Brainstorm: bringing LL back to the forums

Strife has said before that when people AR his posts, he forwards it to the Lindens. While LL may not be paying as too much attention to the forums, Strife certainly isn't running wild around here without any oversight at all.

Also, do we think that he has zero say in the resmod application/approval process? Most people think he's doing a decent job here - why shouldn't he have some say in the process?

I don't think it's necessary--and I'm not sure it would even be advantageous--for Lindens to moderate. But the dearth of posts from them here sends two messages that we can only hope are unintentional: First, that they really don't much care what happens on these, the official forums of SecondLife; and second, that they really don't much care what happens *to* these, the official forums of SecondLife.

It's probably wise to allow the community the liberty of running these forums. That sounds enlightened, even. And maybe that's all that's been going on. But it sure *feels* like we're being shunned.If the bbcode problem is getting attention now, it's thanks to Jesse posting the points from the Open Letter thread on the SLDev mailing list--to resounding support from SLDev regulars.

I think this is the right approach. At every possible communication opportunity with the Lindens, we should point them to a relevant discussion in the forums. If they're not here now, they can be cajoled in by simply making it impossible for them to know how to do their jobs otherwise. Well, really, that's always been the case--it's just incumbent on us to help them realize it.

That, I wouldn't object to.

I have suggested that he turn in the names of EVERYONE who wants to be a moderator, along with whatever information they give.

He could then write his recommendation alongside.

Or non-recommendation: "This person has only 72 posts, 45 of which are antagonzing other members." Etc.

What I don't like is him looking at them, deciding who he wants to recommend, and all the rest go in the trash bin. That's not right.

The Lindens should be able to see the names of EVERYONE who wants to be a moderator. I know if I were them, I'd want to. (Plus, there can't be that many.)

In addition, I agree with everything Walker says.

coco

Yet in the end she became arch enemy number 1 anyhow ...

so meh okay whatever

(not directed at any one person in this thread the comment below here is general)
in all honesty have you read their latest blog posts most of them revolve around this very type of issue. They cant be any longer this monster they created has become to large for them to handle and given the opion i would rather they pay concierges instead of asking for community members to be concierges and have volunteer moderators.

Either one is possible but to me the staff time is spent better on the actual platform and half of what is needed is in the blogs anyhow. Most of the hysteria stems around spinning consipracy theories which from what i have seen in other forums and related to other businesses even when the company does come out and say anything the conspiracy theoriets just weave that into their little sordid tale and it still carries on.

Some people thrive on creating what basically amounts to fiction and predicting doom and gloom. If we actualy believed that stuff SL has died about 5 times already.

No matter what anyone said though when the first doom and gloom profits came onto the scene they carried on predictingi t anynhow. IN fact when and if anyone from LL came out and said the opposite then it would just get twisted into some sort of way to quell the storm.

We have this stuff happen with other issues as well so their comments really dont carry much weight with those who are just going to twist it into whatever they like anyhow

So I figure why bother. I know once i say something and it gets twisted i just walk away and throw up my hands and i never bother again because i am damned ifi do and damned if i dont. Since both scenarios involve some kind of playing around and twisting I would rather just save my energy for somethig else.

I see no point in wasting my breath on people who can't be bothered to actualy listen absorb understand and then shut up about whatever fact is presented.

This has hisoricaly happened with every LL decision no matter how much information was presented. From gambling to other issues. The vat hype which i read the thread titles and rolled my eyes. I think to myself okay they are now international and coincidentaly just opened offices in the UK so obviously VAT is going to happen. It was inevitable nothing LL can do about it just a fact of life yet people are screaming about it. Well its not their fault blame the government has nothing to do with them they are just following the law.

most things are like this If they say something they loose. If they say nothing they loose. so why bother.

I mostly lurked here back then, but I do remember Jeska, Torley, and Guy's posts very clearly, and it's a great pity those contact channels here had to be closed. (How many residents exchanged words with Lindens quite frequently here, but haven't had much of an opportunity since the forums changed? I bet there's quite a few.)

The kind of one-to-one conversation enabled here (Linden Answers, Land Management, etc.) just doesn't translate to the blog or in-world experience at all. Now, you just get one Linden on limited time and a few dozen residents shouting over each other trying to get a response.

"I'll settle for C+ technical competence"

I think that should say C++, not C+.



sorry.

I think you need to see how other communities handle stuff lke this becuase I hate to say it what i see here is not unusual.

The companies hired have full hand 100% control over forums. In some cases there are games where both forums and gm access is all on a volunteer basis. (played two of them them and no they are not free games they cost money just like other games do). If they get an abuse report about a moderator or gm they deal with them then.

Official forums DO exist and can exist despite your view that you think these should go away based on what looks as lack of information to me.


This forum unlike those third party forums still have a baseline of rules and still server their purpose regardless of what you think. The number of posts and questions pretty much proves that.

As for torley and the others they now post on the linden blog. Just like they said they would and everyone can go and flame them there as they do. Nothing has changed only their posts have moved to the front page of the site. They still comment. those comments can even be linked her and we can discuss them ifpeople feel the need.

When heretic linden was popping his head into this forum he was criticised for it and this was less then a year ago. People apprently hate heretic linden okay fine. No one is ever happy.

The bottom line is I think its a terrible thing to ask for something be removed based on the fact that you yourself think its not helpful. I disagree they are still helpful and used and a source of community for many people. So i will re-itterate the fact that this is not the nly forum owned by a company not heavily trafficed by the people who own the company. IN fact they post their news in devlogs etc similar to the blog set up on the front page and people put their comments and boos in just like they do here. Otherwise they are nto seen. Its a symptom of getting larger. It does not mean that it should be shut down though thats unfair to the community to remove such a resource.

Although these forums are greatly used to ask for assistance, they are also a platform for discussion. Sometimes individuals mistake discussion for "engraved in stone" answers to solutions. It's kind of like that old saying, "Anything you say can and will be used against you". I think that applies when anyone from LL speaks here. It's hard to come out of the board room and share opinions and ideas with customers who may decide to criticize you at any turn which may leave them feeling compelled to defend their company with discussion that may or may not be their own personal opinion and may be taken for more than it is meant.

It was also obvious when they were answering questions in the Linden Answers forum that they were bombarded with duplicate questions, angry residents, and quite a bit of passive aggressive poking. They were being slammed for the way SL was running and being pressured by residents to fix things but were dealing with addressing residents in this forum all the while. I know that they all were not involved in the forums but I am sure the constant questions took its' toll on them.

In addition, having to answer questions on the spot (meaning within a couple of days or hours) must have also been overwhelming for LL, not to mention distracting. Imagine sitting at your desk while working on a project and having to answer "random" questions every 10 minutes or so. You don't always know the answer to the questions so you have to go and ask the person who does know to stop what they are working on to help you find the answer. This may be a dramatic analogy, but I think it applies. Having all these questions posted in a public forum also puts pressure on a company to answer quickly! Whereas the support system that they recently implemented gives LL time to address each issue personally without constant pressure to "answer now because that thread is a week old and now the same person is posting asking when you are going to answer the question!"

I completely understand why they do not post and participate in discussions here. But at the same time it wouldn't hurt to pop a head in and say hello every once in a while if only just so that the forum community can appreciate that they did.

If they are reading, I would suggest every Friday (or whatever day of the week), a Linden (perhaps you can rotate a schedule on a white board ) can come in and just say "Hello" for starters if you are looking for a way to become slightly involved in the official forums other than the suspected lurking that some might think you all do.

Other than that, I don't think that they should have any obligation to be here unless they just really want to. I used to feel differently, but my opinion of Linden Lab and Second Life has dramatically changed over time. There is a system in place for residents who need assistance to get it and so far it has worked (for me anyway). But I do understand that there are others who feel otherwise and I can respect that.

Just my 25 cents.
~Maddy

Can we ask Torley to start making posts in the forums? Not necessarily moderation or answers to anything complicated. I've watched some of his tutorials and have seen him post in the forums in the past....he seems to have a lot of energy; I'm sure he can take time out of his watermelon frying schedule to post a thing or two on Fridays in the forums. I wonder if the Lindens are allowed to post here anymore; maybe they have been ordered not to.

I'd love to see Torley posting more.. And some of the more geeky Lindens. The wiki and jira are good for what they are but they really don't encourage any discussion.

Nika nailed the biggest obsticle to getting Lindens here on the first post in this thread..

Look at the amount of crap Strife gets any time he does anything resembling being human. One funny remark and people start screaming about how unprofessional he is - you think Torley or any other Linden is interested in taking that? (not that I speak for LL.. not at all..)

Not saying that their butts need to be kissed or that problems shouldn't be brought into the light and discussed. Just that it needs to be done with at least 1/10th of the professionalism that people ask for, if we want it in return. Based on how the Linden Answers forum was before it got shut down, I don't blame them at all for not participating here.

Well, I've been using the internet since 1993, and in all the years since, I don't once recall coming across a commercial forum which was run entirely by a single unpaid customer of the company. As I've said, I don't have a problem with a volunteer system, provided the system is being adequately managed by the company sanctioning the forums. That didn't seem to be the case anyway, and it seems even less the case now the only resmod is apparently filtering volunteer applications. (Which, in fairness, he may not be, but he's certainly given that impression and unfortunately he's not answering questions.)

Which gaming sites do you use which have officially sanctioned forums moderated by residents? I'd like to take a look at and compare their models to the one we have here.

Nobody is saying these forums don't serve a purpose. Just that that purpose may be abused and mismanaged due to their implementation. As for the popularity of the forums, that has more to do with the forum link on the sidebar than anything else. If unofficial forums had a link there, their popularity would no doubt go through the roof too. The secondlife dot com / account page gets an awful lot of daily click-thrus, believe it or not.

Nonsence. If you would care to check last year's forum archives (I was here too), residents were having daily one-to-one conversations with Lindens (mainly Guy and Torley) in these forums and that in no way compares to the hysterical nightmare that is the blog comments now. When they were here, we could talk to them. Over at the blog, we cannot. It's as simple as that.

[snip]

meh. I think it's a terrible and grossly unfair thing for one resmod to have near dictatorial control over officially sanctioned forums. As I've said to you before, if these forums are being controlled by a single resident with little to no oversight from Linden Lab, then the potential for mismanagement and abuse is disturbing. Perhaps I wouldn't feel so strongly if that potential couldn't translate into marks on our rap sheets and in-world bannings.

Considering how small the participation on the forums has been since the discussion forums were closed, it really doesn't rate full time professional oversight.

A part time volunteer moderator is about all this quantity of forum dialogue warrants.

I do agree the SL In-world ban has no place in a forums that isn't participated in by the company that runs SL.

But I really don't see a reason for LL to put that much effort into a forum that is so dead posts-per-day wise.

http://secondlife.com/community/resident_resource.php?category=23 (two clicks away from the account page)

Of course they aren't listed, which might explain why people don't know about them .

(I'm still slightly off-topic for this thread, talking more about how forums are run than specifically about Linden involvement, but a couple of points: )

1. I disagree with the idea that the problem is simply that with increasing population, the forums are now impossible to handle, and nothing can be done.

I disagree that it has to be this or nothing. (Though I would choose nothing over this.)

There are a lot of places with much larger populations that manage to handle forums. They have a program in place to sign moderators on, and they oversee that. Some hire moderators, some rely on volunteers. Some have offloaded the whole thing to a third party, while still maintaining control of the forum TOS, and the moderators, etc.

(I imagine when they offload the forums, they pay the company that hosts them a fee to do it, and I don't know how much that costs. But I would bet all of my Lindens that it isn't anything LL couldn't easily afford.)

2. I don't think it takes any "hysteria," much less any "conspiracy theory" (what conspiracy?) to object to LL's current neglect of the forums; or to object to one resident having entire control of the forums, with only moderate oversight by LL; or to object to that one resident vetting all the applicants and choosing the other moderators himself, with only the final approval of his choices left to LL.

(In fact, the objections to these reasonable objections strike me as me as rather more akin to anything one might call "hysteria."

coco

How does that saying go? "You can lead a horse to water..."

The Lindens know that we want them to be more communicative, they even waved their hands briskly in front of Project Open Letter saying they would be more communicative. I can't see any reason that any more cajoling would prompt any further response, indeed, we seem to have loads of evidence to the contrary.

They can do their jobs (as suits their management) without our input which is apparently what they like to do mostly. They don't like to communicate, they don't document, they can't even manage to post grid failures until after they are resolved. If managing staff remotely is difficult, managing staff that isn't yours into acts they find distasteful is nigh on impossible.

Linden Lab is currently about as communicative as they ever have been. There was a "golden era" where you could ask a Linden a question and actually get a response; unfortunately the reponse was too often "I don't know" or "Good question!". Which reminds me of another saying: "Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."

It's not a paid position. They don't want to or have the resources to spend a lot of time dealing with filling a volunteer position. They have no obligation to consider everyone and I think it's wishful thinkingl to think they would. If it was me, I'd be handling it the same way they are currently, though I probably wouldn't be as transparent and therefore avoid the bitching. Having spent many years in recruiting I can tell you 99% of all applications are casually tossed aside. In this instance they are just being honest about it.

The end date is there now and it is indeed new. Doubtful any clarification will be posted on it.

Unfortunately it does not mean the forums will be upgraded before the end date. It means that there will be no further updates until then. Lindens can indeed be responsive at times and what I was told is that an upgrade to the forums is high up in the todo list but there are more pressing concerns on top of it. But at least we know it isn't buried at the bottom of the pile now or even worse; forgotten.

Evidently 50 k concurrency is kicking butt and everyone is working like crazy to smooth it out and also get havoc 4 up to speed and get auth api running. We used to always know that when a new milestone was reached that it was going to be wonky for a few days. Unfortunately 50K is more wonky by far. Guess that is why 3/4 of the blog entries are concerning outages.

this may come as a shock to some people and i'm not into quoting everything, but the residents picking the mods is probably one of the most singular bad ideas one can ever come up with. Its not a popularity contest.


next regardless of those who have never seen a forum moderated by volunteers or a third party sources they do exist and in fact are quite common. No the companies do not monitor the activity in fact what they do is pull out of moderating because its not their strength nor do they have the time

lessee what can i think of off the top of my head places i have been in the last 24 hours that have just such a set up that apparently is rare

atitd.net is run by resident moderators and gms INGAME none are paid yet it has not collapsed in on itself
sony online games - never ever go near their forums unless its to post a devlog and then they run they actually hire people and give them 100% responsibility at this point to do what they want
ryzom - hired a company called jolt
Utlimat online - uses jolt
dark and light when it existed and cost money the forums were run in their entirety by a compnay called alchemic dream inf act alchemid dream holds the contracts to a lot of gaming forums and in some cases even some sony forums. Often they are handed things to post by developers who then head for the hills
Seed - although it died as a game due to lack of money was run by alchemic dreams no they did not have the capacity, or skills to run forums so they let AD do it.
Those are the ones i visited in the last 24 hours
in many cases you dont even know that you are being moderated by someone who is contracted out.
I am in two closed beta programs right now where in both casee the people doing the gming and moderating are not actually the company itself but in fact alchemic dream one of those games is going to be an mmorpg in sony's line up.

http://www.alchemicdream.net/ alchemic dream to my knowledge has its hand in moderation of online gaming communities in a huge portion of games across the internet we just dont know it because they dont always announce it or its forgotten.

the other company is jolt jolt.co.uk these are the ones that i have seen moderating because they actualy used their company colours most of the times

Linden Lab and its largest problem stems around the fact they actualy DO say things to their community. They hold ingame meetings and have a blog and once upon a time tried to post in the original quagmire that did exist and they got knowhere.

and i will ignore the comment about one guy controlling this becuase i know why this thread exists I am not blind or stupid and I do read because people are suddenly poppping up in a hatefest and they dont even use the forums apparently we as users who do are evil and stupid among other things plus we are "fanbois" and we actualy dont have just one resmod we only have one active one so they are looking for more so your shouts are all in vain and the problem is being worked upon as LL gets the chance to.

However what I dont like seeing is people who rarely if every post tot his board becase they hate it and the community on it coming to this board and lobbying for its closure. I'm sorry your board and you dont have anyone else to lash out at but lashing out at an entire community in order to stir up unneccessary and drama I find quite frankly to be more then just a little bit distasteful

I as a person who uses these forums on a regular basis (when i am actualy playing) and no other forum much if ever would like to have my say too and it is this

I do not want to be the one picking the moderators nor do i want the fly by users who plant seeds of discontent and then leave to go back and criticize this community to have a say.. Its not our job we are the community our opinions will be biased and based totaly on like or dislike of the person as an individual and a detached third party possibly with a bit more information then we as board users should be doing this. (that being LL who is despite the cries of injustice being handed a list of suitable candidates.. sorry if you didn't make the cut or dont make the cut that's life move on)

I'm not going to say more because as I have said despite my forum tags and the way i write I am not blind or stupid in fact its quite the opposite and anyone who actualy knows me knows that this facad i wear and the way i usualy post apart from the lousy typing skills is more then just a little bit of an act and that my brain in fact does work very well I am not stupid dumb a moron or retarded and so i can see exactly what is going on here. If you want to continue on your path of lobbying for the firing of a mod and the closing of this community beign cliché "please do so on one of the many third party forums available to you." end cliché

The inustice you say exists on these forums DO NOT exist and as a user of this forum and a regular user I can tell you now that I resent people coming in heer who never usually even post to lobby for something on a board that usually the refuse to post to.

p.s. sorry for the tone of the post it stems from only a few comments which are by users who never come here and suddenly out of the blue when finally someone the very person who apparently is controlling the forums is asking for names of volunteers he can give to LL are calling for its closure even though by their own admission they wont use these forums. (yet they are here now) . This to me smacks of drama because if he was controlling the forums then he would not be submitting names for LL to peruse so its pretty much more of the usual criticism and drama being stirred up over what I consider to be a total non issue and should not have generated any controversy at all yet somehow it is....

Thanks for that. I gather from another post that you got things moving again on this subject. Applause!

I vaguely seem to recall that there was an expiration date on the announcement when it was first posted (very vague though )., but I never looked at it again since then.

Does anyone admin a vB board and/or knows how announcements actually work (an end date might be mandatory for instance )?

Hopefully it wasn't just the equivalent of a temporary reprieve from the Governor. But a commendable effort in any case.

I agree with all this, but the problem is that this is where we are at the moment, and getting back on firmer footing is a tricky business. Perhaps counter to some folks' impressions, I really think Strife would greatly welcome the ability to "delegate up" some of the responsibility and authority, and to spread it out to other ResMods. But how else to go about picking such ResMods now, when there's really only one person who actually knows the job as its become, and knows at least something about the applicant pool? So, I'd be perfectly fine if Strife just picked the first "class" of freshmen ResMods who'll take the reigns, assuming there's some kind of oversight process such that successors might shape the forums differently as appropriate, when replacements or additions are needed.

I even think I'd be fine if they outsourced moderation. What's not fine is the limbo state the forums are in now--

-- And not just about ResMod selection.

The problem is the Lindens' deafening silence that echoes here. If they want to post on that silly boondoggle of a blog, fine: so post something about the plans for the forums. Start with some kind of statement about the bbcode thing, if that's the easy answer, or some lingua politic about plans for ResMod selection, or about how or if the new Comms manager will relate to the forums, or if there's been a change in plans for filling that position.

Just something, somewhere. Really--it's embarrassing to be begging for attention like this, but it should be more embarrassing to have customers resorting to plots and schemes to trick the Company into saying something... anything.

I agree with all this, but the problem is that this is where we are at the moment, and getting back on firmer footing is a tricky business. Perhaps counter to some folks' impressions, I really think Strife would greatly welcome the ability to "delegate up" some of the responsibility and authority, and to spread it out to other ResMods. But how else to go about picking such ResMods now, when there's really only one person who actually knows the job as its become, and knows at least something about the applicant pool? So, I'd be perfectly fine if Strife just picked the first "class" of freshmen ResMods who'll take the reigns, assuming there's some kind of oversight process such that successors might shape the forums differently as appropriate, when replacements or additions are needed.

I even think I'd be fine if they outsourced moderation. What's not fine is the limbo state the forums are in now--

-- And not just about ResMod selection.

The problem is the Lindens' deafening silence that echoes here. If they want to post on that silly boondoggle of a blog, fine: so post something about the plans for the forums. Start with some kind of statement about the bbcode thing, if that's the easy answer, or some lingua politic about plans for ResMod selection, or about how or if the new Comms manager will relate to the forums, or if there's been a change in plans for filling that position.

Just something, somewhere. Really--it's embarrassing to be begging for attention like this, but it should be more embarrassing to have customers resorting to plots and schemes to trick the Company into saying something... anything.

I think all of us would have been happy if they had gone ahead and outsourced the moderation of the forums.. in fact a many of us suggested that they do just that, rather than just closing forums down left and right.

I do admit though that the one forum that became completely unnecessary with the advent of the blawg was the Linden Announcements. I mean, we couldn't comment there anyways, so there wasn't any need for IT to stick it out. Same goes for Linden Answers when the Support Portal went live.. but they didn't need to close any of the others at all.

But what we were told was the forum wasn't 'scalable' and thus wasn't a good tool for anything. Say WHAT?! I mean, the forum has been up and running more reliably than the website itself and it's a place we can gather when we aren't able to meet up in world. It also gives us the heads up when things start going all borked.

Frankly, what they could also do is open the General Discussions forum back up, make it so that Payment Info Used (or ID verified when that comes live) accessible only and open the Resident Answers to all. That might actually encourage people to put money into SL AND/OR get verified.

1. Casually tossing applications aside is terrific; everybody does it.

2. We all know that.

3. But it is not LL who is doing this. It is another resident tossing them aside.

4. I don't think any resident should ever stand between us and the Lindens that way.

5. The Lindens aren't being honest about this, or dishonest, because they haven't even spoken about this particular situation at all.

6. You seem to think Strife is a Linden.

coco