Do You Want to Facepalm

When you read Vogt's blog post? You're not alone...

by Cummere Mayo

Vogt posted a new post tonight announcing the new forum/blog/knowledge Base/Resident Answers platform. And from just about every corner of Second Life I am in the reaction is pretty much a resigned sigh... It is quite obvious that Amanda's post about Linden Lab wanting to listen was pure bullshit.

Lets skip past the garbage about how LL has apparently cought up with 70% of the support tickets (most of which they closed with some variation of "We're sorry, if we had fixed this when you first filed a ticket we could have fixed it, but the data is long since deleted.) Lets get right to the heart of it when Vogt brags about this new system:

On March 2nd, we will launch a new, and much improved, self-help community platform--comprised of Forums, Blogs, Answers, and our Knowledge Base. This new fully integrated platform helps you to more efficiently leverage the power and knowledge of the community. Among many architectural and usability improvements, the system also includes:

okay so far sounds like the same garbage that is routinely spouted off...

* Robust Self-Help Functionality: It will be easier and faster to find the answer to your question or the information that you’re looking for. For example, in Answers, when you begin to type a keyword, an intuitive category search will return common matching solution results. And, solutions accepted by the question author are automatically nominated for Linden editorial review and possible inclusion in the Knowledge Base.

Hmm an intuitive autocomplete? This as intuitive as the UI design for V2? If so pull the plug now! Solutions to questions asked automatically become nominated for Linden Editorial review and possible inclusion in the Knowledge base? Not only does that sound kinda illegal, you know swiping other peoples work without asking, but hmm do we really need the answer about who has the best prim parts in the knowledge base?

* Unified Search: You can find the information that you’re looking for in one federated search field that returns organized results from relevant content in the Forums, Blogs, Answers, and the Knowledge Base.

Really? we already have an integrated search. It sucks. As one person in the AW groupies noted, try to search for Rob Humble's introduction blog entry and you get dozens of completely unrelated, useless forum posts.

* Single Sign On: Just as you can in the current system today, you will use your current Second Life username and password to log in to the new platform.

If we already have this, this worries me about why they feel the need to announce it here...

* Contribution-Based Roles: Based on your contributions to the platform, you will be able to earn new capabilities and roles in the community--from a brand new Resident to seasoned and experienced Helper.

Okay I can already see the abuse here. People like Daria Afterthought, that make up stupid questions and then answer herself on another alt will get promoted to the role of helper while people that actually know stuff, like say Jonathan Yap, or Moragaine Dinova will be regulated to brand new resident... Yeah that makes sense... NOT!

* Easier for Experienced Residents to Share Their Wisdom: If you’re an avid Second Life Resident who wants to participate in the community, then it will be much easier for you to update existing articles; comment on published articles; and nominate, review, and include subject matter for the Knowledge Base.

Wow, okay I repeat what I said about people like Daria, and people like Jonathan and Morgaine.


* Industry-Standard Social Media Features: As you can in many other community platforms, with the click of the mouse, it will be easy to Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc., interesting content that you want to share with your friends in the Social Web.

Industry standard? for what industry? Certainly not games, most of the games I know of and play never needed anything like those widgets and banned the use off their sites or sites they allow to use their names, copywrites, and trademarks. hmm, come to think of it, most real life stores I visit don't need those widgets either... Amazon, Borders, etc... yes they do have facebook pages and even twitter but still no like or share widgets on their websites...

Hmm didn't the community have an uproar about these widgets being put on their profiles without their permission? oh yes they did? hmm. Seems LL still hasn't learned their lesson. Maybe this will help. If there is a widget added to any forum post or blog comment, or knowledge base article I write, I'll happily see the Community group from LL and LL's lawyers in court. That explicit enough for you?

The Resident testers who were given a sneak peek into the system gave us great feedback and insightful reviews. Big thanks to everyone who participated!

Well, lets assume there really is a group. With LL's history, often times that's doubtful. But we will say there is. In that case, I can guarantee it was handpicked from people that think that "Social Web" is an actual technical term (its not, its a slang for the network of facebook, twitter, blogspot, myspace, and a couple others.) and who masturbate to the thought of having thier 15 minutes of fame in something like Penthouse's "Girls of Myspace" or People's "who's who of Facebook"

From the mutterings in all of the groups I am in in world, and the number of notices calling for protest already issued, it seems everyone can see this oncoming train wreck but LL...