In the loop!

[Garnet Psaltery]

15 minutes ago, Coolnet Ordinary said:

I don't be it was appropriate to make a thread like that IMO.  If you want to know more information about any news or updates on the thread you could have used the appropriate threads to find out and ask politely.  Like I said, when they're ready they will probably make some announcement in forums about it.

No-one can ask politely or otherwise in the pinned official post here as it's closed to replies.  I thought that thread was for official announcements, anyway. 

I think it's probably time to highlight what is emerging as the salient point; there are some residents in Bellisseria, including me, who are not happy with the way some Bellisserian resident groups are being used and perceived.  I have little knowledge of ones other than the Citizens' group, and I've mentioned in this forum what I feel about it; so have others.  It appears, to those of us who are not happy, that the Citizens' group is being taken as the official voice for the continent, and certainly we have found ourselves ignored in group chat.  We do not wish to be excluded from 'hints and tidbits' that rightly belong to us all.  I'm sorry if those in the cosy world of group membership do not understand that, and I even wonder whether anything that might be learned is always passed on by those members who heard it to those who weren't present.

A resident group would be equitable if it were made official and compulsory for residents, with all information by staff available via notices.  If we unhappy ones continue to be ignored then we do have the option of removing ourselves from the continent, but why should we be put in that position?

I don't enjoy raising such concerns or putting myself in focus for doing so, but for me this is a matter of fairness, and I would hope that it can be taken seriously.

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, Coolnet Ordinary said:

Everyone who wants to complain that the homes aren't coming out fast,

if you think it's about that, you misread something.. we'r talking about communication, and in special information.
That it is taken wrongly is sad.

[4REIGN]

😀I'm still getting me a TAHOE home … Patch's post makes alotta sense.  However, I hope he doesn't  stop interacting with Belli citizens in an informal way.  That was one of the many nice things about the group mentioned.

Edited March 22, 2020 by 4REIGN

[roseelvira]

2 hours ago, Coolnet Ordinary said:

Everyone who wants to complain that the homes aren't coming out fast, think about how it would feel when people come after you for not getting your stuff done quickly.

No one was complaining they were not comming out fast enough!!!  i had stated i had HOPE  they would have been released  this past week.   Many times we are left to try and guess and after awhile that gets old and people become discouraged and lose interest and sooner or later you start to lose your loyal customer base , ie they may not do the extra alts or just decide ehh with the year they upgraded almost over to just go to basic  ,

i know due to my husbands cancer opperation  end of Jan and the complications after his surgery  ( accute respirtatory distress syndrom)  and he almost danced with the angels meaning  almost   crossed over to heaven   FEB 3    ... never would wish that ARDS  on anyone ,,,, horrible  horrible horrible ,....

i was not able to log in for many weeks and missed a lot   and if there was even a weekly e blast  of what ll was doing besides the rolling restarts ets ,,, like  sspp  comming along nicely ,we added the landscaping and you will be so amazed when you move to these homes !!!

,,,, just litle updates  or the streets have been put in place ,,, and our builders //moles are framing ( what ever they do to make the outside of the homes} the homes  ,,,, or   the  scripting on the new homes being tested this week ,,,,, hope it all works and  hopefully no bugs cause if there are bugs  it means delays ,,,,,  

 little updates  could also be a plus for people sitting on the fence about joining ,,,, or upgrading to premium,, so they would feel more confident about investing  ttheir real life money .

The thread is about   how   information  is being  delivered .  Not everyone is in the beli  group ,  some work full time , others have family w medcal issues , others in different time zones and others with health issues theselves .

   Some may have added an alt

and have said ok ,i will get an alt for a month or two and then thoses avis  go back to basic or fewer  avis note  the extra cost  of adding and avi does impact on personal buget   especially now with the  cov virius and everyone  working from home or house bound  or with medical issues   and those on fixed incomes ,,, it can add up

And people will joke to cope ,,,,    there was never ever any intention to offend Patch,ll , the moles or teams in anyway . 

In fact in rl when someone says"""" soon""""",, i smile and think of Patch and second life  and tell them they should join because of all the amazing things and wonderful people   and  the wonderful interaction between  everyone  form the residents, moles, to ll employees and support,sl teams ,everyone who works for ll and sl  and Patch .......  with the endearing soon and yes it is endearing ,,, not a bad thing but a loving and cute thing that only works when Patch writes it ,,,, so i am sorry  ,,,,, never meant to offend   

 

As mature adults  we should be able to read and hear and listen to everyone and understand each other  and what they are saying or trying to say ,,   I know last year i was told by support to follow that one thread for all info and updates.   And that s all   ,,,, offical update  ,,,,, 

  So  try this ,,,,  our  goal is that the  homes  be released within   the spring time season ,,,  if there are tec difficulties ,,,, we will let you know that it will have to be rolled into the summer and sorry for the delay ,,,,. and as i mentioned above the mini updates ,,,,  would be a huge plus and blessing and everyone would be so very grateful!!!!!   

 Also if people did not love and  care about second life so much ,,,, there would be no thread asking for information,,,,people would just  say ehhhhh and quit ,,,, and spend the money elsewhere 

 

 

 

    

  

Edited March 22, 2020 by roseelvira
spelling and pc not catching what is being typed keyboard problems

[4REIGN]

😂Still getting a TAHOE home.... off topic can someone answer a newbie question? what does "Member's total reputation" mean?

[Frigga Freidman]

13 minutes ago, 4REIGN said:

😂Still getting a TAHOE home.... off topic can someone answer a newbie question? what does "Member's total reputation" mean?

As far as I can make out, it refers to the number of times an individual's posts have been responded to, either with 'likes' or actual comments, and the number of responses *you've* made yourself. (Click on the + and number to see a listing.)

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by Frigga Freidman

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

3 hours ago, Coolnet Ordinary said:

I want to take the opportunity to thank @Patch Linden, Moles, and every LL staff that are working on the new Linden Homes.  Keep up the great work! 🙂

Everyone who wants to complain that the homes aren't coming out fast, think about how it would feel when people come after you for not getting your stuff done quickly.  Give them some slack. They work 7 days a week getting everything all set up and making sure that the regions are operational and that the ideal look that we want to see comes out amazing.  Rather they take their time to make sure that everything is fully functional than having them release something that might come with issues that could cause future delays in other regions. I understand everyone is eager to get the new homes, and I can see why because they are amazing!  My suggestion for everyone is to let them do their job and as soon as they are ready to release them, I'm sure they will make some announcement on the official page. So please give them the space and be patient. 🙂

That's sweet, but not what this thread is about.

People are asking that communication happen where all can see, and not just where the ones who happen to be members of the (unofficial) in world group, who happen to be logged in at the right time, who happen to have the chat box open at the right time, can see.

It's not an unreasonable request, and has nothing to do with how hard anyone is working or how fast homes are being released. It is about COMMUNICATION regarding same. 

[Aethelwine]

I can see why this thread would be perceived negatively by Linden Lab, complaining about an absence of communication where they see there as being nothing to communicate is only going to be frustrating. But I think the criticisms raised should be considered constructively, I doubt anyone contributing to the thread even those primarily sounding negative are really as negative as they sound.

A better example of poor communication where the Group got advantageous communication was back when the Victorians were released, on 16 December the official communication said to stop abandoning homes because of a problem. So I and I am sure many others didn't release we took the first house we got, a couple of days later i joined the group and everyone was swapping houses and I asked why.. they said that the problem was only for 6 hours and they were all swapping houses since then. It was the same day on the official thread we got the announcement that we could abandon homes again. That was probably the best time to be house hunting on your alts, I still got lucky and found a lovely Trad abandon on my alt, but it still illustrates unfair advantage.

I don't want this example to be considered like a big deal for me, I am well over it, but I raise it now just to illustrate the importance of communication through official channels rather than just chat in a group. I certainly don't want Patch or the moles or anyone from feeling inhibited in what they say, it has been great to feel and see people responding positively to their involvement in world more publicly than just in technical meetings advertised (for all I know "on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet).

I think the constructive takeaways from the thread are A) people are excited and hungry for information on the new developments, not just the release dates, but also more soft information about them. B) that whilst no one (I think) wants to see Patch or the moles feeling like they can't say something because of reactions, we would like official updates to tide us through between releases and that important information is provided through blog posts and the forum.

 

[Raspberry Crystal]

45 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

"on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet

At this point, I can only say, 'beware of the leopard'.

 

[Trinity Blakewell]

1 hour ago, Aethelwine said:

...we would like official updates to tide us through between releases and that important information is provided through blog posts and the forum.

 

Yes, yes and yes!

[LittleMe Jewell]

I think that right now, with what is happening out in the real world, we are all a bit cranky.  I think the frustrations with real life and the lack of control we have over that virus is making us want more control here.  

In the past week, I've seen a lot more snarky or complaining type posts -- probably even made a few of those myself.

I, for one, most definitely do not want to return to the days of LL not engaging with the Residents here in the forums and inworld.  The Lindens and Moles never really felt like real people before - it was always just LL.  These days it truly feels like there are real people behind it all and they really are a part of this wacky world with us.

 

ETA:  Just because we might want more frequent official updates, Patch is right -- why should he bother updating that official thread every week just to say "not this week" or "not next week"?  

Edited March 22, 2020 by LittleMe Jewell
spelling

[Fay Starlight]

Cabins soon!!! YaY!

[Pussycat Catnap]

5 hours ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

It appears, to those of us who are not happy, that the Citizens' group is being taken as the official voice for the continent, and certainly we have found ourselves ignored in group chat

It's a busy group.

You have to interject.

Catch one of my conversations in there someday and look... maybe the first 10 minutes go by with me being ignored. Maybe the first 1-10 comments. Then my constant this and that breaks through, people engage, and I can get even switch topic and drag them with me.

Every so often I see someone post one question, then nothing, then come back 10 minutes later with "I guess you're all ignoring me"... and yeah - they didn't engage. Maybe I saw their message, maybe I didn't and have to scroll up to find it after the hostile comment does somehow catch my eye. What I do notice is when somebody's name keeps showing up a lot, then I look to see what's up, and that becomes a conversation.

 

The Citizen's group has a LOT of people, and they spread what they read there beyond themselves. That's why it's so useful as a place to engage.

The forum is very small, and the blogs go largely unread.

- They can be useful for times, static, announcements. That kinds that stick for a while.

Saying "nothing new this week" is not the place for them - but it works very well in a super active community of highly engaged folks who then take that chatter with them to the rest of SL.

At over 4000 people, roughly 40% of all of Bellisseria is in that one group. Sure, they are NOT all online at once, but they can all engage there - and the feel of the community, it's heart, beats through there.

This place, this forum, is more like the left little toe.

 

[Eirynne Sieyes]

First, I want to thank @Patch Linden and the moles for this wonderful place.

I like the way communication works now. I like the informal Linden/mole drop ins, the chats, the clues, the guessing games. I even like the frustration of pulling my hair out when I miss a release (95% of the time) or can't figure out Patch's clues (100% of the time).

[Love Zhaoying]

I just now abandoned my old Linden Home, even though it was situated perfectly next to a park.  Bellisserria Bound! (Still have my full adult region, not sure why..)

[Love Zhaoying]

37 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

At over 4000 people, roughly 40% of all of Bellisseria is in that one group. Sure, they are NOT all online at once, but they can all engage there - and the feel of the community, it's heart, beats through there.

This place, this forum, is more like the left little toe.

 

Wait, was that a diss at us? OMG!!11!! 

[Nika Talaj]

47 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

This place, this forum, is more like the left little toe.

? A left little toe where, as you say, messages persist and can be checked by anyone at anytime.  A left little toe that has been in existence, despite an LL attempt to simply shut it down, since 2005, and that has a lot of lurkers.

Forums/blogs do not ask much of you.  They don't ask that you spend hours watching chatter scroll by in hopes of a nugget of information, they do not attempt to involve you in Slenderman's RP,  they don't tolerate rude residents reviling perfectly good and attractive properties that some mole spent time decorating. 

I like Belli chat and often tune in; but it is essentially unmoderated and inherently ephemeral.

 

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

ETA:  Just because we might want more frequent official updates, Patch is right -- why should he bother updating that official thread every week just to say "not this week" or "not next week"?  

Because it would allow a lot of folks who are waiting for log homes to go about their business in peace for another week.

 

[Sparkly Rainbow]

1 hour ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

At over 4000 people, roughly 40% of all of Bellisseria is in that one group. Sure, they are NOT all online at once, but they can all engage there - and the feel of the community, it's heart, beats through there.

Many of those 4000+ may be alts, accounts that just don't log in often, or people like me that try to stay out of that group chat to avoid all the ignoring, inside jokes and discussions, and useless banter that goes on.  I have five Alts that are all members of that group, but rarely check what is going on in there.  It is just not a good way of getting information to all the residents of SL.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I actually find Pussycat's repeated arguments to be compelling... they are compelling me to leave that group. It seems it's worse in there than I had realized!   

[Aethelwine]

1 hour ago, Sparkly Rainbow said:

Many of those 4000+ may be alts, accounts that just don't log in often, or people like me that try to stay out of that group chat to avoid all the ignoring, inside jokes and discussions, and useless banter that goes on.  I have five Alts that are all members of that group, but rarely check what is going on in there.  It is just not a good way of getting information to all the residents of SL.

I have 2 Alts in it primarily for the checking the notices from time to time. I rarely tune in to the chat going on. Over the course of an hour I will have ten other groups with chats going on that I don't pay much attention to and a couple where I have to because I moderate them.

It seems like a nice group chatting there, I certainly don't want to stop them or Lindens and Moles talking in it, but as you say that 4000 figure doesn't mean alot with respect to people listening to any messages delivered that way.

[karynmaria]

6 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

At over 4000 people, roughly 40% of all of Bellisseria is in that one group. Sure, they are NOT all online at once, but they can all engage there - and the feel of the community, it's heart, beats through there.

 

where are the stats showing that 40% of Bellisseria is in this group?  You have a source?  Like how would you even know this?  What are you basing it on?

[Frigga Freidman]

1 hour ago, karynmaria said:

where are the stats showing that 40% of Bellisseria is in this group?  You have a source?  Like how would you even know this?  What are you basing it on?

I'm assuming she's basing that number on the stated number of the group's members (though there are maybe 150 or so that actually show up when you scroll the list) and an estimate of the number of Bellisserian parcels released so far (or maybe the number of Premium accounts?). However, I've never seen more than 50 distinct names actively engaged in chat at any one time - anyone in the group who happens to be logged in at the time but is not active in chat appears in the alphabetical listing, and active chatters appear above that in an ever-changing order of most recent contributors. I've looked in on the chat on weekdays and weekends, during 'prime' SL business hours and long afterwards. It may be busy, but its regular user base appears to be no larger than that found in the Linden Homes threads here. 

PS- I just counted 45 active participants and 175 names below them in alphabetical order.

Edited March 23, 2020 by Frigga Freidman

[Gingir Ghoststar]

HI. I debated chiming in here at all. I apologize that you were made to feel unwelcome or unheard inside the citizen's group. We're not all looking at the chat at any given moment. I know the moderators (all volunteer) and myself try to stay on top of things and make sure we answer questions where we can.  However, we all have our own Second Lives going on, jobs IRL, families, etc. I know for myself, I stay afk quite a bit as I've got a fairly busy life in general. I agree with the sentiment that I think a weekly update in the Update thread would be nice. I know people join the Bellisseria Citizens group and ask a lot about if regions were released and what homes were released all day everyday. To be honest, we don't know. We're just like you, just instead of on the forums, we're in world. We don't know what is going on, what is being released, any sort of plans. We're just a social group doing our thing.

 

I see some of you do not care for our flavor of socializing and that is totally okay. We're not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I hope some of you who I see here who have commented about not wanting to be part of the Bellisseria Citizen's group takes the initiative to create your own group for like minded individuals. You shouldn't feel you need to be forced to join a group to socialize in and around Belli.  Belli is huge and there is more than enough room for all the groups, even new ones.  Also, for clarification, we welcome anyone, you don't need to be a premium member to be part of our group, so please don't feel you can't join in just because you're not a premium member. 

 

Having said that, however, please stop and think about some of the accusations you've put towards the moles and Lindens.They might be employees but they're people first and they don't deserve to be abused or harassed by the rest of us. That's the same ham-handed argument you see in real life with public servants when people start yelling "I pay your paycheck, I'm your boss" just because they (the person upset) pays taxes. The moles and Lindens are people. They respond far better to you treating them as such. 

[Nika Talaj]

 

16 hours ago, Patch Linden said:

Our new communication system is pretty close to being deployed, ...

My bold & color ... given how the discussion's progressed, I'm not sure that everyone realizes that y'all have been working on a method of communicating to all Belli residents that will make this discussion [which is about the best way to communicate updates, not about the content of the updates] moot, is that correct?  At least, that's what I hoped from what was said when you first referred to it, at which point it seemed it was still in design/spec stage.  Looking forward to seeing it deployed.  If it works as well as CasperVend's notification system, I'll be a very happy camper.

I hope this new megaphone can be used for a little lighthearted community messaging as well as more factual updates!  FIne by me if it evolves into "Good Morning Vietnam", Belli-style!

Any chance it could be bidirectional (i.e. run polls)?

16 hours ago, Patch Linden said:

That information is a date of intended release.  I will never give you that.  ... I have even received complaints and directed anger about the use of too many Soon™'s, so I've even stopped that at this point. 

Speaking only for myself, I can say that I've never wanted to hear a projected release date, for exactly the reasons you mention (having been a project/program manager for longer than I care to think about).  I'm kinda sad about the demise of the "Soon"s, because that scale functioned pretty well to let folks know when NOT to pay close attention, which is a relief if you have a busy life (either in SL or in RL), but would still like to catch a major release.  Once you moved off of soon to the next step ("very soon?"), i began checking every SL morning for a release.  Once it got to "Really Very Soon", I'd check every hour or two, basically whenever I was able to.  So to me, "Not this week" IS an important update.

[Sparkly Rainbow]

7 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Our new communication system is pretty close to being deployed, ...

I am wondering how this communication system will work.  Will it be only for people that have homes already in Bellisseria?  Will it communicate to all of SL?  What about all the residents waiting to get homes?  

I know that nobody has the answers to that yet.  Just some curiosity on my end.  I hope that it works out well.