Questions Inspired by Project Open Letter

Exactly.

I think a big part of the problem is the lack of Adult Supervision that should be coming from the management. We're seeing a team that is in way over their heads.

Where is the internal technical leadership? (code reviews? Look at what gets released ...) Why does the CTO choose to rarely communicate on the blog to the residents? Why does he have to be goaded into doing a town hall? Isn't it embarassing that it takes an Open Letter on the part of the residents to get the management to do the right thing?

Anyone remember the last time Philip posted any sort of reassuring 'it will get better' message to the blog? (yes, it's nice that he's on magazine covers and at conferences .. now come home and talk to the residents ....)

Seriously, look at the employment page and the Tao of Linden. The fundamental problems seem to stem from how things are being run. There's a huge emphasis on 'cool' and choosing your own work. If the system were stable, that would be great. But it's not, and what we could use is more Adult Supervision -- more of a world class team that is not afraid to dictate priorites to the staff, and to keep up on the PR angle of communicating with the residents.

The Board of Directors needs to be paying attention, and they need to have the fortitude to make some big changes.

That open letter was cc'd to the board of directors.

I also note Linden responses in some forums today. And evidence of Lindens sorting out inworld issues in a timely fashion today. All since the open letter.

Maybe it's done what it was intended to do - delivered a reality check to Linden Lab. I really hope so.

Of course a it may not go as far as a change in Management and Development practices, but one can only hope.

SL will go down in flames unless management and the development team actually get off their butts and do something about it. I want them to stop adding new features for 6 months minimum and just concentrate on bug fixing. I've played this game for a year and the quality of the game has only went straight down hill because of how they operate SL.

It's almost like their philosophy is "if we keep adding new fun features, people will forget about the 2 million bugs that have piled up over the last few years, yeah that's it! Brilliant!"

The sad thing is (at least on the surface), it looks like they could care less and WANT to drive the game into the ground.

E

My question is this (if you choose to redact or edit my question, dont bother!):

OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS, SINCE RECEIVING OUR OPEN LETTER (WHICH NOW HAS OVER 2300 SIGNATURES LAST TIME I LOOKED), IN WHAT NEW WAYS HAVE YOU TASK-RE-ORGANIZED YOUR MANPOWER AT LINDEN LABS, IN ORDER TO MORE EFFECTIVELY RESOLVE THESE RECURRING AND DEBILLITATING GRID NON-PERFORMANCE ISSUES???
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My 'Two Cents':

We are not interested in you showing us new ways to complain, nor do we accept the burden of responsibility for the quality of your product, as you are so wont to imply we should!

We are losing faith in your gigantic PR/image-driven public forums! You consistently re-direct our VERY REAL service-quality issues/concerns into opportunities for more misdirecting tech-speak or warm-fuzzy-speak. Give us tangible evidence of effort and progress, instead of more empty placations and reassurances. Non-focused 'busy progress-work' on secondarily important "bells and whistles" does not equate to product quality improvement!

'Shoe buggery' is the technical term Kat. It's a well known bug. Something else from the 'too difficult and not fun to fix' pile I'm afraid.

PS - try wearing a sword sometime and crossing a border - that'll make your eyes water!

In the blog reply to the open letter, JIRA was listed as one of the key avenues for residents to provide input on issues on the grid. Residents are able to vote on issues in JIRA.

Question: What is LL's internal process in actually making use of the order of priority established by these votes? Is there someone who reviews the "hot" issues and sets priorities for development/bug fixing? Who is responsible for acknowledging these issues and actually addressing the input from users?

There is a perception that the issues and votes are falling on deaf ears - how do you plan to address this in a tangible manner?

I agree with every post on here. The Lindens have been adding new features to a flawed product. Taking the grid down so that they can update a viewer that had numerous things wrong with it, and replacing it with one that not only has those things wrong, but adds NEW bugs, seems self defeating. I would love a straight answer to this question: Does Linden Labs really care about its loyal users, or are they gonna ride this thing till it drops, and bail out when it gets too complicated or the corporate guys who think they can advertise on here realize that things dont work "that way" in SL. I've been on since August, and I've seen sl go from a nice community, to an overcrowded mess full of bugs and naked newbies who don't speak english running around asking my sl wife for sex... ok, ok, the newbies were there before. But all this news on who's in SL now is just silly. Get out of the meetings with the coroprate advertising execs, and get back into the lines of code and fix this mother!!! SL needs to ask itself, "Do I want to court users and loyal residents, OR corprate advertisers?"

Do a search for a random name in search(when it's working, that is) and see just how many accounts have even one group, one sign that they didnt just log on for a hour. Might be a good idea to keep the residents who log on at least once a week, rather than try to lure more people into this lag-filled mess of double talk we're in right now. No wonder they don't stay. There's no one to help them, theres nothing but lag, and imagine if you're logging on for the first time, you try a feature after reading how to do it, and it doesn't work... I can say with certainty, if i wasnt so addicted to this, that I would leave and never come back. The premise is sound, but the execution is severley flawed.

Obviously, with the response this letter has created, Linden Labs might start looking at this. My guess is that the Lindens want more premium accounts. I was going to upgrade to premium a few months back, but stopped because I saw that this thing is getting way too top heavy. I just buy my Lindens and rent. I'm not owning anything here anytime soon as I can't see the value of buying into something that doesnt work right in the first place. Another question would be: Does Linden Labs ever want to put a reasonable capping mecanism on Second Life? Seems to me, most newbies come on for a day, or a weekend, and figure out it's not for them, and leave. How about making free accounts free for 30, 60, or 90 days? After that, it's time to give back to the community that you've been experiencing. If the # of accts starts plateauing, GREAT! That can be the benchmark for them to get a code that WORKS with the # of residents...

The 2300 signatures that are on the letter are not even NEAR the amount of disgruntled residents. All the people on my friends list complain about the same things every day. Start prioritizing these issues and FIX them. Quit waisting time and effort on implementing new features, and use the man(and woman)power to FIX the problems! Our responses are usually the same, "Well, that's SL for ya, what are you gonna do?"

No, the question should be: SL, what are YOU gonna do????

Literally thousands of REAL dollars have been lost due to a combination of human error and perhaps even network latency and application bugs. I heard one person yesterday who had group land for sale for 23,000 L and when they clicked cancel, it was set for sale to the notorious Landbaron Merlin for 23L.

23L.

I was told a bug report was submitted in this instance. Many problems such as this were masked by responsible landbot owners who returned land attributed to 'Human Error', but here's the thing: Isn't it strange that so many people are 'making the same error'? It's certainly suspect to me.

I've cut parcels and waited for the lines to appear. I have personally set cut pieces of land for sale only to catch that the land was pointing to the *adjacent* parcel instead of the parcel I had selected. I am not alone. Perhaps we could get an open letter together on this.

There has been no attempt to inform people to, at the least, look out for human error. There has been no apparent attempt to deal with what could be an application issue as related to network latency, or something more subtle. Instead, people are told 'you set the land for sale, nothing we can do'.

So - I am formally requesting that these things be addressed on the SecondLife blog with comments open such that the community has a way to demonstrate that there are multiple cases of these issues, that they are IMPORTANT to the community, and that a resolution is not only being requested but can be expected. The words "We are talking about it" and "We are working on it" do not really say anything. It is only a matter of time before matters escalate, and I would like to think the best way to deal with the situation is to walk into it with eyes wide open and get it out there - instead of treating it, consistently, like Boo Radley.

I am so heartened by the letter and what it has done. This is the first time I fell Linden Labs is listening in... well.... as long as I been on, anyways.

I also agree with almost every issue question I have seen, and I also agree with all the people who say "I love SL, thank you Linden, etc" even if my frustration usually prevents me from voicing such concerns. SL truly is one of those things that you simply cannot walk away from, no matter how bad it gets. That was slipping away too even, till today.

But enough of all that. My post is to say that I think Deira Llanfair put it absolutely best, and is perhaps a place Linden could begin the THM from: WHAT DO YOU THINK THE PROBLEMS ARE?

Starting there, with Linden heading everyone off at the pass is a most solid idea, as it will save much much time and prevent us citizens from having to get all choked up and spitting at hte meeting, justb y having to go thru our complaints agaaaaain. Face it, Linden has heard or voice all along, it's just been a matter of what they do about it, and while staggering growth has been an obstacle to good customer service, improvements cannot be avoided any longer. So to that end, I am sooo glad we are here now talking.

More good:
I can use both monitors on my dual system with SL now. I didn't change a thing. Thank you LL. I am no longer a cubist painting in motion on bad server days. Thank you LL. I haven't crashed out of world in weeks. Thank you LL.

Now about my inventory loss?

This is a partial quote. I am not sure if the Lindens were listening all along. I personally think theyhad hands over their ears and their faces buried in a pile of pillows but the negative press related to the Open Letter has caused them to look around and hear. I hope this is not temporary. The townhall meeting will CLEARLY indicate to all of us whether they are taking all of this seriously or not. If its a smile, wink, pat on the head, don't worry, we'll fix it and look at all the NEW features coming to you sort of thing, then we will know they are not serious. On the other hand, if its a "certain problems have been identified and here's specifically what we intend to about them" sort of response, then they will have re-established a lot of credibility with me. It looks like certain issues, like ARs have improved already.

Its going to take a while to fix the problems. I am going to give them a chance and hope for the best!

Which is why I am still frustrated, yes.

Did anyone else notice that for the month of March 07, SL reports 3,177,434 unique residents?
And for that same month, the number of premium accounts was 75,714. That is a surprisingly low number and gives me comfort in the knowledge that it probably doesn't take many premium downgrades to reeaaally get the attention of Linden Labs should the THM be a patronizing farce.

Here's hoping it goes better than that.

I don't want to add to the barrage of questions needing to be asked, but like most my concern is for the stability of the SL environment and the need to make it once again a playable experience not a constant frustration.

A lot of additions have been implemented, but many are still prone to bugs and non- performance. Before you proceed with new innovations or those that are already in the pipeline the current inadequacies of SL must be solved.

1) By this I mean the ability to teleport without crashout from the program. The ability to complete a teleport into a sim that is showing as not full (this full quota appears to be dropping the whole time, such that now sims seem only able to support a maximum of 30 residents at any time, and many of the residential areas, are experiencing difficulties with less than 6 residents in situ).

2) Viewer 1.15.0.2 seems to have serious problem with being able to sustain building without crashing, or with extremely slow rezzing of objects, if they rez at all. (This info is from a class 5 sim with 3 people in situ, so it should be able to handle building)

3) There are many times that build is not available from the UI short cuts but only through the view/build option.

4) Sim crossings are still in many cases an exploration into the unknown, with high possibility of crashing out of the game during transit.

5) Again class 5 sim with few residents in situ, is struggling to allow movement or inventory manipulation without freezing.

6) Inventory manipulation in game with 2 inventory windows open is likely to result in a crash during inventry movements, surely it should be possible to be able to reorganise within windows in the normal folder fashion, and this be verified against your database to make sure no-one has tried to include items not already purchased within game.

7) the above also applies to textures.......not just the UI code but if only texture name was available it would be acceptable.

Commerce issues of stock and Lindens transactions must be made less fallable not only for the benefits of the shop owners but also for the individual residents.

9) Group IMs. Ok there may be a problem there but I personally am not affected at the moment, and when I needed them there were other ways to get round the problem, It is the not knowing whether it worked or not, that is the most infuriating in this issue.

10) Search is very haphazard in operation, meaning frustration when trying to find something or someone, or on the part of classifieds, the poster even knowing whether the lindens they paid will actually ensure that their classified will even appear in search.

11) The world map is now becoming completely redundent. It now appears that all sims created this year 2007 are showing as greyed out on the map. the only clue that they are functioning at all is the possibility of yellow dots on the map if you are lucky and prepared to wait long enough for them to appear.

They are all simple problems in themselves, that all need solutions, in what order is not essential, but they are all issues that need sorting before the implementation of new innovations. Especially as one service that suffered..."In World Help" has been removed to make processor power available for other more serious problems, with so far a result of no improvements as promised, and in fact what appears to be a further deterioration of the current grid performance, How can that be ????? How much more do we have to lose before you can maintain a grid with a semblance of performance that can be enjoyed by all, not the few who happen to have direct network access to the grid (namely LLabs personnel)

First I would like to provide a signiture count update, the current signiture count is now 3515 signatures, People are still signing it.

Now, I do not believe restricting unverified accounts duering high logins is a good solution.
Doing such a thing would only create tentions inworld, and upset a lot of people.
Do you really want to deal with evan more ticked off people then you already have?
SL's home page states that SL is for every one to enjoy, biuld, amd have fun, restricting logins will defeat that purpos, and that advertisment would no longer be aplicable.
You would have to rewright to something like: "SL where those with payed accounts are garunteed enjoyment, Unverified accounts are not garunteed full accessable service"

Here is what I suggest LL do, Close account registrations temperaly, Introduec harsher penalties when dealing with abuses (this will deture petty greifings), Update your servers to faster more powerfull servers latest technology and such, Stop introdicing new featers untill you fix all the current issues and bugs. Get SL running smoothly then worry about new features and web site esthetics.

Address all mac client issues. Make SL clients more compatible with older computers and older graphics cards/drivers, The graphics drivers update page is for windows only and there are currently no driver updates for most mac PPC on that page or any where that I can see, Buying a new computer is not an option for a lot of people.

MY account is an unverified typ, I have provided as much acurate info as I can for LL.
I earn my linden by doing jobs like privet and club security, DmC (Slingo) hosting, special and privet event security.
Unverified accounts , well most of them are contributing to the SL economy by buying things, doing odd jobs for Lindens. Think about this please, NOT all unverified accounts are greifers, alts and campers, many many, contribute to the SL economy.
IF sl accounts were just payed, we would have a lot less people online yes, but who would buy your stuff? who would take odd jobs? Please think about this.

Thank you
Rascal Ratelle

I agree with all of the prior statements but my question, in keeping with the original reason for this thread, is as follows as I explain why I have this question:

In the version '14' you stated a change in the release notes as: Light now affects itself

I can only conclude, due to the mess it has made with jewelry, furniture, and other builds that were made with Full Bright, that you have simply chosen a simply Schwarzenegger one-liner to say that light is now screwed up.

Some but not all prims, in multi-prim objects I have made, which incorporated some Full Bright in pieces that were either metal or gemstone, were suddenly switched to Light Feature after that versions release and, as you are already aware, the texture of some prims is totally washed out. And the light was taken completely out of some, but not all, fire prims - very odd indeed.

However, not all prims of the same design, in the same object were affected. Few still retained the full bright and the texture remained.

Rather than simply state a comment such as 'Light now affects itself', I would like to see this mess fixed!

QUESTION:
Is a repair to the light feature, whose change has obviously been a result of changing some other aspect in the system, in the plans?

I am sure I can speak for most, if not all, jewelry designers in SL. This light feature is awful. It leaves necklaces and other pieces casting the most unattractive shadows on the AV's, as I have been informed by customers. This then, results in lost revenue, lost time trying to take light out of all of the pieces previously made in order to make exchanges, and quite simply doesn't create warm-fuzzies for designer/customer relations for return trips to one's store.

Personally, I find no use at all for the light feature in its current state. I have taken it down to the lowest light levels and still these awful shadows persist.

I have one statement to make to Linden Labs:

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Everything I make you break. I am absolutely exasperated with things as they are. My sim could certainly use a Class 5 and I would love to be able to save up for it inworld but you are making this impossible.

Another note regarding some of the earlier comments:

Understand that courting only large corporations and ignoring the individual will kill this site. It has been proven time after time: 95% of business is driven by individuals and small business (mom & pops); only 5% by large corporations. If you don't believe me, ask eBay

Thank you for your time and I look forward to a response during the meeting

I posted this on the blog comments in the town hall meeting section but wanted to post it here because I feel this is a serious thing to look into...

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I would like to address something that just happened today, which is a coincidence because it's never happened before, and I believe is a direct result of this petition many of us have signed. I just received 2 emails from someone at LL about bug reports I filed way back in version 1.13, and asked me that if I was still experiencing the problem to submit NEW bug reports under the 1.15 client! WTF?

Why weren't these read before now? How many bug reports do you guys ignore???

There's ways of doing it and various ways they could do it... but that's a whole nother thread of it's own.


I imagine theres not many people here that don't read the blog, but just in case anyone missed it, Cory did answer some questions here: http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/02/cory-linden-town-hall/

So before posting your questions you may want to check that incase Cory has already answered them.

With no disrespect intended, I would urge cautious analysis of that blog post before taking much satisfaction from it. Saying you are talking about problems and solutions is not the same as identifying problems and providing solutions...

Worse-- try being a furry and ending up with your snout under you own tail...

All the ladies flip for that.

I hope this makes it to be addressed by the Lindens.

The obvious missing bullet from the Open Letter is the lack of support.

E-mails sent to [email]support@secondlife.com[/email] go unanswered for months (not even a "thanks for your e-mail there is nothing we can do" response).

Phone calls are often diverted to answerphone and then not answered.

Problems happen, everyone knows that. However, in many cases any bad feelings can be offset by good customer service remedying that. At the moment, the lack of often any response or aknowledge from Linden turns a bad experience into a terrible one.

There is live coverage of the town meeting now at http://slcn.tv. If you can't get into the grid, try watching there...

I think Linden Labs has to make more difference between free members and paying members.
When they do this, there are more ppl who wants to upgrade their account, so LL has more money to spend for server upgrades, more servers and other things to make a stable game.

a few examples for free accounts (do we really need those free spammers?):

limit inventory items.
limit max money to 500 L$ per account.
limit login hours per month.
not making their own group.

sorry for my bad English, I'm Dutch

Greets, Funny Burrito.

I received 18 such emails so far. I did not realize how many reports I filed....lol