by Cummere Mayo
Today Amanda Linden stated she would like resident help in coming up for ideas for how to bring in new users and help incorporate them into SL faster. Amanda is usually a pretty decent person, for another, she has shown she is willing to work with and negotiate with the community to a degree on some things. I even want her to succeed. I'd love to see more fresh blood in SL. God knows we need it. So, I hope she will listen when I tell her, whatever she does will simply be a waste of time.
Let me explain.
LL is willing to take some pretty drastic steps, nothing Amanda does will ultimately matter. Amanda's specialty is marketing, and overall she's done a decent job trying to get Second Life's name out there. Second Life is on Second Life, Twitter, various other things. So it isn't a matter of her failing at her job.
What it is a matter of is that no amount of marketing can overcome the fundamental issues that cause potential users as well as existing users to look at other worlds.
Lets look at a handful of these issues.
Lets begin with pricing.
First off is LL's premium member ship price. $120 a year if you go the monthly price. $72ish if you go the annual rate. Either way those aren't bad. But then Linden Lab charges a tier on top of that. Most people ultimately want to own their own sim. However, the price is absolutely out of the average user's price range. $1200 (or more) to set up a sim, and $300 a month to own a full sim and a full sim is required before you can purchase any of the cheaper sims. LL's most serious competitors charge between $35 and $100 a month for a sim and the setup is usually under $250. This puts the price into a much more affordable price for the average user.
Then there is support. Even with the backlog of tickets being almost eliminated, support is still a joke. Issues that could have been easily fixed when first filed are now no longer able to be fixed resulting in millions of dollars of lost content. Support still sometimes requires you to be on viewer 2 or to answer personal questions just to get a sim restart. Furthermore, increasingly often they ask for a phone number before they will proceed. This makes things very intrusive and frightens away many users.
Finally, support is just plain incompetent. Sorry, but there is no other way to put it when you have to teach support how to do basic things like work through how to reset an avatar, check for ghosted accounts, or reset the inventory. Support has given passwords of accounts to people that didn't own the account but could guess three friends EVEN WHEN THEY COULD NOT GET ANY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION RIGHT! Several of these accounts then got terminated and blacklisted beyond recovery. Others still lost huge portions of inventory and L$ when they were able to recover their accounts. These kinds of things are simply inexcusable.
Next up is Snowstorm. Due to my RL work schedule changing and to the fact that my JIRA access has been revoked I haven't been able to be as active in Snowstorm lately, but I am still able to be active enough to state that the fact Snowstorm is drastically undermanned is destroying LL's image.
Don't get me wrong, Oz is amazing trying to do all the stuff that was originally handled by Esbee, Q, Aimee, and Qarl in addition to his own original duties. and Merov the other Linden assigned fully to snowstorm is amazing too. But even with the help of Bao and Wolf, the two Lindens split between Snowstorm and other departments, and the Product Engine group, Oz and Merov simply cannot deliver a quality viewer. It is not their fault. Its simply there's not enough manpower to fix everything that needs fixed and implement everything that needs implemented. For example critical accessibility, translation and content design issues have been put off for months because there simply is no one that has the time or expertise to work on them and much of it cannot be done solely by an opensource developer.
These things aren't Oz's fault and its stupid he is likely going to wind up being blamed for it. in my opinion, deliberately or not, Oz is set up for failure by Linden Lab because at this point Snowstorm can no longer provide the needed viewer fixes at the needed speed to keep viewer 2 viable which in turn only makes Linden Lab's image worse.
Then there are entire groups like the web profiles team, the marketplace team, and the search team. These teams have so rejected user's needs and at times literally insulted the users to the point where until these teams are reassigned and new lindens put in charge of these projects nothing will improve. The arrogance of these particular groups is such that for example, the profile user group wont even show up to their own user group hours and won't even give the courtesy of even a sign to say they were canceled, and marketplace will only invite and let in people to focus groups that will say yes to everything Brooke Linden says.
These kinds of things get out in the most effective ways possible. Word of mouth from friends, forums such as SLUniverse and Gamersworld, blogs such as this one, and even the very Facebook and Twitter Amanda tries to market SL through.
So back to the original question Amanda posed: how to attract new users and bring them into the community faster?
Well one of my friends, the owner of LindenWatch has offered to work for LL for 24k a year plus the ability to make whatever sweeping changes he sees fit. He's a pretty bright guy and I think they should consider that.
Failing that, here are ten of the many things I would do if I were a linden executive officer presented from the most critical to least critical.
1) Bring support back in house. Rehiring as many former support lindens as possible would be best. Failing that, hire new ones from the community.
2) Get Snowstorm properly staffed. At minimum eight full time Lindens assigned only to Snowstorm. As well as Bao, Wolf, and possibly two more assigned there half time.
3) Drastically cut the prices of sims to $100-150 a month for a full sim and setup $250, $50 for a homestead with a $125 setup fee, and $10 a month with a $25 set up fee for voids.
4) Make it possible to get homesteads without first owning a full sim, possibly at a slightly higher price then those that own a full sim.
5) Make a full public apology to SL users, past and present.
6) Make a new sim available that my friend Vasha suggested. This sim would cost between a homestead and a full and have half the prims as a full sim and have a 30 avatar limit.
7) Drastically cut and reassign the staffs from profiles, Marketplace and search, give the remaining staffs 60 days to either get their products working or replaced. If they can't do it in 60 days, fire or reassign them and start over with a fresh team.
8) Wipe the disciplinary records of all currant users.
9) Offer a limited amnesty to all but the most egregious of former users. Restore their avis. if thats not possible, restore the names and issue a $100,000L credit and attempt to restore what still exists in the database.
10) Stop trying to marginalize and hide adult content and start treating adults like adults.
I would think most of these are pretty self explanatory as to why I would do these things. The two that might not be are the purging of disciplinary records and the amnesty.
Allot of people have bad records simply because they faced off against the wrong lindens or because they are hot tempered. Allot more people were banned arbitrarily by linens before there was a governance team, or by people high enough at LL to order governance around. Many more had accounts that were hacked and could never get them back, and even more lost them because for a while LL's system banned people that had billing issues instead of making them free accounts again.
Proper use of old backups could restore allot of these users accounts. Doing so would bring back many users to SL and be visible to potential new users. Furthermore, it would restore faith in a company that has in the past allowed its employees to outrageously abuse their powers.
Doing these things, and the other ideas I have (which are only a fraction of the number of ideas that the owner of LindenWatch has), would then be talked about in forums, in blogs, in Twitter and FaceBook, and everywhere else. Which would then make Amanda's job easy because then she would simply have to worry about how to sell the extra products and features I would bring out as add-ons.
Showing posts with label Second Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Second Life. Show all posts
Thursday, April 14, 2011
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 2, 2011
Calling "Social" Team Out.
by Cummere Mayo
[Additional notes edit: I debated long and hard about cross posting this here, but in the end, I decided I should.]
Anyone following web profiles knows about the battle for privacy being waged by users agaisnt the Social project team at Linden Lab. Its being played out in forums, in chat rooms, in Blogs, on twitter, and in the jira; one of the most voted jiras being web-3494 written by yours truley.
In that jira several major issues about privacy and preferences are raised and and argued for by nearly all the comenters, leading to some "concessions" and promises. Promises that have yet to materialize. I'm going to blast through these in rapid succession.
Promise 1:
Said by Yoz on 1/20/11:
"As you may have noticed, the Real Life section has been removed from publicly-visible web profiles for the moment, so as to bring the new web profiles in line with the old ones. We don't know if or when they'll be back, but we would like to offer residents more control over the visibility of individual profile sections in the future; if this comes about (the likelihood and timing is not certain) then the Real Life section would be part of that."
The facts:
For a short time real life tab did indeed seem to be hidden but across the board the last couple of days everyone has been seeing this tab again. heres the thing, we don't see it on our OWN profiles, we see it on others. (For independant confirmation visit the Linden Lab blog here and read recent comments.) This is a depressing and outright inexcusable breach of privacy.
Promise 2:
Said by Yoz on 1/20/11:
"But, this is a good time to remind everyone: if you're sharing information in your profile and you have "Show me in Search" ticked (which also currently enables public web profiles), then it is at the very least visible to millions of Second Life residents and the Search system. Profile information is also explicitly excluded from the Privacy Policy (see section 6)."
The facts:
Turning off "Show me in Search" does NOT disable the web profiles for either the old or the new style. In v1 it removes you from the internet and in world search engines only. In v2 for both the world.secondlife.com and the my.secondlife.com it removes you from the inworld search engine, but still keeps you in the web search engine. For both it also only requires a password to see your profile details but still shows at minimum your name, photo, and a join here link to those not logged in. This is INEXCUSEABLE.
Promise 3:
Said by Fredrik on 1/25/11:
"We just deployed a new version that removes the Share This widget for profiles that have the "Show me in search" option checked.
We are working on a complete overhaul of the privacy settings that will allow users to have more control over their privacy.
Until then please do come with ideas and constructive feedback."
The facts: Neither checking nor unchecking this seems to have any effect at all on the Share This widget. It still shows up on everyone's profile once you log in. Again inexcuseable.
In all three cases we were told these three changes were already implemented and deployed. So my question to Social team is this: Do you really think we are that stupid that we cannot tell what our own profiles are doing? Did you really think before you fed us these lines? What exactly did you gain by lying to us?
I'm calling you out on this Social. Step up to the plate and implement these changes and apologize for the lies.
update 2/3/11:
Ive been told that the real life tab change was backed out as part of a process toward a more robust and grandular preferences system coming soon. I am taking a wait and see attitude on that one.
~CM~
Crossposted
[Additional notes edit: I debated long and hard about cross posting this here, but in the end, I decided I should.]
Anyone following web profiles knows about the battle for privacy being waged by users agaisnt the Social project team at Linden Lab. Its being played out in forums, in chat rooms, in Blogs, on twitter, and in the jira; one of the most voted jiras being web-3494 written by yours truley.
In that jira several major issues about privacy and preferences are raised and and argued for by nearly all the comenters, leading to some "concessions" and promises. Promises that have yet to materialize. I'm going to blast through these in rapid succession.
Promise 1:
Said by Yoz on 1/20/11:
"As you may have noticed, the Real Life section has been removed from publicly-visible web profiles for the moment, so as to bring the new web profiles in line with the old ones. We don't know if or when they'll be back, but we would like to offer residents more control over the visibility of individual profile sections in the future; if this comes about (the likelihood and timing is not certain) then the Real Life section would be part of that."
The facts:
For a short time real life tab did indeed seem to be hidden but across the board the last couple of days everyone has been seeing this tab again. heres the thing, we don't see it on our OWN profiles, we see it on others. (For independant confirmation visit the Linden Lab blog here and read recent comments.) This is a depressing and outright inexcusable breach of privacy.
Promise 2:
Said by Yoz on 1/20/11:
"But, this is a good time to remind everyone: if you're sharing information in your profile and you have "Show me in Search" ticked (which also currently enables public web profiles), then it is at the very least visible to millions of Second Life residents and the Search system. Profile information is also explicitly excluded from the Privacy Policy (see section 6)."
The facts:
Turning off "Show me in Search" does NOT disable the web profiles for either the old or the new style. In v1 it removes you from the internet and in world search engines only. In v2 for both the world.secondlife.com and the my.secondlife.com it removes you from the inworld search engine, but still keeps you in the web search engine. For both it also only requires a password to see your profile details but still shows at minimum your name, photo, and a join here link to those not logged in. This is INEXCUSEABLE.
Promise 3:
Said by Fredrik on 1/25/11:
"We just deployed a new version that removes the Share This widget for profiles that have the "Show me in search" option checked.
We are working on a complete overhaul of the privacy settings that will allow users to have more control over their privacy.
Until then please do come with ideas and constructive feedback."
The facts: Neither checking nor unchecking this seems to have any effect at all on the Share This widget. It still shows up on everyone's profile once you log in. Again inexcuseable.
In all three cases we were told these three changes were already implemented and deployed. So my question to Social team is this: Do you really think we are that stupid that we cannot tell what our own profiles are doing? Did you really think before you fed us these lines? What exactly did you gain by lying to us?
I'm calling you out on this Social. Step up to the plate and implement these changes and apologize for the lies.
update 2/3/11:
Ive been told that the real life tab change was backed out as part of a process toward a more robust and grandular preferences system coming soon. I am taking a wait and see attitude on that one.
~CM~
Crossposted
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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