Questions and hopefully answers

Where is it posted that it is not Ok to question linden policy?
How is getting answers on a policy and ideas from people not part of this Form?
If this is not the Place to to ask questions and get answers even if there is, no one true answer , what is the Official (Non Fan site) place to do so?

The OFFICIAL channel of communication to/from LL is the blog. They used to use the forums, but closed all official channels that were here.

Those forums have been removed. If you question Linden policy the only safe place to do it is off the linden site

Its called media censorship, same thing happens in China, North Korea, Russia, Prison, etc...

Official as on there site or given the stamp of approval by linden labs. Not Official as needing a reply from a linden.
Instead of taking topics else where, because I feel that is a violation of the spirit of the reposting rules. You end up taking something out of context and out of review by officials causing rampant rumors.

There is NO official, sanctioned, public place where a customer of Linden Lab may question Linden Lab policy. If you want to quention their policies, and require an answer from a Linden in an official capacity, you must privately e-mail one of the Lindens and ask them. If they agree you have a valid point, they might make a Blog post about it. More likely they will remain silent.

The Blog is largely a one-way communication, from them to us, as most Blogs are. Take a look at any Blog entry where people disagree with the policy, and the Linden respolse is deafeningly silent. Over 500 customer replies, thread locked, and NO Linden responses is quite typical. I often wonder why they bother turning on comments at all.

Where can we as residents post a blog on this official channel of communications? I've looked and can find no place where anyone other than a Linden can post a blog on any subject. Maybe I'm missing something and just haven't been looking in the right place and actually can initiate a post.........but it sure isn't obvious. That sure makes it easy to "cherry pick" the topics for "discussion".

As far as I can tell the Linden Blog is just an announcement page that sometimes (at the posters discretion) discussion is allowed. That's about as an effective communication tool as those computer automated telephone answering systems. Answers some questions but rarely the ones most want answered.

I think it's a misuse of the word "communications". There simply is no "official" way of asking Linden Labs anything. The forums were our best hope but they are mostly gone and posts requarding questions like the subject of ageplay are closed and locked down. Pretty near censorship in my view.

The point is this is the place to ask questions and get answers from the people. So why do the lindens take active posts and lock them? Saying that this is not the place? And not showing how this is not the Place. And saying that we should go off there forums where they have no say and everything becomes wild rumors, instead of a place where they can watch, edit and make comments of posts.

Thank you and waiting for Activation. But just looking at some of those posts is a good reason why I would prefer to a Official site.

Imagine any company hosting an "official" forum where customers are free to question, flame, and ridicule their every move. Linden Lab tried this. It just isn't a fair expectation of any company, that's why you don't see it here.

We see Second Life purely from our own perspective.. nothing wrong with this.. it's "our world" right? Well, they don't have the luxury of limiting themselves to just the end customer's point of view, and simply saying "all's fair on the forums".

They have a responsibility to their investors, their directors, and to themselves to manage the overall corporate "image" as best they can. PR in this brave new world will make or break a company, and to provide such a forum on their dime runs counter to any sensible PR strategy.

Be thankful that the forums are here at all, and have some respect for their purpose. If you have gripes, rants, complaints, and even thoughtful opinions about how the company is or should be operated, then there are alternative venues where you can be free to speak your mind, with as much or as little decency or civility as you so desire.

Why should Linden Lab be expected to provide such a venue?

If LL had an adequate customer support policy with direct answers to reasonable questions and gripes then I would agree with you Zaphod................100%. But they don't and everyone knows it. Effectively telling everyone to buzz off, go off site with your gripes, complaints and questions makes any forum chock full of flames. Reasonable expectations is a two way street. They expect us not to flame them and we expect support.........they react by shutting down most communications and we flame.

I've emailed for support questions (about 5 times)............no answer. I've asked questions in the Linden Answers forum (before it was closed)..........no answer. I've asked for help online and waited hours for no answer............though I have gotten help a couple times I have to admit. But a couple of times out of a dozen or so isn't a good average at all.

Most answers people get to their questions answered from other residents. That's odd to me. Where's it written that resolutions to problems or questions are to be gotten from other residents? It is a good way to avoid anything official though............pretty weird I would say.

My contention is that whether or not LL has an adequate customer support policy is not relevant. You'll notice I've never went to bat for them in that area. There is work to be done there. Much work. That much is clear. The issue here is "should Linden Lab provide a forum for folks to voice disappointment, flames, etc" and my answer to that remains a question: Why should they? I don't argue against your concerns. They exist, and they are valid (most of them) I argue against the expectation that Linden Lab should provide a forum for it.

zk

They should simply from the standpoint of not pissing us off more for having nowhere to go with our concerns. The PR aspect in regard to sponsers, media, etc, is a non-starter since only residents with payment info on file can even READ this forum.

Other gaming companies have forums in which people can express their fears, concerns, questions, disgruntlement. (Blizzard, for instance)

The incentive for LL is to at least sustain the appearance of listening, even if they do not.

I look at that in-world "meeting" with Robin Linden and ageplay today, and I see a perfect example of the sort of discussion that makes no sense as a live chatroom, but heaps more sense as a forum thread.

Honestly, that transcript was too painful to read.

Alot of the merits of the idea of having another "Linden Answers"** style forum are spoiled by the lack of civility. They've tried it, and it quickly degenerated into ugliness and bitter, anger-driven diatribe. It turned from a Question and Answer forum into a lynching. This is the primary reason I don't think they should be expected to host it. The minute you sign in to forums.secondlife.com, your right to "free speech" is checked at the door. Given that, they're still very lenient with respect to some of the threads that are allowed to continue running.

And considering how easy it is to sign up on Second Life and get access to the forums, I disagree that it's a non-starter on the PR front.

**Edit: I said "Resident Answers" but meant "Linden Answers"

You should have been there. It was a complete free-for-all, with people trying to impose Robert's Rules of Order (well, their own version of it) on the meeting instead of letting Robin run the thing. Chaos ensued (obvious from the transcript, of course), and ultimately the only surprising thing about the whole shebang was that the PN didn't show up and detonate a prim bomb.

I will say this, however, Robin Harper proved to be a brave, brave woman in my book. Not only did she show up, not once did she did she lose her cool OR track of the general conversation. (She did lose one question in the scroll, but given how fast things were flying by at that point, no one could blame her). Over all, she did an amazing job and definately earned her pay yesterday. Phil needs to make sure she arrives at work today to find flowers and chocolate on her desk.


The General Forums were rapidly disintegrating into a place to have a flame war, and not much else, when LL pulled the plug. The same can be said about the Linden Answers forum. The thing that I would point out is that LL is caught in the hopeless position of trying to communicate with a user base that is far larger than their wildest expectations (at least, in terms of how quickly they got it. Phil Linden projected one million users at the end of 2006--he got three times that.) The population of SL has simply outgrown the usefulness of the communication tools they had originally set up. Now they're struggling to create new channels (a process that is ongoing--don't expect the Blog to be the final say in the process forever).

My point here is that the Lindens are trying to communicate with the users. They're making announcements, some of which they ask for feedback on. They have in-world office hours. They read emails from us. They read IMs from us. And most importantly, WE KNOW WHO THEY ARE. Name five Sims in TSO that have Maxis coders behind them. Name five characters in EQ that have Sony employees behind them. Name five Avatars in There that represent the coders of that world. I can name only one in TSO and only one in There. I can name over twenty Lindens off the top of my head. And more importantly, I can look up those names I don't know via an inworld search engine. That's unique, and Linden Lab deserves kudos for being gutsy enough to do it.

Look, I'll be the first to acknowledge that LL isn't communicating well with its user base. Indeed, that was my comment in my email to Robin last night after the meeting. But I do understand the difficulties they're facing, and I know they're working on them. Because of that, I've stepped up to the plate several times with suggestions on ways to improve communication with the Lindens and offered to help out in the implementation. It's okay to complain--but complaints should be followed by suggestions of alternatives. If you don't like the lack of communication with LL on the forums, or the limited communication with them on the blog, try suggesting a workable and viable alternative. Constructive criticism will get us all a LOT farther than flame wars in the forums.

In short, be part of the solution, not the problem.

Kam