Changes to the jira.. hiding bug reports?

[Hope Dreier]

Seriously?   This is going to make things better?   Can you say "The Linden's have jumped the shark."?    I knew you could.

[Tonya Souther]

LL to JIRA helpers: See figure 1.

[Michi Lumin]

Over the past ... 6-7? or so years that SL Jira has existed, we have reversed SO many bugs, ferreted out SO many hard-to-triage, hard-to-find items, and collected SO much information on issues that just would have been completely detrimental to let go in SL.

The Lindens do not "live" in world and find so few of these issues on their own. They don't build, create, interact -- their development (From what I can tell) seems to consist of going to an empty Linden sim and getting a "yup, it works, ship it" response.

This means, LL does what it wishes - the product (server and viewer) is 'as is' and we just have to deal with whatever issues are foisted on us. 

If this was done due to the idea that 'game companies don't have public bug trackers': SL is a lot more complex and involves a lot more systems (and user self-extensibility) than your average game. The very aspect that content creation exists in SL changes this paradigm.

Forget the notion of SEC jiras. Not being able to categorize, not being able to have several people doing tests/trials, and no interactivity between LL and the userbase of "Here try this" / "nope that didn't fix it" means that bugs are going to remain and fester for, well, perhaps forever in some cases when LL devs don't feel that they are interesting enough to address. Community impact on an issue can no longer be gauged; LL will only work on assumptions and presumptions since they do not operate "on the ground" with the residents.

I'm sure this is a cost cutting measure in some sense, and somewhere it makes "good business sense", but it of course calls into question the intended longevity of their product.  LL is going to "cost cut themselves" out of the userbase. Major producers and players will continue to leave, and the only folks who will be around are the fickle fly-by-night consumers; and as soon as new content runs out, they'll leave too.

I feel that if LL is working on 'spinning down' SL, they should give notice so that people can make other arrangements. I've spent a decade of my life, paying LL money - thousands of dollars a year - and putting in thousands of hours of work to build community and create content in SL.  Every year that goes by, I feel that LL finds new and creative ways to kick sand in my face for the effort and expense. Doing it for 'pocket change profit' has long since become a thing of the past; I do it now because I believe in the communit and the people on SL - Linden Lab continues to gain, on that, while making it harder and harder and harder for me to do so, for seemingly little to no rationale.

(I understand that folks at LL do not like their legacy userbase. I do not understand why. We bring in new people - I see it every day. We drive conversions - I see it every day.  We engender longevity and give people to log on - I see it every day. We bring in revenue for LL - I see it every day.  So please, LL? Answer me - even in private: Why are we your enemy?)

I wish that someone at LL would see this, what i'm typing here. Morale among the userbase could use a slight boost, guys. Lindens: you know how to reach me.  But I know I won't hear a thing. Separation and firewalls are the name of the game here, I get that.

I don't think that's wise. But what do I know, i've only been doing this for almost 10 years of my life, running both a community and a large content creation business, without stop. I obviously am completely clueless when it comes to any aspects of SL.

[phaedra Exonar]

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

Did they run out of things to outrage and alienate the community? 

---

They are just alienating and causing an outrage on a individual basses now, in the Jira no one can hear you scream...

 

[Darien Caldwell]

A number of people from the SL Beta group have decided to form a side group for JIRA issue discussion. The more who participate, the better.  The group is called "Bug Bashers", you can find it in-world or IM one of the members (Me, Iain Maltz, Scorch Braveheart, Larry Leborski, etc, etc) for an invite. 

secondlife:///app/group/7581bf2d-29a5-4fea-7a98-7a520565d427/about

Our plan is simple, but it requires everyone's help. When you file an issue, also make a post about it on the subforum at SLU called "SL JIRA Issue Discussion". That way everyone knows about it.

That's really all it's about, centralizing reports someplace where everyone can access.

[JeanneAnne]

corporations are parasites ..

you say "I've spent a decade of my life, paying LL money - thousands of dollars a year - and putting in thousands of hours of work to build community and create content in SL.  Every year that goes by, I feel that LL finds new and creative ways to kick sand in my face for the effort and expense."

youre like a "blood doll" to a vampire

you ask LL "Why are we your enemy?"

you arent their "enemy" .. you are their host .. just like a pig is host to a tapeworm .. parasites dont usually kill their hosts until the host becomes so drained of life that they might as well .. LL is winding SL down while getting ready to move on to other projects .. isnt it obvious?

why is all this so difficult to understand ?!?

Jeanne

[EnCore Mayne]

i for one must congratulate the Lab for doing something. unfortunately, the all too real potential for it to be the wrong something seems inevitable when finally released to the huddled masses. but thank their little stars for daring to do some thing. Halleluyah.

from my perspective (of singular perfection, i should add, to warm to the audience) the manner to which the Lab communicates to the "users" needs more emphasis. unfortunately, guiding a group of free thinking, revelatory coding freaks (i'm sure there's one conscientious objecter) with the absolute right solution will/should/does take considerable TIME and foresight. if the little people (in the Lab) are being lead by hidden and arrogant demonic rule i'd agree with the rest of the people who DON'T KNOW.

now, since i've substantiated my position amongst the ruled, i'm not anti change. i'm not sure how this might affect THEIR comfort and pleasure to crack the bug's backs with thunderous applause. i know how i feel when i accomplish some radical coding nuance. of course, i don't have anyone watching over my shoulder, and the congratulatory gifts are always wanting. who's to say the Lab rats aren't equally proud when they do their JOB?

should we consider this change, from our ignorance (m'excuse), something that gives the coders solace in their incredibily complex & stressful lives or should we act selfishly at the perceived negative affect change has upon our sweet temporal selves? i, for one, do not get paid to put up with distractions. if it were within my ken to destroy the nuisance of associating a publicly viewable ShowStopper Bug flag set by a confused newby who was previously given the right to fall into a highly technical forum with NO KNOWLEDGE WHATSOEVER of any rules related to the entrance, i would. [sentence structure lacks mouth gesticulation grammatical devices]

so, in short, should any of us who actually use the bug report (est: 0.000001%) feel slighted that we can't add to, follow, guide the attention of the Lab (including the selfless unpaid help...yes, another issue arises) we need a CHANNEL to wrench their bloody little necks. is this it?

(full disclosure: i am not a Linden, nor am i sleeping with any of them, past or present. ahhhhhhhh, to the future....)

[JeanneAnne]

dude!  if you script the convoluted way you prose ..

no WONDER theres lag !!

Jeanne

 

[Ceera Murakami]

As I said in another thread on this topic:

How in the world can we avoid duplicate JIRA's if we can only see our own bug reports? You MUST be able to check first to see if a bug has already ben reported, and if there is anything relevant that you can add to the existing report! Otherwise you'll get hundreds or even thousands of Residents reporting the same bug in slightly different ways, needlessly repeating effort and clogging the system horribly!

This change is just insane...

[Sassy Romano]

---

Ceera Murakami wrote:

As I said in another thread on this topic:

 

How in the world can we avoid duplicate JIRA's if we can only see our own bug reports?

---

 

 

This will be followed up by the next policy.

Anyone found submitting a duplicate bug report will be banned from entering bug reports and wasting LL's time.

 

[Ashiri Sands]

It is not uncommon for residents to ask questions in support group chat which can be answered by referring to a jira report. The most obvious recent example was the "unable to rez on my property" bug where, during the time the bug existed, I'd see the question "Why can't I rez on my land" asked frequently in New Citizens Inc and occasionally in Caledon Oxbridge University Group. 

[Lindal Kidd]

I've been a loyal, if sometimes critical, Second Life resident for more than five years now.  Several times, we've all hollered "The sky is falling, this change heralds the end of SL!"  So far, all the changes we agonized over have not killed off our virtual world.

This one won't, either...or at least, it will do so very slowly, bit by bit.

But it's got to be one of the dumbest moves ever from a company whose dumb movery is legend.

[Drongle McMahon]

"How in the world can we avoid duplicate JIRA's?"

Easy ... just don't submit any!

[Jack Abraham]

I predict a proliferation of duplicate JIRA reports. I'll certainly report anything that seems even the slightest bit wonky now, because that will be the only way to see any kind of status on the issue and know when and how to adjust my scripting activities to work around it.

Really, I don't usually go WTF when the Lindens do something like this but... What the **bleep**?

[Sassy Romano]

I anticipate next weeks blog...

"In order to reduce lag and streamline processes, we have taken steps to reduce simulator script load.  We've done this by removing the scripting wiki and any other documentation on the basis that if nobody knows how to script, no scripts will be written and the less scripts there are the less lag there will be, the more enjoyable your world will be."

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Brenda Archer wrote:

It's impossible to have an online business that is also a community and not have some grumpy customers.  Often, with good reason.  

There's no good way to get out of working with your user community, that is if you want to still have one...

---

(Emphasis mine)  I'm not sure they do. 

 

[Nalates Urriah]

I've been in three meetings with various Lindens today. The 1 PM meeting with Oz and Alexa Linden is the only one where much of anything about the change came from Lindens.

Oskar knew something about it, but was surprised when the meeting's JIRA Helper failed.

The other Lindens were scratching their heads and wondering as much as we are. I suspect there is a management group dealing with the web, market place, adult content, JIRA, and whatever that are on the HIDE form RESIDENTS TEAM. They don't deal with us and don't answer to us... if they supply upper management good numbers and reasonable sounding plans, they are golden.

There is little real information in this thread. So, check out my article on the problem. Oh CRAP! JIRA Change.

I am already trying out the new process and I'm not happy. I filed BUG-9, which you can't see. It is about a problem in the Beta and Dev viewers. Maestro responded to it within hour. He couldn't repro the problem and decided it must be the door script I am using... well there is no easy way to reply to his comment. In general, the problem happens with every door I've seen. But, getting that information back to him is a problem.

While I mentioned that Firestorm has seen this problem too, that was ignored... so this new JIRA process is not going to be a fun process.

[Moon Metty]

Gathering new bugreports in a central category could be a good idea for less experienced users.
Making all new jiras invisible to the public (or even closing comments) is ... simply insane (thanks for the words, Qie).

What does a company do when it has trouble communicating with its customers?
Well, apparently the cheapest way to address the problem is to stop communicating.
It's clear that this decision was made by people who are clueless, helpless.

=======

I guess this is a good time to remember STORM-560, to show how painful a Jira can be to the Lab.
What happened here?  Throughout the early testing stage people complained. The answer was: "It works as designed."
In public beta people complained. The response was gibberish.
Of course people kept complaining after the release. "This jira is a drama bomb!"
The real drama bomb was dropped here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Tools-and-Technology/Check-here-if-you-want-more-options/ba-p/664486
And then, it took a dev not more than one and a half day to fix the problem, after the key Linden apologized:

"... because I misunderstood the behavior ..."

Noone ever complained afterwards, though there are still some minor issues left.
These minor issues are mentioned in STORM-560, and I doubt anyone will ever report them again, considering the impending changes.
Anyway, no matter how painful it was at the time for the Lab, it's forgotten, the hideous bug was fixed.

========

Here's my advice to all Lindens, for when these moronic changes to the jira have been reverted:

Look closely at how Maestro Linden has always worked the Jira, and learn. (Abstract: Communicate, until it's sorted)

[Michi Lumin]

The inability to reply when a repro fails is absolutely crazy.  Sometimes there's a communication (or comprehension) failure in a bug report from resident -> LL employee.  This means, basically, that if that occurs, it's shot dead.

 

I cannot count how many times I've gone back and forth until even a Linden got an "Aha!" on the repro, and then the bug was fixed. But it took some ~communication~ for that to happen.

 

Now, we can't do that. "Blame the customer and close the issue". I think that's what we'll see.

[Pamela Galli]

Countless times I have wondered about some malfunction, is it just me? and gone to the JIRA and found a problem not only reported, but a workaround discovered -- BY RESIDENTS. That's what happens when you have many eyes on a problem.

Like when I am informed that I cannot rez on my own land because the owner (me) will not allow it -- I discovered the workaround in the JIRA. 

I suppose the only alternative to stumbling around in the dark is to attend every single Office Hour (oops except Commerce doesn't have them.)

 

 

[Indigo Mertel]

I generally don't like to rant about the Lindens screwing everything and I try to keep an objective point of view, but it's hard to defend LL on this. People keep complaining of poor communications and all the Lab does is making communications even harder. It's a kick in the arse of users.

I am trying to understand the motivations. Streamlining the process? Curbing rants? These may be valid reasons but, as Natales Urriah rightly points out in her blog, making JIRA cases private is overkill. And, somehow I have the creeping feeling that this is done to avoid that people lobby against some of the Lab's decisions, as is the case of the JIRA to bring last names back.

Lindens really have all my sympathy for the level of abuse they receive and I really can understand how frustrating it must be to manage a system like JIRA when people abuse it. But this does not justify depriving everyone of an important tool without consulting the users and ask for their opinions. It's really a decision that it is forced on everyone with little regard to the users' needs and that only risk of blowing on Lindens' collective faces.

As much as I believe that users really should make an effort in keeping communication with Lindens correct and respectful of their work, and as much as I believe that LL should improve communication and transparency with users, when either side pass a certain limit things are no longer acceptable. This is a case where a decision taken by the Lab really affect users in ways that are not acceptable. A decision like this totally disregard users' needs and it's liable of a strong protest. If Lindens deal with problems by forcing decisions that negatively affect the users, then a call to boycott their new system would have all my sympathy.

[R Dismantled]

Aparently, the solution to a leaky boat is to blast more holes in the hull with a shotgun for the water to drain out through.

[Flame Swenholt]

Hmmm.... Interesting life cycle...

 

1. LL gets JIRA
2. Users use JIRA. Users are happy.
3. JIRA suddenly stops letting some users from using it. Some users are said.
4. LL updates JIRA
5. Said users can now properly use JIRA. Users are happy again.
6. Few days later, LL kills JIRA. Users get angry.

I understand that bug fixing and customer support is a task that is comparable to being a living sandpaper tester, but simply making JIRA essentially lose its purpose is as thoughtful as an expired, empty gift card.

As a system analyst, judging from comments on both defense and offence, the main thing I can see is the improper use of JIRA being a possible fault line. While some JIRAS serve their purpose, some (like campaigns for frivolous things) would give a bad image to the service. They should have analyzed the proper usage of JIRA and identify if there are tags that should be removed instead of simply changing the system all together. It'd be easier to migrate if they just disabled some tags and creating a more narrow scope for more serious manors than doing what they are doing now.

From what I can see, the path they are taking is just making work harder on their own ends and everyone else's. With just that in mind, they should revert OR introduce a GRACE PERIOD before said change comes into place. The sudden change to such a major system component is going to be the downfall that ends everything.

Remember, the users are your customers as much as they are your own living skin and muscle. We have been taught to take care of our bodies, and this action is like using a potato peeler as loofah.

-Flame

[Michi Lumin]

To me it's not even the publicity and searchability that kills it.  It's the inability to have a dialogue with the dev team and work towards an outcome.  You know, "mutually beneficial". As in "Here's what I'm seeing" / "Can you clarify?" / "Yeah, here" / "Ok I see it now, try this fix" / "That worked for the most part but there's just this one thing that's still not working" / "Ok, try this one." / "Yup, that did it" (jira closed).  

Versus "My second-lifes doesnt work it is broek plz fix plox"... (spend next month praying for a release note.)

But maybe that's just me.

However you're right, the only way that not being able to look at previously reported problems would reduce workload is if they're not looking at the bug reports at all.

That, or LL hired a person to triage all incoming bug reports and pair up / consolidate them as they come in.  But, come on. There's no way that happened.

[Irene Muni]

"SL users will only see their own reported issues."

Often whenever LL makes a change I think LL has reached his limit error.

But the following change shows me that I was wrong.