of the people I know in Second Life through these forums.
: I learned most of what I know of Second Life through these forums.
: When I couldn't get inworld, these forums were the next best thing.
: And sometimes these forums WERE the best thing.
:

Argent Stonecutter

Emergency Mustelid

Join date: 20 Sep 2005

Posts: 20,263

06-03-2009 12:46

lolcats? LOLCATS?

_____________________

Argent Stonecutter - http://globalcausalityviolation.blogspot.com/

"And now I'm going to show you something really cool."

Skyhook Station - http://xrl.us/skyhook23
Coonspiracy Store - http://xrl.us/coonstore

Amaranthim Talon

Voyager, Seeker, Curious

Join date: 14 Nov 2006

Posts: 12,032

06-03-2009 12:47

Oh Argent! That ferret is a potty mouth!

_____________________

"Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again. "
Robert A. Heinlein

http://talonfaire.blogspot.com/

Visit Talon Faire Main:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Misto%20Presto/216/21/155- Main Store

XStreets: http://tinyurl.com/6r7ayn

Argent Stonecutter

Emergency Mustelid

Join date: 20 Sep 2005

Posts: 20,263

06-03-2009 13:04

http://blog.bigfatwhale.com/erudite-ferrets/#

_____________________

Argent Stonecutter - http://globalcausalityviolation.blogspot.com/

"And now I'm going to show you something really cool."

Skyhook Station - http://xrl.us/skyhook23
Coonspiracy Store - http://xrl.us/coonstore

Anya Ristow

Vengeance Studio

Join date: 21 Sep 2006

Posts: 1,243

06-03-2009 13:05

LL needs to provide an alternative to SLU. For one, they are very critical of LL, but more importantly they are pretty crude. It'd not make a lot of sense to segregate "adult" content, and then send all the forum discussion over to SLU.

_____________________

The Vengeance Studio Gadget Store is closed!

Nika Talaj

now you see her ...

Join date: 2 Jan 2007

Posts: 5,449

Blue's meeting on the forums

06-04-2009 11:49

Notes from Blue Linden's meeting 03 June: The Future of the Forums.

Other folks who attended, PLEASE feel free to correct these as needed. A gang of residents were there (excellent!), and Oryx gave Blue a notecard with a *bunch* of comments from folks who couldn't attend. Two Lindens attended, Blue and someone who seemed to be a supervisor.

1. The new forums will *not* be Second Life Answers. The Lindens referred to the new forums as "Discussions". I got the sense that they are in the early stages of planning. I personally felt that everything they said about plans, EXCEPT for the choice of forum software, could change.

2. Discussions will be based on the same software used for the blogs, Clearspace from Jive Software. ( http://www.jivesoftware.com/products ) The primary reason cited by Blue for not sticking with vBulletin is that with Clearspace they can more easily customize. They were vaguely aware of Firefox issues, and seemed very happy to see a Jira on them (WEB-982), using their Jira widget to post the description to chat. (please vote for it).

3. Format for individual threads will be fully threaded, as in the current Blog comments. However, forum navigation and other aspects of the U.I. are not yet nailed down. They said they have considerable freedom for the layout to be quite different from the Blogs. There will be a beta before release; they couldn't give any idea of when that would be.

4. Post text will be HTML, as in the current Blog comments (there was discussion on preventing abuse of this), and the post editor will be Wysiwig. Pictures will be easy to post, as in the current blog.

5. They are currently planning for your inworld profile to be your forum (Discussions) profile; there was some pushback in the meeting on that.

6. They seemed well aware that a decent Search capability is key (there really is nothing usable in the current Blogs).

7. After the new forums are launched (at some point after Beta), LL intends to close all threads on the current forum, but leave it up exactly as is for reference.

8. The categories in the new forums will be similar to the current forums. They were very happy to get the "suggested" new structure for the forums that we all hashed out lo, these many months ago.

9. They probably will be moderated by a third party; however, there was so much discussion of this that Blue mused about a follow-up discussion on moderation.

10. Blue took several informal polls on various issues, including forum-ban-equals-inworld-ban, and how to best migrate the current forum community. He really did seem eager for direct feedback.

Argent Stonecutter

Emergency Mustelid

Join date: 20 Sep 2005

Posts: 20,263

06-04-2009 11:59

From: Nika Talaj

5. They are currently planning for your inworld profile to be your forum (Discussions) profile; there was some pushback in the meeting on that.

No no no no no no no. Not unless I can update everything in it from the web.

_____________________

Argent Stonecutter - http://globalcausalityviolation.blogspot.com/

"And now I'm going to show you something really cool."

Skyhook Station - http://xrl.us/skyhook23
Coonspiracy Store - http://xrl.us/coonstore

Meade Paravane

Hedgehog

Join date: 21 Nov 2006

Posts: 4,845

06-04-2009 12:20

From: Nika Talaj

10. Blue took several informal polls on various issues, including forum-ban-equals-inworld-ban, and how to best migrate the current forum community. He really did seem eager for direct feedback.

Was there one for "does ANYBODY want the existing forums to close?"?

_____________________

Tired of shouting clubs and lucky chairs? Vote for llParcelSay!!!
- Go here: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1224
- If you see "if you were logged in.." on the left, click it and log in
- Click the "Vote for it" link on the left

Seven Okelli

last days of pompeii

Join date: 4 Dec 2008

Posts: 2,300

06-04-2009 12:27

From: Nika Talaj

Blue ... really did seem eager for direct feedback.

Did you mean just at that meeting? or in general?

I was just posting some stuff at SL Answers (I can still see dots in front of my eyes - those pages really eff me up, no joke) and someone suggested I IM Jeska or Lexie.

I can talk to anyone but I am not ready to IM strangers out of the blue.

.

_____________________

:
: I met most of the people I know in Second Life through these forums.
: I learned most of what I know of Second Life through these forums.
: When I couldn't get inworld, these forums were the next best thing.
: And sometimes these forums WERE the best thing.
:

Brenda Connolly

Un United Avatar

Join date: 10 Jan 2007

Posts: 25,000

06-04-2009 12:48

From: Meade Paravane

Was there one for "does ANYBODY want the existing forums to close?"?

Silly hedgehog.

This is just another case of trying to make a problem go away by moving it instead of fixing it, just like Ursula. There is no need to make a new forum, just fix the current one, bring it up to current standards. It's not the forum software or structure tha is the problem. They just don't like what is coming out of it but don't have the onions to engage the community directly over it. So instead, let's create a bright shiny new place to shuffle everyone off to. One that will not work right initially, and hope the malcontents will give up and go elsewhere.

3rd Party Moderation? All that shows me is they still don't want any real dialogue with their customers. Let detached hired guns do the dirty work in keeping the SL image predictable.

_____________________

Don't you ever try to look behind my eyes. You don't want to know what they have seen.

http://brenda-connolly.blogspot.com

Nika Talaj

now you see her ...

Join date: 2 Jan 2007

Posts: 5,449

06-04-2009 13:05

From: Meade Paravane

Was there one for "does ANYBODY want the existing forums to close?"?

Nope. My guess is, that ship has sailed. I DO think there's some magical thinking going on amongst some Lindens, tho probably not Blue (who has been around volunteers for quite some time). I suspect some decision-maker(s) at LL hope irrationally that if they make new, very shiny, forums the forum community will magically morph into shiny happy people.

From: Seven Okelli

Did you mean just at that meeting? or in general?

I was just speaking about the meeting, I've really only interacted with Blue about that.

If you have comments about Answers, though, I think comments are still open on the Blog announcement about it.
.

If the Answers 'forum' is a non-starter, where to next?
Oryx Tempel Registered User Join date: 8 Nov 2006 Posts: 7,663	06-03-2009 11:10 From: Nika Talaj Interesting question. Blue was not part of that effort, so may be completely unaware of the engagement, which went on for a couple of months. In any case, here's a pointer to a cleaner Google Doc giving the proposal for restructuring we gave to Robin and the one or two other Lindens who requested it: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddhpv2fg_2f4cqj9g7&hl=enThis. If I make the meeting this afternoon, my first questions would be, "What's realistic to talk about? If there is no possibility of keeping any non-blog software on the website, then should we focus on finding another site to which we should move this community? Or are you interested in making extensive changes to clearspace to support threaded discussion more completely?" . Thanks for the link. That's cleaner than pasting your whole post there. _____________________
Seven Okelli last days of pompeii Join date: 4 Dec 2008 Posts: 2,300	06-03-2009 11:14 The Answers "forum" is a big step backward from these forums as far as usability and features are concerned. It's also quite ugly. I won't go there. I won't go to SLU, either. I don't like it, though I don't know why. If these forums close, I will go to 2lf.informe.com. I already signed up and post something there each day, to try to help get it going. What I wish would happen is that LL would replace these forums with something more up-to-date. There is a ton of forum software out there that could easily be branded. If we started over from zero it wouldn't be a great loss since ppl ask the same questions over and over again. Some things you can see from these forums: - users have a lot of knowledge - people like to help - questions get answered The age-old dictum "if it ain't broke, don't eff with it!" ought to be applied. What is broken about these forums? What exactly are they trying to fix? What is so great about Yahoo Answers, if that is the model? (I have never found it useful.) _____________________ : : I met most of the people I know in Second Life through these forums. : I learned most of what I know of Second Life through these forums. : When I couldn't get inworld, these forums were the next best thing. : And sometimes these forums WERE the best thing. :
Pserendipity Daniels Assume sarcasm as default Join date: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 8,839	06-03-2009 11:51 From: Love Hastings Interestingly, askoxford.com wants nothing to do with that word. I had to "resort" to an American dictionary to find a quick reference to "gullible." Oh, and let me guess: you're going to claim you meant to misspell it... So you found out the meaning eh? Pep (Do you honestly think I would make a mistake? PMSLMAOTRDMF ) PS Try looking at definition 1 of "gullable" in the Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gullable PPS Hook line and sinker! You have made my day, my month, my year, my decade . . . _____________________ Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!
Pserendipity Daniels Assume sarcasm as default Join date: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 8,839	06-03-2009 12:04 From: Nika Talaj ... Pep, Love, can we take this dispute elsewhere? I'm deleting my little joke as well ... this actually is a thread that Blue will likely be looking at, since they didn't get many comments in the Blog thread about Answers. . But surely this is why LL wants the forums closed down; why should they provide a platform for small-minded paranoiacs like Love to carry grudges and parade them in public, having broken her promise not to do so? Pep (Check who it was who lit the fire in this thread; petty little Love, not me! ) PS I'm glad you deleted your "little joke"; it would be terrible if the Lindens were to think anyone here had a sense of humour. _____________________ Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!
Pserendipity Daniels Assume sarcasm as default Join date: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 8,839	06-03-2009 12:12 From: Seven Okelli If these forums close, I will go to 2lf.informe.com. I already signed up and post something there each day, to try to help get it going. You mean the forum where they have already established a thread called "just ignore and let this one die"? Pep (Think you might miss LOLCATs, serial sequences of "me too" posts to up post-counts, and compulsory complimenting of poor quality vanity photos because the posters are thick or sick or both? Go there! ) _____________________ Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!
Seven Okelli last days of pompeii Join date: 4 Dec 2008 Posts: 2,300	06-03-2009 12:16 From: Pserendipity Daniels You mean the forum where they have already established a thread called "just ignore and let this one die"? Pep (Think you might miss LOLCATs, serial sequences of "me too" posts to up post-counts, and compulsory complimenting of poor quality vanity photos because the posters are thick or sick or both? Go there! ) You may call it "just ignore and let this one die" but that is not its name. All the things you mention are standard forum fare. . _____________________ : : I met most of the people I know in Second Life through these forums. : I learned most of what I know of Second Life through these forums. : When I couldn't get inworld, these forums were the next best thing. : And sometimes these forums WERE the best thing. :
Argent Stonecutter Emergency Mustelid Join date: 20 Sep 2005 Posts: 20,263	06-03-2009 12:46 lolcats? LOLCATS? _____________________ Argent Stonecutter - http://globalcausalityviolation.blogspot.com/ "And now I'm going to show you something really cool." Skyhook Station - http://xrl.us/skyhook23 Coonspiracy Store - http://xrl.us/coonstore
Amaranthim Talon Voyager, Seeker, Curious Join date: 14 Nov 2006 Posts: 12,032	06-03-2009 12:47 Oh Argent! That ferret is a potty mouth! _____________________ "Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again. " Robert A. Heinlein http://talonfaire.blogspot.com/ Visit Talon Faire Main: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Misto%20Presto/216/21/155- Main Store XStreets: http://tinyurl.com/6r7ayn
Argent Stonecutter Emergency Mustelid Join date: 20 Sep 2005 Posts: 20,263	06-03-2009 13:04 http://blog.bigfatwhale.com/erudite-ferrets/# _____________________ Argent Stonecutter - http://globalcausalityviolation.blogspot.com/ "And now I'm going to show you something really cool." Skyhook Station - http://xrl.us/skyhook23 Coonspiracy Store - http://xrl.us/coonstore
Anya Ristow Vengeance Studio Join date: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 1,243	06-03-2009 13:05 LL needs to provide an alternative to SLU. For one, they are very critical of LL, but more importantly they are pretty crude. It'd not make a lot of sense to segregate "adult" content, and then send all the forum discussion over to SLU. _____________________ The Vengeance Studio Gadget Store is closed!
Nika Talaj now you see her ... Join date: 2 Jan 2007 Posts: 5,449	Blue's meeting on the forums 06-04-2009 11:49 Notes from Blue Linden's meeting 03 June: The Future of the Forums. Other folks who attended, PLEASE feel free to correct these as needed. A gang of residents were there (excellent!), and Oryx gave Blue a notecard with a bunch of comments from folks who couldn't attend. Two Lindens attended, Blue and someone who seemed to be a supervisor. 1. The new forums will not be Second Life Answers. The Lindens referred to the new forums as "Discussions". I got the sense that they are in the early stages of planning. I personally felt that everything they said about plans, EXCEPT for the choice of forum software, could change. 2. Discussions will be based on the same software used for the blogs, Clearspace from Jive Software. ( http://www.jivesoftware.com/products ) The primary reason cited by Blue for not sticking with vBulletin is that with Clearspace they can more easily customize. They were vaguely aware of Firefox issues, and seemed very happy to see a Jira on them (WEB-982), using their Jira widget to post the description to chat. (please vote for it). 3. Format for individual threads will be fully threaded, as in the current Blog comments. However, forum navigation and other aspects of the U.I. are not yet nailed down. They said they have considerable freedom for the layout to be quite different from the Blogs. There will be a beta before release; they couldn't give any idea of when that would be. 4. Post text will be HTML, as in the current Blog comments (there was discussion on preventing abuse of this), and the post editor will be Wysiwig. Pictures will be easy to post, as in the current blog. 5. They are currently planning for your inworld profile to be your forum (Discussions) profile; there was some pushback in the meeting on that. 6. They seemed well aware that a decent Search capability is key (there really is nothing usable in the current Blogs). 7. After the new forums are launched (at some point after Beta), LL intends to close all threads on the current forum, but leave it up exactly as is for reference. 8. The categories in the new forums will be similar to the current forums. They were very happy to get the "suggested" new structure for the forums that we all hashed out lo, these many months ago. 9. They probably will be moderated by a third party; however, there was so much discussion of this that Blue mused about a follow-up discussion on moderation. 10. Blue took several informal polls on various issues, including forum-ban-equals-inworld-ban, and how to best migrate the current forum community. He really did seem eager for direct feedback.
Argent Stonecutter Emergency Mustelid Join date: 20 Sep 2005 Posts: 20,263	06-04-2009 11:59 From: Nika Talaj 5. They are currently planning for your inworld profile to be your forum (Discussions) profile; there was some pushback in the meeting on that. No no no no no no no. Not unless I can update everything in it from the web. _____________________ Argent Stonecutter - http://globalcausalityviolation.blogspot.com/ "And now I'm going to show you something really cool." Skyhook Station - http://xrl.us/skyhook23 Coonspiracy Store - http://xrl.us/coonstore
Meade Paravane Hedgehog Join date: 21 Nov 2006 Posts: 4,845	06-04-2009 12:20 From: Nika Talaj 10. Blue took several informal polls on various issues, including forum-ban-equals-inworld-ban, and how to best migrate the current forum community. He really did seem eager for direct feedback. Was there one for "does ANYBODY want the existing forums to close?"? _____________________ Tired of shouting clubs and lucky chairs? Vote for llParcelSay!!! - Go here: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1224 - If you see "if you were logged in.." on the left, click it and log in - Click the "Vote for it" link on the left
Seven Okelli last days of pompeii Join date: 4 Dec 2008 Posts: 2,300	06-04-2009 12:27 From: Nika Talaj Blue ... really did seem eager for direct feedback. Did you mean just at that meeting? or in general? I was just posting some stuff at SL Answers (I can still see dots in front of my eyes - those pages really eff me up, no joke) and someone suggested I IM Jeska or Lexie. I can talk to anyone but I am not ready to IM strangers out of the blue. . _____________________ : : I met most of the people I know in Second Life through these forums. : I learned most of what I know of Second Life through these forums. : When I couldn't get inworld, these forums were the next best thing. : And sometimes these forums WERE the best thing. :
Brenda Connolly Un United Avatar Join date: 10 Jan 2007 Posts: 25,000	06-04-2009 12:48 From: Meade Paravane Was there one for "does ANYBODY want the existing forums to close?"? Silly hedgehog. This is just another case of trying to make a problem go away by moving it instead of fixing it, just like Ursula. There is no need to make a new forum, just fix the current one, bring it up to current standards. It's not the forum software or structure tha is the problem. They just don't like what is coming out of it but don't have the onions to engage the community directly over it. So instead, let's create a bright shiny new place to shuffle everyone off to. One that will not work right initially, and hope the malcontents will give up and go elsewhere. 3rd Party Moderation? All that shows me is they still don't want any real dialogue with their customers. Let detached hired guns do the dirty work in keeping the SL image predictable. _____________________ Don't you ever try to look behind my eyes. You don't want to know what they have seen. http://brenda-connolly.blogspot.com
Nika Talaj now you see her ... Join date: 2 Jan 2007 Posts: 5,449	06-04-2009 13:05 From: Meade Paravane Was there one for "does ANYBODY want the existing forums to close?"? Nope. My guess is, that ship has sailed. I DO think there's some magical thinking going on amongst some Lindens, tho probably not Blue (who has been around volunteers for quite some time). I suspect some decision-maker(s) at LL hope irrationally that if they make new, very shiny, forums the forum community will magically morph into shiny happy people. From: Seven Okelli Did you mean just at that meeting? or in general? I was just speaking about the meeting, I've really only interacted with Blue about that. If you have comments about Answers, though, I think comments are still open on the Blog announcement about it. .

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If the Answers 'forum' is a non-starter, where to next?