Linden Answers forum closed...

There is already a "phone list" available, its useless because the numbers on it never get answered so we will just have more numbers that don't get answered.

And what you found was a workaround to a bug, the question to the LA forum was when was the bug going to get fixed, if ever. A workaround is never an acceptable substitute for fixing something that you have broken. When a company has to publish a whole list of "workarounds" for bugs introduced with their last update its a sure indication that they have serious issues in their QA and development processes.

"when will you get done?" is never an acceptable question to ask a repairman who is paid by the hour.

it slows down completion
and increases your final bill

even if only for him to stop what he's doing.. and to estimate how long it might take him to finish, and then explain it to you. The more you pull them away from their work with nagging questions.. the less works gets done.

These people didn't turn off a switch here. They nudged something. They put a 2 where a 3 used to be. and something someplace else sees that 2 and adds something up differently than it used to. Now a third thing, somewhere.. sees the new result of that calculation, and performs an old division on it.. and it is not getting a whole number like it used to. So it has this decimal which it passes to this other calculation.. which wants an integer.. and suddenly, 25% of the people can't see the water.. sometimes.

Part of the problem with this bug, is that there is no solid reproduction available to date. it's "some people may not see water after some teleports".

but tracing the effect back to the cause.. is like trying to determine why a raindrop falls on you thumb, but not your pinky. It's not something you can put on a timeline. Asking "when will this be fixed" is like asking the cops when they will catch a murderer. At best, the cops will say "we have several detectives on the case".

Your question was not answered, because it was unreasonable.

You got all the answer you deserved. "we are aware of the problem, and are working to fix it.. meanwhile, here is a workaround"

But if I'd had to deal with the attitude of people like the poster above, day after day.. I'd have closed the forums within 30 minutes.

Workarounds are put forth to temperarally circumvent a problem..........like a detour on the highway. It's not a fix.......only a way to get past it until it can be fixed. Problem is that Linden Labs (and few residents too) think that a workaround is good enough.....it's fixed enough so you can get where you want to get.

Now how long do you think those Lindens (and easily those appeasable residents) put up with that 20 mile detour to get to work each day when if the road was actually fixed and usuable it is 5 miles? They might be rather upset too..............of course if you don't go that way, you probably don't give a flying hoot anyway.

That's the problem............there are problems (bugs, crashes, lost inventory, etc, etc) that are not being fixed (or even addressed) that affect residents. But since the majority of residents don't seem to mind it can be put on the back burner till time is available to fix it............and it piles up!! It's one big mountain now and no apparent way to even begin to chip away at it. And not responding in Linden Answers for at least 2 weeks and then closing it down all together shows a total lack of conprehension of the base problem.....that is really bad for us, Linden Labs and any future SL resident.

Such is how it looks from my prespective..........total lack of understaning what customer service is. Not a clue.......none!! And these people are geniuses in the technology field!!! They wouldn't last one day in a field that required even "a thank you, have a nice day" statement when serving you your tacos. Maybe, "the taco sauce dispenser is empty so please be patient while we get more stocked"..........and then never return to bring it.

Stupid analogies I know...........but it's not too far off. Sadly.

Winter, we wouldn't have to ask for help publically if they actually responded to private requests for help. Some people, myself included, are sitting at 6 emails to support, many unanswered IMs to specific Lindens that LA directed us to IM, 8 bug reports explaining the problem in great detail, phone calls that never reach anyone.....

Patience is a virtue, no doubt, but at some point patience becomes masochism.

The human race has gotten along just fine without getting answers from some alleged 'God' for centuries.

I'm sure we'll survive a little more of the same here.

Maybe that's why back in the day, God would come to Noah and talk to him.. but nowadays you have to go to church.. and not only pray.. but pray that someone's listening.

Maybe that's why back in the day, God would come to Noah and talk to him.. but nowadays you have to go to church.. and not only pray.. but pray that someone's listening? I guess the Earth wasn't scalable... probably why he ended up bringing his son into the business.

"You got all the answer you deserved. "we are aware of the problem, and are working to fix it.. meanwhile, here is a workaround"

But if I'd had to deal with the attitude of people like the poster above, day after day.. I'd have closed the forums within 30 minutes."

Well this has been the mind set of LLabs these days. Problem is some linden think they are doing such a wonderful job and they say ( ABOUT THEMSLEVES ) I am doing my best for you bla bla bla........Its this sort of Linden Ego thats been a issue that has lead many people mad, pissedoff, totally confused and outright ( can`t say it )..........LLAbs inthe past 1y 6m has made a few major mistakes hiring and structure of LLAbs. ITS shows look at the condition of the forums etc.....The Linden answers was suppose to be a Failsafe for issues within the game. But instead some people posting in the linden answer got banned after countless ignores and or totally unprofessionl replies. I like to know how many got banned after THEY THEMSELVES got griefted and the Inworld Lindens did`nt do a dam thing! PRICELESS.

Actually it is absolutely acceptable and anyone who is paying a repair person by the hour who does not ask exactly that sort of question is a fool. Answering questions like that from your paying customers is part of doing business and any good business would have no problem asnswering a question like that. In addition any repair person who started to make mistakes and take longer due to answering questions like that is incompetent.

As to them nudgeing something here and putting a wrong number there or misplacing a decimal point, there are methodologies for preventing exactly those kinds of errors and they are used by any good software development company. The fact that LL has so many of these kinds of problems and they routinely "fix" a problem only to have it reoccur on a subsequent update shows that they have poor version and change management processes.

And as to "You got all the answer you deserved." as a paying customer what I and all the other paying cusotmers of any company deserve is open, honest communications and to have my concerns at least acknowledgedand not to be given a flippant answer to a legitimate question.

Yeah, but Lindens exist.

But the Earth isn't scalable. Back in the day.. before God opened up the world to free registrations.. God would come to you for a chat. I mean look at Noah.. God went to Noah. But, you know.. you open the floodgates.. and once you do that.. you gotta hire more help. That's probably why he brought his son into the business. Pretty good with customer relations that kid.. but look what happened to him!

I dunno.. back in the day, Noah, Moses.. anyone could just shout out and God would be on the case.. no matter where you were. Nowadays it's all outsourced.. you gotta go to a designated support center, and format your support request properly.. and there are no responses.. no form letters.. You just have to hope that some "customer support specialist" with a book and a fancy uniform.. knows what he's talking about. And you hope that your request makes it into the pile on the desk of someone who's listening.. and and that they will do anything about it... if there's anyone even AT that desk anyways.

But, on the other hand... Bans have lightened up a tad since those days.. Look what happened to Adam and Eve.. all over violating some permissions on some tree.

Well considering there`s only ONE way to get to God, maybe that`s why people are being "ignored", theyre using the wrong door.


Sadly, lindens have closed yet another door. What`s next.

A window?



It's like a big frigging fortess now. We should make a trojan horse and send people in with questions!

I've carefully compiled some questions for our next attack:

"Why is this box on my head?"

"NEK ATTACHMENTS! I WANT NEK ATTACHMENTS NEK ATTACHMENTS!"

"Why wont Burning Crusade install?"

"Why my brain not werkin?"

Imagine an email inbox containing 30,000 questions like the ones below, and you can start to get an idea of what they're up against.

They are frustrated. I can see it in a few of Kelly's more recent responses. We are frustrated. You can see that in the posts all over the forums. I count myself among those who are frustrated about various issues at various times.

What's being missed here is the fact that the members of the development team had been tasked with manning the LA forums.. look at who's been responding to the majority of posts in there.. Kelly/Linden Developer. "Front Line Customer Service" is not generally a component of a software developer's job description. Producing, compiling and debugging code is. Clearly, the resources aren't yet in place to handle the service load, but it is categorically unfair to expect the developers to take the brunt of the criticism, and outright nasty remarks that had shown up recently in LA. It is counter productive in every way imaginable. This is why I support their decision to pull the plug, and I support it 100%. It should have been done sooner. Angry, spiteful tirades do not compel anyone to solve problems.

What I've noticed about the complaining in general is that it does not take into consideration that the issue being complained about is one out of easily more than one hundred issues that are -all- being worked on. "When can I expect *MY* issue to be resolved?" in the broader context of all that is happening with Second Life right now is an unreasonable question, as Winter stated. Her description of what it's like to hunt for a bug is also spot on. Give the developers a break. They're under enormous pressure right now. If you feel the need to vent your frustration, then email Phil. Email Cory. Dealing with such things is an unfortunate part of both of their job descriptions, and I'm sure they would both agree with that. If, in the end, you feel that Linden Lab isn't delivering the product and service you expect for your money, then quit.

zk

I spotted one, I spotted one! A wily white-winged ruby-throated red-breasted Robin Linden, in the Linden Village (Ambleside), on a Saturday night, at 10:30pm US Central time.

Linden-spotting! The exciting new game from LindenLab, fun for the whole family! Every avatar can play!

I'm wondering if you're not just claustrophic and don't want to get inside my big wooden horse. Is that it?

bwahahaha

I saw a large breasted Char Linden the other day.

Actually, I didn't care either way about that one.

But let me be clear: I did notice that the forum was called "Linden Answers" and yet that the answers fell into 3 categories: none, short "read the knowledge base" referrals, or "hm let me check with xyz Linden on that." The forum just was really bad. It was probably one of those "good ideas" that don't work when you actually do them. I can only imagine that those responsible basically hated even thinking about it. It needed either to be supported better, or deleted.

Supported better would probably mean hiring someone who had the time to spend on the forums, or (I dunno) sending someone several times a day to the closest cafe in San Francisco and dragging Torley or Kelly back into Linden Labs and making them actually work (since people seem to think they aren't working). I suspect that they are actually working, and that with the explosive growth of SL they probably have their hands full trying to get a handle on customer service in general, of which the forums are but a small part.

My comment about yahoo is baically getting at the idea that it is hard to know how to classify SL -- it's not really a game, and it's not really yahoo. We are kind of still figuring out what it is. But people are still trying to force a game model of company/customer communication on SL and LL which really may not be appropriate.

We do expect the developers of small niche games to communicate with the players and to develop the game according to their experience and feedback -- even though some of the best examples of good communication (and I think cryptic and City of Heroes is a good example of it) devolved into something bad over time. I think that there are more examples of forums NOT working than of them working -- consistently and over the long haul -- as vehicles of cusomter service and communication. Most companies are not good at using them that way. Clearly, LL is one of those companies that is not good at it.

Given that, what do we do? Perhaps we try to find new ways of communicating? Perhaps we try blogging -- blogging has become very popular only within the last couple of years. Forums and newsgroups are a bit older. Does any other game or company use blogging this way? I think it is rather an experiment, a way to find something that works. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't.

In a sense, we are making this whole thing up as we go along. I think that SL is pretty new phenomenon - and certainly, the attention it is getting and its rapid growth are new and phenomenal. I am guessing that some will say that they pay good money for this product and they don't like being experimented on. I would say that such folks just don't get it. The marvelous thing about SL is that it is ALL about creation and experimentation.

That's why I think closing the linden answers forum was a good idea -- just my opinion.

Here is my full take on this:

I didn't really need Linden Answers. Or I wouldn't have if the other forms of communications worked as intended. If it was a stock problem, I could go to the bug-tracker (this is newly added), the knowledge base (woefully out of date), or ask my fellow residents in Resident Answers (might not get an answer to solving the problem, but hey, I'd find out I'm not the only one.)

But if these other forms fail, I want to speak to or directly ask a Linden. Help whatever it's called? It's okay, if it's staffed. I don't want a resident answer, though, I want a Linden answer to the problem at the point I'm going to use it. And it can only be accessed from in the world. What if I can't GET in world? Calling? Maybe what, one in 10 calls actually get answered? Email? I've had my support emails get swallowed up by the black hole after the auto-response.

I understand that they are sorely lacking in the Support department. Given the company policy, they probably don't want to hire someone with that as their primary job, since it is one of the most troublesome tasks out there. For one, you can't say, "Look it's not my fault." Because you work for the company it is 'your' fault, since that's one of the responsibilities of the job.

Then you have to try to find a way to make it right, even if it's not in your area of expertise. You still have to try. Most customers will be glad to hear that you are at least willing to try to get their problems resolved, even if it means finding the person that CAN answer their questions. You can't take the easy route on this.

And all of this is based on when you have a reasonable person on the other end of the line. It gets infinitely more difficult when the person isn't willing to try being reasonable. Usually, it involves cursing at the top of their voice, ranting about something that 'you' did that broke X, even though X worked just fine yesterday. And there wasn't even an update of any sort, yesterday. You have to be polite, not tell them exactly what you think of them or even 'hint' that you think of them that way.

No, your first and foremost task then becomes getting the person calmed down enough to find out what exactly the problem is. And even with a calm person, you'll have to go through a shopping list to see exactly what the problem is. I mean, some problems have similar symptoms, but totally different solutions! You have to catalog the most common symptoms, what they lead to and how to fix it. And all the while, you have to be at least sympathetic sounding.

Sounds like fun, huh? For me, it's something I've done and I do kinda find it a challenge. I can't say that even I would enjoy it, but it sure beats looking at the code for hours on end. (No insult intended to coders. It's just not my cup of tea, so to speak.)

A pretty good definition of customer service. Something every company doing business with the public needs. Those folks need to be diplomates as well as analytical professionals to get to the real problem. Then the resources to either get the problem solved or get the problem to people who can solve it......and, of course, follow-up. The nuts and bolts people in developement or operations cannot do this and still keep up with their real work for the company. You need people who's sole responsibility is customer service......who have clear guidelines and avenues to resolving each problem (no matter how tirvial that problem may seem).

Any company not willing to do this will fail..........there's no way that cannot happen. People will leave. No customer to sell your service or product to. No way to get return on your investments. No way to pay the employees who can make the product. Customer service (such a lowly position in many people's minds) is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of any company.

But even if you lack the time, inclination, or intestinal fortitude to answer them, the wise firm could use the contents as a barometer of the magnitude of the customer frustration.

I posit that they didn't even read them because it interefered with their happy day and they didn't want them to continue because those complaints showed just how chronic and grave the system failures are.

Linden Lab appears to not even want to know how bad "the experience" is; they certainly don't want third parties to know.

This is one of the weaknesses on both(or all) sides of many of the debates going on in the forums right now. At least you bothered to quantify your assumption with "I posit".. most people don't. There are all kinds of conclusions being reached about what actually is going on in the offices of Linden Lab, without any factual knowledge to support it.. therefore they are not conclusions, but assumptions.

I would be hard pressed to believe that they are unaware of the magnitude of frustration - it's "in their face" everywhere they turn. Phil and others have stated numerous times that they realize the company's ability to respond to these frustrations and handle the support load is piss-poor at the moment. They've acknowledged this, publicly. I would give them a little more credit than to just assume that they don't give a rat's ass about improving that aspect of the organization, I'm sure they understand that such an attitude would be a death warrant for the business.

Scaling the company, departments, staff levels, etc at the pace of the current rate of growth of the customer base is simply not logistically feasible. It's going to take time. "How much time" I think is a fair and reasonable question to ask. All I know for certain is that it can't be done overnight, or even in the course of a few months. I just very seriously doubt that they're ignoring this. For now, I'm taking Phil at his word that it is being worked on at the best possible speed.

If they'd not been saying that they know their customer service stinks but they'll be doing something about it since sometime in 2004, I'd give them more quarter.

At this point it sure looks like lip service.

Thats more than likely true, but something that never crossed my mind. Thinking of how many IMs I get a day, mostly asking the SAME questions which have the answers right in my profile (That they have to open BEFORE IMing me)..I have begun ignoring the IMs I get for my own personal sanity.


I guess the problem is a lot of the residents are frustrated to, and many VITAL questions/concerns are going unanswered. They need to do something. Higher more people for one. Its kind of hard to get people to read a FAQ though unfortunately. If people would read they would be able to find their answers there.

A lot of residents feel LL does not care and will not assist them. Thats also part of the problem and demanding going on. Because other, larger customer-base, companies are able to get back to you within 24 hours, why cant LL. Im hoping part of it is because LLs manpower is too small, and the other because many of our fellow residents are idiots asking questions where the answer is right infront of their face.