by Cummere Mayo
I don't post here often. When I do, I know I make several people groan. But sometimes that can be a good thing.
For a while I have stated that SL and RL can be very dangerously brought together with very little information and that Linden Lab needs to take a stand, close some major exploits, and get their heads out of their asses about Facebook and web profiles.
It seems someone might be listening. I've noticed Facebook "like" buttons have become much more scarce and have even disappeared from some places. Thank you, whoever made that call.
The trouble is, LL is continuing to react to privacy matters, too slowly, and far too late. Remember how I said like a broken record in past posts that it doesn't take much to link SL to your RL no matter how careful you are?
Well various groups around SL have taken that to heart. One even has a wiki that has been leaked at least once a year that proves that not only can this be done, but it has been done, and in fact continues to be done. In fact despite apparently being told they could no longer use this wiki, this group is continuing to grow it.
What is worse is that there is proof that Linden Lab is a willing accomplice. At least two previous Lindens were given access to the wiki according to wiki entries this group added themselves. Plexus and Teagen. I have not asked Teagen if these accusations are true. I honestly don't wish to know.
What information about users is included in the wiki?
Well according to the wiki's creator, something like 1/10th of the users of SL are in the wiki. Each entry varies greatly. For some its really small and bland. A couple of sentences such as "so-and-so met this person at Ahern and they seem okay."
others are not so benign.
Entries on at least one real life couple include not only information about their main second life accounts, but information about their real life names, occupations, the companies they work for, schools they attended, geographic location, possible medical conditions, alternate accounts, even their children.
Another entry included information on another woman who found out her partner used fake information to bypass the age verification system. In it despite that she immediately cut off contact with that person, they accused her of illegal sex acts with minors, and then went on to list real life information on her, and her employer, even documenting trips she and her boss took. To my reading it stopped just short of accusing her of having an affair with her boss.
Other users had private emails, private conversations, blogs both private and public, facebook and/or linked in accounts, and even photos of themselves and their houses. Some of these entries are even on people this group thinks are or might possibly be minors.
Multiple people now have uncovered tracking systems that this group used to track avatars and someone even found a chat recorder hidden on their lands by way of well known exploits. These systems recorded the locations and/or conversations of the users and was compared to facebook searches, google searches, and ip addresses to attempt to id a person.
Even accounts that were not tracked had information gathered from innocuous bits of data compared with Google searches, Linked In, Facebook, blogspot, wordpress, and other sources.
Before you say this is all a game, you should know this group admitted to calling and emailing employers and universities in attempts to get people fired or expelled; bragged about tailing people around the SLCC conventions recording, doccumenting, and possibly photographing every move; admitted to filing homeland security complaints for "cyberterrorism;" and, my personal favorite, contacted the family of a user pretending to be friends of that user to both confirm that user was dead and to add more information about his family to their wiki.
A former linden has confirmed that Linden Lab has known about this group AND OTHERS LIKE IT for years and has done nothing for fear that stepping in might cost them financially or hurt their image. Worse LL has pretty much given these groups free reign knowing full well what they were doing under the advice of their legal department.
Rodvik: It is time to step up. Fire all the Lindens that colluded with these groups, fire all the lindens that colluded with these groups, find new legal council for Linden Lab, reverse the bans that came about because of these groups AR parties, and make a policy where deliberate attacks on other users privacy get swift bans and possibly legal action.
A huge 10,000 post discussion thread which has many relevant links, screenshots, and so forth can be found at http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/63339-jlu-harvesting-ip-addresses.html but many other sources have carried this including the herald and other blogs. There is now an online petition to have this group shut down and several comments and replies to comments posted on Rodvik Linden's profile page.
The FTC seems to have been brought in as well with complaint reference numbers being 32191970 and 32301189.
Showing posts with label Linden Lab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linden Lab. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
My Redzone story and why I am glad to see Storm-1037
By Cummere Mayo
(xposted)
For over a month now Redzone has been coming under attack. I myself entered the mix when a woman hating griefer named Willilicious Georgette told me to fuck myself and worse. The full conversation was posted without my consent into the “neighborhood watch” that Redzone watches. At the time that was posted it wasn’t a violation to post it elsewhere, however it became such since then so I cannot post it here…
That conversation happened because I dared to point out that Soft Linden told the Redzone members to stop “monkeying around” with jira number vwr-24746. I decided at that time to educate myself about Redzone, CDS, Quickware, etc. The product advertisements and my subsequent treatment by Skills, Zfire, and their ilk let me when I told them in no uncertain terms I wanted opted out galvanized me. The stories and accounts of countless victims including many I knew personally drew out a vicious streak that know me well know I reserve for those that dare fuck with my friends.
Since then I have been maliciously accused of harassment for posting on the jira and closing out jiras that were either thinly veiled attempts to circumvent the TOS, or ideas that simply are ludicrous and ignorant, like the idea of making everyone use a credit card and linking alts via credit card. I have had my sim, my store, even my linden home (yes I actually have one and LIKE it), griefed. I have had numerous false abuse reports filed against me and those who stood up for me. I have had someone attempt to spoof my name in a horrible attempt to frame me for greifing a Redzone sim. I have been accused of trolling the Redzone forums where I do not and will never have an account. Ive had threats in world and sent to my email with promises that I will be banned from Second Life or bodily harm.
Through it all I have put up with it only losing my temper a few times. You know why?
Here it is: I am one of a number of people taking this fight to everyone. I’ve sent emails to Rodvik, Alexa, Soft, Sue, Amanda, Blondin, and several other lindens on this. Not all of them answered but the ones that did so sometimes in rather spectacular ways…
I’ve been ported to linden only areas to discuss what Redzone does, how Zfire planned to get around the adjusted community standards, some of the pitfalls of how LL could handle things. I was one of a few residents that knew that the media urls are going to no longer be masked specifically because of Redzone, CDS, etc. (If you don’t believe me check out https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1037 where oz put the process into the Snowstorm backlog and assigned it to this sprint which means it should be implemented soon.) I was asked then to supply screens of everything I could and send them to Amanda, Soft, and Blondin, and to direct others to do the same.
I was one of the few that was aware that LL is actively wanting to take on the Media Filter that Cool Viewer and the Phoenix viewers have. Snowstorm told me if I could find a dev to implement a viewer cookie filtration system they would be interested. I approached Tonya from Phoenix and literally begged her on the SLU forum to look into it and I am hoping she will have the time to do it soon. Allot of this I couldn’t talk about till today because I was specifically told not to, but Amanda gave me the okay today.
Constantly I was told by Redzone users that I was trash, a copybotter, a stalker, a griefer, a whore, even a terrorist. Yes that’s right I’m a terrorist because I fought to destroy Redzone! Constantly I’ve been told I would be banned from Second Life.
Through it all, I’ve watched principled Redzone user after principled Redzone user start to realize what Redzone really was and what the core of the Redzone user group was like walk away and scrap Redzone. I’ve even suggested combinations of land settings, scripts, and orbs that did a far better job at copybot detection and protection (as much as can be done) to some of them.
I watched someone that I was convinced was attacking my roleplay half-sim walk away from Redzone. For the record, much as I don’t want to say it I no longer think Srilania really was the griefer. So Sri if you read this I apologize for that (and you should thank your partner and Jessica who both convinced me to keep an open mind. If they hadn’t I wouldn’t have seen past my dislike for you and, I admit, my sincere desire that it was you.)
I watched Zfire’s promises and predictions turn to ash, as LL pulled his product down off the marketplace twice, and blacklisted it in world, rewrote the CS, and pretty much publicly repudiated Zfire’s claims. I watched the Redzoners attack the TVPS that installed the Media Filter and watched Zfire add a ban by viewer feature. I watched LL respond with Storm-1037 as well as adopt the Media Filter as well.
I suspect I will be the target of allot more abuse from Redzoners. Some of them seem to think I am one of the causes of them falling down. Some FIC conspiracy taken right from a page in Prok’s book… I welcome it and all the AR’s they intend to throw at me. If LL actually listens to their garbage and bans me, so be it. After all, I intend to fully take Zfire down if he follows through on making his database public. However, it won’t be in world, it will be in the criminal justice system. I’ve already been asked to serve, and have agreed to do so, as a prosecution witness in a criminal case if he does make the database public.
Further changes are coming and it will interesting to see how Redzone, CDS, and Quickware users respond. Already they are whining about how implementing https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1037 will destroy their privacy. Rather ironic don’t you think?
The only ones Storm-1037 might hurt are DJs but allot of DJs really don’t mind if people listen to their streams from afar. However, the two actual Djs responding to the forum, and the partner of a third DJ are all for it. In fact I have two DJ streams that are entered into my radios that I have been told I can listen to whenever I want (assuming they are broadcasting) from my home or sim. They feel it to be free advertising and a way to share with friends. And if privacy is really an issue you can always feed the stream through a proxy and then something like dyndns. There will be a half second delay or so but eh…
What the Redzone users fear—and rightly so—is that this is simply the next step in driving tracking systems and alt detection systems off the grid. And it is…
(xposted)
For over a month now Redzone has been coming under attack. I myself entered the mix when a woman hating griefer named Willilicious Georgette told me to fuck myself and worse. The full conversation was posted without my consent into the “neighborhood watch” that Redzone watches. At the time that was posted it wasn’t a violation to post it elsewhere, however it became such since then so I cannot post it here…
That conversation happened because I dared to point out that Soft Linden told the Redzone members to stop “monkeying around” with jira number vwr-24746. I decided at that time to educate myself about Redzone, CDS, Quickware, etc. The product advertisements and my subsequent treatment by Skills, Zfire, and their ilk let me when I told them in no uncertain terms I wanted opted out galvanized me. The stories and accounts of countless victims including many I knew personally drew out a vicious streak that know me well know I reserve for those that dare fuck with my friends.
Since then I have been maliciously accused of harassment for posting on the jira and closing out jiras that were either thinly veiled attempts to circumvent the TOS, or ideas that simply are ludicrous and ignorant, like the idea of making everyone use a credit card and linking alts via credit card. I have had my sim, my store, even my linden home (yes I actually have one and LIKE it), griefed. I have had numerous false abuse reports filed against me and those who stood up for me. I have had someone attempt to spoof my name in a horrible attempt to frame me for greifing a Redzone sim. I have been accused of trolling the Redzone forums where I do not and will never have an account. Ive had threats in world and sent to my email with promises that I will be banned from Second Life or bodily harm.
Through it all I have put up with it only losing my temper a few times. You know why?
Here it is: I am one of a number of people taking this fight to everyone. I’ve sent emails to Rodvik, Alexa, Soft, Sue, Amanda, Blondin, and several other lindens on this. Not all of them answered but the ones that did so sometimes in rather spectacular ways…
I’ve been ported to linden only areas to discuss what Redzone does, how Zfire planned to get around the adjusted community standards, some of the pitfalls of how LL could handle things. I was one of a few residents that knew that the media urls are going to no longer be masked specifically because of Redzone, CDS, etc. (If you don’t believe me check out https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1037 where oz put the process into the Snowstorm backlog and assigned it to this sprint which means it should be implemented soon.) I was asked then to supply screens of everything I could and send them to Amanda, Soft, and Blondin, and to direct others to do the same.
I was one of the few that was aware that LL is actively wanting to take on the Media Filter that Cool Viewer and the Phoenix viewers have. Snowstorm told me if I could find a dev to implement a viewer cookie filtration system they would be interested. I approached Tonya from Phoenix and literally begged her on the SLU forum to look into it and I am hoping she will have the time to do it soon. Allot of this I couldn’t talk about till today because I was specifically told not to, but Amanda gave me the okay today.
Constantly I was told by Redzone users that I was trash, a copybotter, a stalker, a griefer, a whore, even a terrorist. Yes that’s right I’m a terrorist because I fought to destroy Redzone! Constantly I’ve been told I would be banned from Second Life.
Through it all, I’ve watched principled Redzone user after principled Redzone user start to realize what Redzone really was and what the core of the Redzone user group was like walk away and scrap Redzone. I’ve even suggested combinations of land settings, scripts, and orbs that did a far better job at copybot detection and protection (as much as can be done) to some of them.
I watched someone that I was convinced was attacking my roleplay half-sim walk away from Redzone. For the record, much as I don’t want to say it I no longer think Srilania really was the griefer. So Sri if you read this I apologize for that (and you should thank your partner and Jessica who both convinced me to keep an open mind. If they hadn’t I wouldn’t have seen past my dislike for you and, I admit, my sincere desire that it was you.)
I watched Zfire’s promises and predictions turn to ash, as LL pulled his product down off the marketplace twice, and blacklisted it in world, rewrote the CS, and pretty much publicly repudiated Zfire’s claims. I watched the Redzoners attack the TVPS that installed the Media Filter and watched Zfire add a ban by viewer feature. I watched LL respond with Storm-1037 as well as adopt the Media Filter as well.
I suspect I will be the target of allot more abuse from Redzoners. Some of them seem to think I am one of the causes of them falling down. Some FIC conspiracy taken right from a page in Prok’s book… I welcome it and all the AR’s they intend to throw at me. If LL actually listens to their garbage and bans me, so be it. After all, I intend to fully take Zfire down if he follows through on making his database public. However, it won’t be in world, it will be in the criminal justice system. I’ve already been asked to serve, and have agreed to do so, as a prosecution witness in a criminal case if he does make the database public.
Further changes are coming and it will interesting to see how Redzone, CDS, and Quickware users respond. Already they are whining about how implementing https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1037 will destroy their privacy. Rather ironic don’t you think?
The only ones Storm-1037 might hurt are DJs but allot of DJs really don’t mind if people listen to their streams from afar. However, the two actual Djs responding to the forum, and the partner of a third DJ are all for it. In fact I have two DJ streams that are entered into my radios that I have been told I can listen to whenever I want (assuming they are broadcasting) from my home or sim. They feel it to be free advertising and a way to share with friends. And if privacy is really an issue you can always feed the stream through a proxy and then something like dyndns. There will be a half second delay or so but eh…
What the Redzone users fear—and rightly so—is that this is simply the next step in driving tracking systems and alt detection systems off the grid. And it is…
Saturday, February 26, 2011
How to Get Your Product Banned or How to Become the Most Hated Idiot in SL
by Cummere Mayo
Its been a while since I've posted. Partly cause I've been very busy, partly because I cannot talk about some of what I have had to talk about. (Two reasons for the later, some of it Ive been asked/told not to, and the other because some of it makes me far too angry.) But I'm back and I have something to say.
As a content creator, (albeit a not so great one), it takes ALLOT of effort to make a great product and ship it to market. It takes patience and work to get noticed. You depend allot on word of mouth advertising. Every single trustworthy content creator, and even most untrustworthy ones will tell you this. Heck even LL will tell you this. So the last thing most of you want to do is get your product banned. Most of you want to make a long term profit and want your products to be fondly remembered and have people sad when you discontinue them, or leave Second Life, or whatever. For all of you, that want to have products that leave a lasting fondness and are well beloved don't read this. It doesn't apply to you.
For those of you that want to make a quick buck and have your name go down in the history of SL by any means necessary read on!
1) Form an LLC and claim it makes you invincible in a court of law! Seriously, you want everyone to know it would be pointless to sue you that way you don't have to waste time on lawyers in the first place right?
2) Spout off as if you know the laws of your area and that your product absolutely positively follows them, even when anyone with google can immediately spot at least four laws you're breaking. I mean if you can keep people thinking that either you're ignorant or an idiot they will be less likely to actually follow through with filing charges or suing you, and those with an even lower iq then you will become your loyal followers.
3) State that the TOS and CS doesn't apply to your product. In fact on your product advertise that it breaks at at least three or four provisions of the CS and TOS. Hey at least when people finally catch on you can claim you were upfront about it!
4) Pick a threat and blow it out of proportion. Better yet pick three, but market design and market your product to all three of them. Copybots, greifers, and stalkers do great for this. You can scare customers into buying your product by stating that it protects against all so they rush to buy it. Just leave out that really that Copybots, griefers, and stalkers are the only ones with a legitimate use for it!
5) Vilify those that won't buy it or use it. Everyone that doesn't buy your product means more money you don't have! So make sure to tell the world that the only people that don't want your product, fear your product, or worse know exactly what it does (probably better then you do) must have a reason. They won't by my product, they must be griefers stalkers and copybotters! that way people will feel they have to buy it and use it to avoid being labeled like that.
6) Make a database with illegally obtained information, claim its legal, and then make the opt out process require an account that by the terms and services of your service allows you to do exactly what they want opted out of. "Don't want me to reveal information about you? Fine. Join my website and opt out there. Why join? Because anyone could say you want opted out and not really be you! Oh and by the way by registering on my site, you agree that I can collect information about you anyways, and use it however I want." Aren't catch22's just great?
7) Make enemies and cause drama. People on the sidelines are great for this. Find someone, that's part of the group that you advertise should be using your site and isn't who just happens to provide a little help to someone that is passionately against your product. Send minions to her home, her store, her club, her roleplay sim, her friends' homes, stores and sims and have them use your products to grief people. Then when she joins the battle have your minions be utter assholes and when she asks them to stop order your people to claim shes harassing them, cuss her out, then post the conversation to ridicule. Repeat with more people on the sidelines.
8) Have more minions then claim the opposition is harassing you. Pick minions with nearly empty sims, and have them be whitelisted access only sims so no one can prove you wrong (unless they happen to look at the map or traffic counts or whatver.) Have them claim to be non-stop harassed by alts of enemies. Have them create alts with names similar to your enemies to use as "proof" and then list the "ims" sent from these people. Oh and do it in patterns and grammar styles that don't match the supposed harassers AT ALL. If you can pick people attached to a random majorly well known product to do this so much the better. Especially, if its someone too dumb to manage to keep from making the same tell tell spelling errors as the "griefer" that she routinely makes when she's on the job for that product!
9) Claim to be making policy for Linden Lab. Because you know, people won't know there are entire teams that decide different policies individually or in groups, or that Linden Lab has you know actual lawyers (even if they aren't that great, they are still likely not as stupid as you want them to be) who research this stuff who would be far more likely to be asked then some two bit lawbreaking, moron who lives in his mothers basement apartment.
10) Claim you will comply with terms of service changes that you claimed to help write and then don't. You know things like providing the ability to opt in or out to ONLY one account of eighty to one hundred linked avatars and claiming that applies for them all... or providing a 60 second timer that if expires states they gave consent, never mind they might be afk, still rezzing in, or possibly crashed... or providing initials because it says you can't provide names, but doesn't say initials so like that has to be okay right?
EXTRA) if you really want to go over the top manage to not only discriminate against a group of people ... oh say the deaf... by attempting to force them to have media on, but also make fun of them so much (and spread such blatant lies about them) that it goes into the realm of being criminally malicious, violates the Americans with disabilities act, and makes you look like a fucking ignorant neo-nazi that would probably murder a deaf person if you thought you could get away with it.
Follow these rules and you can't go wrong. Who knows you might even meet me if my rl job happens to let me have the pleasure of crossing paths with you.
Its been a while since I've posted. Partly cause I've been very busy, partly because I cannot talk about some of what I have had to talk about. (Two reasons for the later, some of it Ive been asked/told not to, and the other because some of it makes me far too angry.) But I'm back and I have something to say.
As a content creator, (albeit a not so great one), it takes ALLOT of effort to make a great product and ship it to market. It takes patience and work to get noticed. You depend allot on word of mouth advertising. Every single trustworthy content creator, and even most untrustworthy ones will tell you this. Heck even LL will tell you this. So the last thing most of you want to do is get your product banned. Most of you want to make a long term profit and want your products to be fondly remembered and have people sad when you discontinue them, or leave Second Life, or whatever. For all of you, that want to have products that leave a lasting fondness and are well beloved don't read this. It doesn't apply to you.
For those of you that want to make a quick buck and have your name go down in the history of SL by any means necessary read on!
1) Form an LLC and claim it makes you invincible in a court of law! Seriously, you want everyone to know it would be pointless to sue you that way you don't have to waste time on lawyers in the first place right?
2) Spout off as if you know the laws of your area and that your product absolutely positively follows them, even when anyone with google can immediately spot at least four laws you're breaking. I mean if you can keep people thinking that either you're ignorant or an idiot they will be less likely to actually follow through with filing charges or suing you, and those with an even lower iq then you will become your loyal followers.
3) State that the TOS and CS doesn't apply to your product. In fact on your product advertise that it breaks at at least three or four provisions of the CS and TOS. Hey at least when people finally catch on you can claim you were upfront about it!
4) Pick a threat and blow it out of proportion. Better yet pick three, but market design and market your product to all three of them. Copybots, greifers, and stalkers do great for this. You can scare customers into buying your product by stating that it protects against all so they rush to buy it. Just leave out that really that Copybots, griefers, and stalkers are the only ones with a legitimate use for it!
5) Vilify those that won't buy it or use it. Everyone that doesn't buy your product means more money you don't have! So make sure to tell the world that the only people that don't want your product, fear your product, or worse know exactly what it does (probably better then you do) must have a reason. They won't by my product, they must be griefers stalkers and copybotters! that way people will feel they have to buy it and use it to avoid being labeled like that.
6) Make a database with illegally obtained information, claim its legal, and then make the opt out process require an account that by the terms and services of your service allows you to do exactly what they want opted out of. "Don't want me to reveal information about you? Fine. Join my website and opt out there. Why join? Because anyone could say you want opted out and not really be you! Oh and by the way by registering on my site, you agree that I can collect information about you anyways, and use it however I want." Aren't catch22's just great?
7) Make enemies and cause drama. People on the sidelines are great for this. Find someone, that's part of the group that you advertise should be using your site and isn't who just happens to provide a little help to someone that is passionately against your product. Send minions to her home, her store, her club, her roleplay sim, her friends' homes, stores and sims and have them use your products to grief people. Then when she joins the battle have your minions be utter assholes and when she asks them to stop order your people to claim shes harassing them, cuss her out, then post the conversation to ridicule. Repeat with more people on the sidelines.
8) Have more minions then claim the opposition is harassing you. Pick minions with nearly empty sims, and have them be whitelisted access only sims so no one can prove you wrong (unless they happen to look at the map or traffic counts or whatver.) Have them claim to be non-stop harassed by alts of enemies. Have them create alts with names similar to your enemies to use as "proof" and then list the "ims" sent from these people. Oh and do it in patterns and grammar styles that don't match the supposed harassers AT ALL. If you can pick people attached to a random majorly well known product to do this so much the better. Especially, if its someone too dumb to manage to keep from making the same tell tell spelling errors as the "griefer" that she routinely makes when she's on the job for that product!
9) Claim to be making policy for Linden Lab. Because you know, people won't know there are entire teams that decide different policies individually or in groups, or that Linden Lab has you know actual lawyers (even if they aren't that great, they are still likely not as stupid as you want them to be) who research this stuff who would be far more likely to be asked then some two bit lawbreaking, moron who lives in his mothers basement apartment.
10) Claim you will comply with terms of service changes that you claimed to help write and then don't. You know things like providing the ability to opt in or out to ONLY one account of eighty to one hundred linked avatars and claiming that applies for them all... or providing a 60 second timer that if expires states they gave consent, never mind they might be afk, still rezzing in, or possibly crashed... or providing initials because it says you can't provide names, but doesn't say initials so like that has to be okay right?
EXTRA) if you really want to go over the top manage to not only discriminate against a group of people ... oh say the deaf... by attempting to force them to have media on, but also make fun of them so much (and spread such blatant lies about them) that it goes into the realm of being criminally malicious, violates the Americans with disabilities act, and makes you look like a fucking ignorant neo-nazi that would probably murder a deaf person if you thought you could get away with it.
Follow these rules and you can't go wrong. Who knows you might even meet me if my rl job happens to let me have the pleasure of crossing paths with you.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
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...
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...
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Why A Purely Web Feature Based Viewer 2 Will Always Fail
Reposted from LindenWatch
by Cummere Mayo, Mythoes Llewellyn, Bitterly Sweet
It would be awesome if this post could start out with "It came upon a dark and dismal night" however the truth is none of us really remember what kind of day/night it was when the first web based features crept into v1. There they were implemented with care, but still had a high fail rate. This would be a powerful potent of things to come...
When Viewer 2 was introduced to the community it certainly felt like a dark day had come upon us. The viewer 2 was built with the look and feel of a third rate web-site. (Some people argue a web browser, but browsers have far more customization, and tend to follow basic industry standards like having file and edit menus.) Integrated (unknown to most) were the first generation web profiles. These were clearly usable and editable from within the viewer with little or no wait, and no real loss of function if the website hosting the profiles went down other then display of the information that the user put in, and the user pictures.
Most people never knew that these profiles were web based because Linden Lab never advertised that fact and because they were extremely well integrated into the system with the ability to edit the information without the use of a browser (whether built in or external.) Furthermore, this system didn't seem to rely on cookie caching, nor were critical functions like pay, teleport, online status, etc. mapped through the web page but instead were directly embedded in the viewer and worked regardless of the profile.
Other web technologies that were put in either from the start or very early on were a "enhanced" web mapping and teleport system (it should be noted the 1.x viewers also had a web based system for mapping and teleport), a web based search system, web based classified system, and a few other "behind the hood" odds and ends.
Of these, the only one that reliably worked was the mapping/teleport system.
Search routinely fails to load for many users, and then--because of the Search team's opinion they obviously pulled out of their asses that most people that use search don't need it to visit more then one place--would close AND reset annoying the vast majority of users. It should be noted that the jira on that was closed out despite unanimous request for that behavior to change, based on the on an opinion that the Search team was never able to back up, and in fact that public stats another department published decently contradicted. This along with bugs in the coding of the search itself has left this a permanently broken feature and a massive failure on LL's part.
The web based classified also simply don't work, as anyone that has ever bought one can tell you. This is true for both the ones in search and the ones in marketplace. In both cases even if they do actually show up (most times they don't) its usually not in any context relevant enough to actually do the person buying the classified any good. And good luck getting a refund...
Now, the web profiles have been changed again, and group and object profiles are due to follow. In the new profiles, not only are there privacy concerns that have been addressed on this and other blogs that still aren't resolved, but the system is bulky and slow when it does load, and fails to load at all for many users.
If it does load, the layout is filled with useless white space that social team insists is critical, has share and like buttons that you cannot get rid of whether they are on your profile or someone else's, and may have ads displayed that are to a direct competitor of the profile you are looking at (which seems to violate a lot of unfair business practice laws). Another Fail.
If they don't load and you don't have that person on your list, in a group you're in, or otherwise near you, attempting to pay them, teleport them, add them as a friend, or send them an IM is all but impossible and can only be done if they are in search (Assuming search loads). These options are no longer in the UI otherwise, not even as a backup. Again another fail.
If you dare turn off cookies to protect your privacy, then you are shit out of luck. There is no option in the V2 browser to only allow cookies from LL owned sites or even from trusted sites and turning off cookies causes profiles, and often search to fail badly.
By this time frustration for new users is through the roof and many simply quit by this point. For older residents this becomes yet another massive source of seething anger, frustration, and resentment directed at Linden Lab as a whole and at various Lindens specifically, even when often those lindens had no say. And both Search and Social the teams in charge of search and web profiles collectively continue to mostly ignore the users with the attitude they know our needs better then we do! Epic Fail!
Even the Linden housing has had issues with its web based controls not properly triggering the in world houses, further furstrating users both new and old!
And LL has plans to make this situation worse!
Group profiles which have also been web based are about to be revamped with all of their tools also going into a web site. Most of these tools don't even have redundancy within the viewer; things like Notices, group invites, roles, permissions, ejection tools and just about everything else that you currently do in the floater do not have redundancy anywhere.
Can you imagine the mess that will make when you cannot create, join, manage, or possibly even leave a group if you cannot get to the group page? What new user is going to stick around in this case? And what are the existing users supposed to do? Especially the business owners for which groups are a huge part of their ability to connect with their customers?
Furthermore, the more of these features pushed through websites, even if LL owned, the less secure the system is. Each is one more connection that can be spoofed, hacked, monitored, or hijacked. In case you have missed the message, across SL users are lashing back at things they feel invade their privacy, whether things like web profiles that LL is directly responsible for, things like Redzone that are run by other users.
Because someone will invariably ask what about features like social network integration, web inventory management (a much requested feature), the desire for web profiles by many people etc. The thing is that none of those features needs or should be implemented in a way that precludes easy access from the ui with the sole exception of the web management which is simply meant to be an additional tool to manage inventory and NOT a replacement for any of the inworld tools.
LL cannot afford to keep investing in moving the viewer to purely web feature based. It is too unreliable, too insecure, and relies on too many factors to work to ever be tenable.
by Cummere Mayo, Mythoes Llewellyn, Bitterly Sweet
It would be awesome if this post could start out with "It came upon a dark and dismal night" however the truth is none of us really remember what kind of day/night it was when the first web based features crept into v1. There they were implemented with care, but still had a high fail rate. This would be a powerful potent of things to come...
When Viewer 2 was introduced to the community it certainly felt like a dark day had come upon us. The viewer 2 was built with the look and feel of a third rate web-site. (Some people argue a web browser, but browsers have far more customization, and tend to follow basic industry standards like having file and edit menus.) Integrated (unknown to most) were the first generation web profiles. These were clearly usable and editable from within the viewer with little or no wait, and no real loss of function if the website hosting the profiles went down other then display of the information that the user put in, and the user pictures.
Most people never knew that these profiles were web based because Linden Lab never advertised that fact and because they were extremely well integrated into the system with the ability to edit the information without the use of a browser (whether built in or external.) Furthermore, this system didn't seem to rely on cookie caching, nor were critical functions like pay, teleport, online status, etc. mapped through the web page but instead were directly embedded in the viewer and worked regardless of the profile.
Other web technologies that were put in either from the start or very early on were a "enhanced" web mapping and teleport system (it should be noted the 1.x viewers also had a web based system for mapping and teleport), a web based search system, web based classified system, and a few other "behind the hood" odds and ends.
Of these, the only one that reliably worked was the mapping/teleport system.
Search routinely fails to load for many users, and then--because of the Search team's opinion they obviously pulled out of their asses that most people that use search don't need it to visit more then one place--would close AND reset annoying the vast majority of users. It should be noted that the jira on that was closed out despite unanimous request for that behavior to change, based on the on an opinion that the Search team was never able to back up, and in fact that public stats another department published decently contradicted. This along with bugs in the coding of the search itself has left this a permanently broken feature and a massive failure on LL's part.
The web based classified also simply don't work, as anyone that has ever bought one can tell you. This is true for both the ones in search and the ones in marketplace. In both cases even if they do actually show up (most times they don't) its usually not in any context relevant enough to actually do the person buying the classified any good. And good luck getting a refund...
Now, the web profiles have been changed again, and group and object profiles are due to follow. In the new profiles, not only are there privacy concerns that have been addressed on this and other blogs that still aren't resolved, but the system is bulky and slow when it does load, and fails to load at all for many users.
If it does load, the layout is filled with useless white space that social team insists is critical, has share and like buttons that you cannot get rid of whether they are on your profile or someone else's, and may have ads displayed that are to a direct competitor of the profile you are looking at (which seems to violate a lot of unfair business practice laws). Another Fail.
If they don't load and you don't have that person on your list, in a group you're in, or otherwise near you, attempting to pay them, teleport them, add them as a friend, or send them an IM is all but impossible and can only be done if they are in search (Assuming search loads). These options are no longer in the UI otherwise, not even as a backup. Again another fail.
If you dare turn off cookies to protect your privacy, then you are shit out of luck. There is no option in the V2 browser to only allow cookies from LL owned sites or even from trusted sites and turning off cookies causes profiles, and often search to fail badly.
By this time frustration for new users is through the roof and many simply quit by this point. For older residents this becomes yet another massive source of seething anger, frustration, and resentment directed at Linden Lab as a whole and at various Lindens specifically, even when often those lindens had no say. And both Search and Social the teams in charge of search and web profiles collectively continue to mostly ignore the users with the attitude they know our needs better then we do! Epic Fail!
Even the Linden housing has had issues with its web based controls not properly triggering the in world houses, further furstrating users both new and old!
And LL has plans to make this situation worse!
Group profiles which have also been web based are about to be revamped with all of their tools also going into a web site. Most of these tools don't even have redundancy within the viewer; things like Notices, group invites, roles, permissions, ejection tools and just about everything else that you currently do in the floater do not have redundancy anywhere.
Can you imagine the mess that will make when you cannot create, join, manage, or possibly even leave a group if you cannot get to the group page? What new user is going to stick around in this case? And what are the existing users supposed to do? Especially the business owners for which groups are a huge part of their ability to connect with their customers?
Furthermore, the more of these features pushed through websites, even if LL owned, the less secure the system is. Each is one more connection that can be spoofed, hacked, monitored, or hijacked. In case you have missed the message, across SL users are lashing back at things they feel invade their privacy, whether things like web profiles that LL is directly responsible for, things like Redzone that are run by other users.
Because someone will invariably ask what about features like social network integration, web inventory management (a much requested feature), the desire for web profiles by many people etc. The thing is that none of those features needs or should be implemented in a way that precludes easy access from the ui with the sole exception of the web management which is simply meant to be an additional tool to manage inventory and NOT a replacement for any of the inworld tools.
LL cannot afford to keep investing in moving the viewer to purely web feature based. It is too unreliable, too insecure, and relies on too many factors to work to ever be tenable.
Monday, January 31, 2011
The Jekyll and Hyde of Linden Lab
by Cummere Mayo
In the time spent as a volunteer at Linden Lab one thing that has been constant is Linden Lab's lack of consistency. The teen grid, attempts to turn SL into a social networking site, taking marketplace live before it was ready, mixing the SL with RL, all things sworn by LL not to do, then done. Then there are the things like Adult content scandal, the homestead sims, the new search, display names, web profiles where vastly unpopular things were rammed down the community, often with severe consequences for the community, and in turn Linden Lab. These things helped contribute in a drop from concurrency of over 120,000 to well under 60,000 on the average day.
Yet throughout all of this Linden Lab keeps saying that they listen to the community, accept feedback, and want more community involvement in policy making. This is both Linden Lab's biggest truth, and their biggest lie.
Much if not most of the community seems to feel these statements are a lie. For those that don't, sometimes reconciling all this is hard. Sometimes, very hard.
Here's the deal: Linden Lab is bipolar; it always has been, at least in the three and a half years I've been active in Second Life. To drastically over simplify things there's two camps at Linden Lab. The part that desires community involvement and the part that just feels they know what the community needs more then the community does and this split has had drastic consequences for both Second Life and for Linden Lab themselves.
From the time I joined Second Life there were those like CG, Nyx, Andrew, Bambers, and many, many others, that opened their offices and sent a great deal of time explaining changes coming to Second Life, projects they hoped to see happen, and things they were working on. At the same time they collected feedback from the residents they could which sometimes changed things, and sometimes didn't but at least these lindens were visible, listened and explained their reasoning.
At the same time we had the Jacks and Fredriks of Linden Lab. Those who pushed through things because it was what they saw as good for Linden Lab and/or Second Life and to hell with the thoughts and needs of those that actually use Second Life, even those that make their livings though Second Life.
Many of these decisions forced to a feeling that is best described by one of my merchant friends: "We succeed despite Linden Lab, not because of them." Many of fled Second Life and many new users aren't sticking around. Other grids have been watching the past two years and pounced on their chance to take away business from Second Life. As a result two of these grids have concurrencies that are almost as high as Second Life and will probably surpass them by the end of this year.
Currently, there's hope that some of that can be reversed. Snowstorm and the Mesh team are not only incredibly open to feedback but actually have used much of that feedback in the decision making. Today Gez stated at one of the open source user group meetings that he wants tvp devs, heavy chat users, and chat mods to join a user group he intends to start in order to get feedback and help coordinate the transition to a better group chat system within Second Life.
Snowstorm and Mesh have shown their way is better. They are far more productive, and while users don't agree with every decision made, the discussion is open, and users at least understand the reasoning leaving for a much happier user base and a better, more respectful kind of interaction, even with some of the most passionate of disagreements.
This is the kind of thing that will save Linden Lab and Second Life. I truly hope Mr. Humble will recognize that fact and push those at Linden Lab that still opt for closed doors and "we know whats better for you then you do" kind of approach to work with the community or find work elsewhere.
It will take allot of work for Linden Lab to turn Second Life (and both its and Linden Lab's reputations) around. One of the first steps would be to temporarily shut down the new profiles and force the Social and Marketplace teams to adopt approaches much more like Snowstorm. The next is to get these new user group meetings going within the next two weeks and then to have those groups spend the next two weeks actively listening to the Second Life community. Maybe more.
Allot of those in favor of keeping the users in the dark seem to rationalize it with "We can't please everyone," "The users don't know what they really want. They can't even agree with each other," or my personal favorite, "We need to do this for new features we have planned."
My experience in Snowstorm shows that while you can't please everyone you can please most users, that the community can often come up with great compromises on its own, and where it can't, having options wherever possible does, and that by being open about your ultimate goal, you often can get there faster and with less friction by listening to the community and working with them instead of against them. While it can delay things initially to get user feedback and have community involvement, often that time is a better investment, because often later on things go faster because there's less to rewrite or change, and because there's far less damage control to do afterwords. Furthermore, dev time is far cheaper then PR time, and it takes allot more PR time to get back in good graces then to just take the time to communicate in the first place.
I have a huge investment in Second Life, although at times it really has hurt my real life, especially thanks to the privacy disaster with the new profiles. I don't want to see Second Life fail, and I am working very hard to do what little I can to make Second Life a much better place.
So now I am calling upon Mr. Humble and all the Lindens that truly understand that Second Life cannot exist without the vast diverse community to step up to the plate. Its time for those who have been working with the community to not only suggest but to demand their coworkers do the same. It is time, ladies and gentlemen, for Linden Lab to bury its Mr. Hyde.
~CM~
ps: Crossposted to another blog.
In the time spent as a volunteer at Linden Lab one thing that has been constant is Linden Lab's lack of consistency. The teen grid, attempts to turn SL into a social networking site, taking marketplace live before it was ready, mixing the SL with RL, all things sworn by LL not to do, then done. Then there are the things like Adult content scandal, the homestead sims, the new search, display names, web profiles where vastly unpopular things were rammed down the community, often with severe consequences for the community, and in turn Linden Lab. These things helped contribute in a drop from concurrency of over 120,000 to well under 60,000 on the average day.
Yet throughout all of this Linden Lab keeps saying that they listen to the community, accept feedback, and want more community involvement in policy making. This is both Linden Lab's biggest truth, and their biggest lie.
Much if not most of the community seems to feel these statements are a lie. For those that don't, sometimes reconciling all this is hard. Sometimes, very hard.
Here's the deal: Linden Lab is bipolar; it always has been, at least in the three and a half years I've been active in Second Life. To drastically over simplify things there's two camps at Linden Lab. The part that desires community involvement and the part that just feels they know what the community needs more then the community does and this split has had drastic consequences for both Second Life and for Linden Lab themselves.
From the time I joined Second Life there were those like CG, Nyx, Andrew, Bambers, and many, many others, that opened their offices and sent a great deal of time explaining changes coming to Second Life, projects they hoped to see happen, and things they were working on. At the same time they collected feedback from the residents they could which sometimes changed things, and sometimes didn't but at least these lindens were visible, listened and explained their reasoning.
At the same time we had the Jacks and Fredriks of Linden Lab. Those who pushed through things because it was what they saw as good for Linden Lab and/or Second Life and to hell with the thoughts and needs of those that actually use Second Life, even those that make their livings though Second Life.
Many of these decisions forced to a feeling that is best described by one of my merchant friends: "We succeed despite Linden Lab, not because of them." Many of fled Second Life and many new users aren't sticking around. Other grids have been watching the past two years and pounced on their chance to take away business from Second Life. As a result two of these grids have concurrencies that are almost as high as Second Life and will probably surpass them by the end of this year.
Currently, there's hope that some of that can be reversed. Snowstorm and the Mesh team are not only incredibly open to feedback but actually have used much of that feedback in the decision making. Today Gez stated at one of the open source user group meetings that he wants tvp devs, heavy chat users, and chat mods to join a user group he intends to start in order to get feedback and help coordinate the transition to a better group chat system within Second Life.
Snowstorm and Mesh have shown their way is better. They are far more productive, and while users don't agree with every decision made, the discussion is open, and users at least understand the reasoning leaving for a much happier user base and a better, more respectful kind of interaction, even with some of the most passionate of disagreements.
This is the kind of thing that will save Linden Lab and Second Life. I truly hope Mr. Humble will recognize that fact and push those at Linden Lab that still opt for closed doors and "we know whats better for you then you do" kind of approach to work with the community or find work elsewhere.
It will take allot of work for Linden Lab to turn Second Life (and both its and Linden Lab's reputations) around. One of the first steps would be to temporarily shut down the new profiles and force the Social and Marketplace teams to adopt approaches much more like Snowstorm. The next is to get these new user group meetings going within the next two weeks and then to have those groups spend the next two weeks actively listening to the Second Life community. Maybe more.
Allot of those in favor of keeping the users in the dark seem to rationalize it with "We can't please everyone," "The users don't know what they really want. They can't even agree with each other," or my personal favorite, "We need to do this for new features we have planned."
My experience in Snowstorm shows that while you can't please everyone you can please most users, that the community can often come up with great compromises on its own, and where it can't, having options wherever possible does, and that by being open about your ultimate goal, you often can get there faster and with less friction by listening to the community and working with them instead of against them. While it can delay things initially to get user feedback and have community involvement, often that time is a better investment, because often later on things go faster because there's less to rewrite or change, and because there's far less damage control to do afterwords. Furthermore, dev time is far cheaper then PR time, and it takes allot more PR time to get back in good graces then to just take the time to communicate in the first place.
I have a huge investment in Second Life, although at times it really has hurt my real life, especially thanks to the privacy disaster with the new profiles. I don't want to see Second Life fail, and I am working very hard to do what little I can to make Second Life a much better place.
So now I am calling upon Mr. Humble and all the Lindens that truly understand that Second Life cannot exist without the vast diverse community to step up to the plate. Its time for those who have been working with the community to not only suggest but to demand their coworkers do the same. It is time, ladies and gentlemen, for Linden Lab to bury its Mr. Hyde.
~CM~
ps: Crossposted to another blog.
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