The Fanboi Playbook: what are your best strategies to counter?

Not often, as I've stated numerous times. I think the total is 2, in fact. On both occassions they were legitimate issues that I could not resolve without their help. I submitted through the support portal using a support ticket. Both times I completed the required information in the proper catagory with as complete details as I could state (it takes thought to isolate what is wrong....broad statements with nothing concrete will not help much). I took pains (on one issue, especially) to not let my emotions override the facts. Response times? Under 24 hrs both times..........under 12 for one.

AR's? Quite a few in the over 4 years I've in SL (though not really that many.....guessing at maybe 10 or 12). On the AR's envolving greifing the responses have been quite quick......as short as 2 to 5 minutes. On harassment AR's that tends to be extremely hard to know just how quick or even if the AR was resoponded to........but I can tell you that after submitting such AR's the problem with the party I AR'd never happened again. The assumption on my part is that it was dealt with (though I cannot prove it). Live Chat? On this form of support I can not call it anything except EXCELLENT. Even way back when it was called Live Help. Never more than a few seconds for an answer from someone....then good, clear, and polite help given. This happened EVERY TIME I've contacted LL via that method. Again it might be the way I present the problem in a non threatening tone or in a way the conveys I've done all I know and need help........but not demanding the help. Or, I suppose, I could have been the luckiest person to ever use support (that is rather over the top in my opinion, though)

And I've also used the phone support for billing issues. Twice in 4 years. Both times very short wait, polite, competent help. Both issues were resolved before I hung up the phone.

So, you see, there is a reason I stick up for support when I see the constant bitching about a system I've had no problems with. I tend to think the person(s) making such accusations are exxagerating (or worse......lying) about the problems. At the very least I tend to believe that the person relating these horror stories are leaving some very important details on how the problem was approached, message or request presented, or reacted to the resolution.

It's pretty simple as the why's I come on as I do over this constant belly aching...........I simple don't believe it. My experience has been the exact opposite.

Do I see areas of support that need improvement? Absolutely......and the very first, and perhaps the most important, is the ease of actually getting the support. It's there..........just not as easy as it should be to get to.

But, I'm a fanboi...........take it for what it's worth.

I might able to answer that. Try putting yourself into the regulars's shoes. Say all was reversed and LL was shutting down the blogarums and scurrying them over here. They have a tight group of friends who've been together for a year........they are not overly happy about LL dumping in their mess kit. Here we all are knowing are going to get some new comers soon.........we are our happy lot with our close knit circles. We know who we like, who we don't, who's funny, who's cranky, who's nuts. We are really hoping the new comers like our little world..........wondering if they will be shy, friendly, aloof, sad, happy, or indifferent. Suddenly a strange post shows up inquiring if the two "cultures" will work out............from one of the "newcomers" no less.

My thought would be........"What the hell is that all about?" This looks like it could get nasty. I'll just sit back and observe........maybe jump in if I have something to say. All the while wondering where did that thought come from in the first place? What type of people hang out there? What the hell did we do to suddenly become some "culture" other than the Second Life culture?

Unfortunate thread.......just not the right foot to put forward.

Entirely my opinion.

Well, it was pretty clear from your posts in the thread that you weren't happy with it. And that's cool: you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and I don't bear you any ill will at all for it.

I would point out, however, that the OP was hardly aggressive, and that the theme of the thread was about making this merger work, rather than about picking at scabs. As for the existence of "two cultures," I queried this myself in my postings there. What IS absolutely clear is that there was -- indeed, I'm sure still is -- some hostility between the two groups. It doesn't require a thread to highlight that: take a look at the responses, from both sides, to other posts on the subject of the demise of the forums that appeared in SLA. Pretending that that hostility didn't happen is hardly going to make it go away.

In the final analysis, the thread was, it seems to me, a remarkably civilized one, and DID feature some movement towards mutual acceptance and understanding. I was reasonably pleased with the way it went down, although I would have liked to have seen more participation from the SLA side of things.

What I do find mildly curious is why you would choose to focus your objections upon a thread that was explicitly designed to bring both communities together, rather than upon other threads that featured a great deal more animosity between the two communities than mine did.

Good intentions don't count when you're dealing with real people who are happy among themselves........those same people see us as "hostile" to them.

There's an old cliche from my neck of the woods (NW corner of Arkansas, 12 miles from the nearest city limit, no paved road within 4 miles).

"Let laying dogs lay"

Translation: If you are leary of a dog while walking down the road and you see that dog laying asleep next to the road you just walk by, maybe diverting your route a little. You don't pick up a stick and go poke him.

This is sometimes good advice, but I don't know that it applies in this case. The proof, so to speak, is in the pudding: the thread did NOT awaken a vicious mastiff. On the contrary, while it wasn't all sweetness and light, I thought it was largely constructive. There was certainly no flaming of the sort that was evident in other threads on the subject.

What did you see actually IN the thread that supports your contention that it was destructive or dangerous?

Yet you just correctly (in my opinion) stated that the bulk of the regulars have pretty stayed clear posting in that thread.............you even wondered why (to which I opined a possible answer)

And I already stated why I thought it a bad idea in the thread in question. You assumed there was going to be an issue when there was no evidence that that was a fact. In all your sweetness you wanted to "mend that broken fence".........nip it in the bud, so to speak. That fence that showed no evidence of needing such mending. There is every reason to believe no such division of "cultures" would exist............now there's every reason to believe will. Actually, probably occured. Simply "trying to be nice".

Scylllia, you know I really do admire your passion and good heartedness. But you need to think before you react. I think we had a similar encounter as this a few months ago about your prematurely jumping to conclusions. You cause more harm than you think.....good intentions or not.

Edit.........

Double post........stinkin' 500 error.

it's starting..

I've been busy over there today. Some of my posts have just been general posting as this place is so 500-error today, and some of it has been worded in a way that should help them get used to the viewpoints over here, in a hopefully not too rough introductory frame.

It hasn't been too bad, not nearly as bad as some of my past attempts over there.

Not sure if I'm a peacemaker or not. I can be pretty good at mediating things and getting disparate people to get along in RL, and in SL, but in text I'm only good as long as I don't let one of my trigger buttons get me.

The place can be worked somewhat, there are angles to it there. And it does have cliques already. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes when we all come crashing into that place in a few days.

Actually, people DO understand that, all too well as a matter of fact. Nobody at all that I've seen would ever dispute the fact that SL is the labs to do whatever they want with. However, many of us are actually pretty damn smart with no lack of common sense, and are critical of many of LL decisions because they are near-sighted, and wind up punishing or flat out shooting their paying customers. The list of past examples and proof of this is quite long. Suggesting there's any sort of "fear of change" issue is beyond comprehensible. Everyone I know that's harsh on the lab very much wants change, but realizes that the core of the problem lies within the lab itself, and mainly with it's disconnected take on life inside of SL. Very much indicative of codies and booktypes who've never actually gone into SL specifically to socialize and learn the issues from the inside out.



a "fanboi" is someone who shows extreme support for, and defends something well beyond the point of rational thinking, often stooping to childish insults and insinuations because someone actually may have a valid point that might make their precious "whatever it is" look not so great. They are the very essence of "us versus them".. hostile, gang mentality for no purpose other than to dispel any naysayers of their beloved. Every popular product of any kind has them, some much more than others. I've seen them spout all kinds of twisted, illogical things.. many in a near blind panic to defend something they like. nVidia, ATI, Apple, LL, you name it.. Much of it is ego, stubborness, and unwillingness to accept that others are allowed to have a contrary opinion.

the merger only started like in October with the xstreet forum..it's only around 4 months old heheheheh still a baby..
that community is not even close to being done being born yet..

really it is all one community..it's not some forum you join on the net and have to fit into.
you become a member the second you get a second life account..
they were made to move these forums and the xstreet forums..
So why would we feel we have to fit in at all..we've been working them for a long time already..

sorry but if i go there and some wanna be moderator draws some turf line at my feet..i'm just stepping over it and walking past like they are not even there..
it's when we feel we have to explain ourselves that we fall for all this invisible line right to passage junk..

everyone spends money on this grid..it's all as green as the next ones..if i start a thread and they come in posting drama..i'll hit them where it hurts..i'll give everyne points but them ahhahahahaha

Turf war............that's a great way to think of it.

Carry on..............I guess I'm done. I know when to back off and let the battles begin. Sad part is.......nobody wins. Well, as long and warriors have fun.........guess it's necessary.

I'll just sit back and be "fanboi".

i'm not saying to have a turf war but to walk past it..just act like you belong there and don't play the games.
cause really that's all it is..drama games of i belong here so respect me..and thats not gonna happen out of the blue...it's just someone thinking they own what belongs to everyone..
when you don't join in to all that you tend to make the game players look a bit silly..

if someone wants to play just act like you didn't hear them is all i am saying

Hehe..........something I really try to do myself. Haven't been successful lately. Tired, I guess........the venom has been rather thick for about 2 months now and I'm weaker than I thought.

Thanks for explaining Ceka.

There's something to be said for this, but I think the "defenders of all LL decisions no matter what" people are different in kind from "trolls", in that the latter are NOT working to please the authority running the forum/message board/blog.

The All-Defenders ARE hoping to please those in power, the trolls are not.

So for this reason I think it makes sense NOT to get embroiled...but instead to offer a crisp rebuttal of the fallacious arguments the All-Defenders often use.

The audience decides the outcome.

A rule LL does not appear to be capable of comprehending.

There is really nothing else to say. You either "get it" or you don't.

I hear you, but the thing is, a culture has arisen over at the Blogs. (As happens with any new message board/forum.

I've done enough posting and reading there (as unpleasant and clunky as the interface is) to know that the All-Defenders are prone to using the same bad arguments over and over, in what I can only describe as a smug fashion. A smugness that makes sense if they feel they have the company's implicit blessing for piling on those who suggest that some LL decisions may fall short of perfection.

I would say that if we identify the bad arguments here, we will be better able to point out that they ARE bad arguments.

And frankly, I don't think that those to whom 'free discussion between adults' is some sort of code for 'whining anarchists trying to destroy LL', are capable of benefiting from our discussion here.

In other words, I don't think they're capable of coming up with credible arguments for their position. Once the fallacious nature of their arguments has been pointed out, all they'll have left is ad hominem attacks.

Which are fallacious, too.

I agree with you about that nicely-succinct rule of business.

But I like to think that if enough people said this, over at the Blogs, even the most closed-minded in the LL leadership might have to give some consideration to the idea.



(Call me a cock-eyed optimist. ^_^)

Yes, and yes. (I just picked out two particularly trenchant portions of your excellent post [from page 1]).

I completely agree with you that labeling people is bad. I can see how my thread title could easily lead someone to believe that I wouldn't agree.

But the use of the term 'fanboi' DID get the idea of the thread across in the title. I would have preferred something like

................."what counterarguments do you use when you encounter bad-logic-arguments often used in the Blogs to heap scorn on those who believe that free discussion in a grown-up style will actually BENEFIT, not harm, Linden Lab?"


Obviously that wouldn't have fit. But it would have put the emphasis where I'd prefer it to be: ...................on the bad arguments, NOT on individuals.

I very definitely do NOT advocate saying "_______ is a fanboi" or anything of the kind.

You make a very good point here. It's almost a cliche among long-time SLers to say that 'things have changed'...but the fact is, they have. The fact that the new Blogs were permitted to become the home of conduct such as has been described in this thread, is something that wouldn't have happened a couple of years ago.

It's a change that has great potential to harm the long-term viability of Linden Lab, many of us believe.

This is a sentence I never thought I'd write, but: the world would be better off with more Genghis Khans in it.

I don't think they CAN be vanquished. But it's possible, by pointing out bad arguments, that thinking will become more fashionable among the general Blogulace, than recital-of-talking-points.

That would make the effort worthwhile.

You know.. someone once said "color is for games, it's not professional" then "graphics and mouse are for games it's not professional". He also said that computers will never ever need more than 640k of memory. And his fanboys were pretending he was right. But now that everybody use color screens and mouse and use gigabytes of RAM he is still one of the richest men in the world.

Basically you can't argue with fanboys, their god is always right.

Hello Ponsonby, I've read this thread with interest, and thought I'd put my point of view.

Firstly, let's not get carried away with who is guilty of espousing bad argument and who may declare themselves holy moderator of the logical fallacy. Let's just say that, like bad grammar and typos and spelling mistakes, they are evidence of nothing more than the fact that the author is human and thus prone to mistakes.

If you need proof that such charity is a two way street, I think that on reading your own input to this thread, you'd have to hold your hand up to at least a few logical fallacies of your own.

As an example, your own addiction to the "straw man" is embedded in the very structure of your opening post.

As for me, I just think that all the effort you expend dealing with arguments you yourself put in the mouths of these "fanbois", might be better used in real action designed to get what you want.

Perhaps by addressing directly with LL the arguments they give for closing these forums.

This of course shouldn't be confused with the well intended but pointless exercise of the "open letter" which everyone seems to applaud so readily.

Don't get me wrong, I believe LL is a business, but I also believe that business people are prone to really catastrophic error and these can be avoided by valid argument and negotiation.

This is just an idea, but maybe, rather than all this pontificating on who is right and who is wrong, why not just prove it?

1. How many people actually use this forum on a daily basis?
2. How many unique questions have been answered, solutions discovered?
3. In what ways does this environment support the knowledge asset better than the proposed one?

The list goes on.

If we can all accept for a moment that LL is a business, then the way to sway them is by building a business case with facts and numbers. Yes, I'm afraid you do need at least some of these to demonstrate the value of even intangible assets.

Finally, to quote George Bernard Shaw:

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. "