A new week and new...what?

[Aishagain]

So, we begin a new week.  There was nothing rolled to the RC channels last week, so we should not expect anything on Main Server this week, obviously.

What we are still being starved of is information on what is being done "behind the scenes" on " back-end" services.

It has become a tradition within SL that such information is not disclosed to users.  It is a tradition that must end.

Personally, I am sick and tired of being treated like a mushroom.

I am NOT an idiot and I can cope with erratic services providing there is some explanation.

This information vacuum is typical but this time it is unreasonable.  Are we to believe that Linden Research's new owners have so hamstrung LL that they DARE not tell us what (or how little) is actually being done?

Currently SL is seeing the highest concurrency numbers for years.  That will not last long unless we see some sort of route- map for the significant work that is still needed to get SL working properly again.

[Ardy Lay]

"A new week and new...what?"

Rant.  A new rant by Aishagain.  Sometimes it seems they are pulling your chain by... NOT pulling your chain.

Much is being done.  I just let it happen.  My time zone facilitates this.  I am working for an RL employer when most SL maintenance is undertaken.  Your time zone apparently puts your SL activities at odds with Linden Lab's routine maintenance.  I suppose this is why you want more details than I do.  I eagerly read whatever information is provided, and, you are correct, there has been little "news" about the details lately.  I just assume it's all about making things work better on the new hosting arrangement.

I miss the World Map tile updates.  I'll be glad to see them return.  Would be sweet if they also render sculpted prims and meshes but I won't complain if they do not.

 

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

16 minutes ago, Aishagain said:

So, we begin a new week.  There was nothing rolled to the RC channels last week, so we should not expect anything on Main Server this week, obviously.

What we are still being starved of is information on what is being done "behind the scenes" on " back-end" services.

It has become a tradition within SL that such information is not disclosed to users.  It is a tradition that must end.

Personally, I am sick and tired of being treated like a mushroom.

I am NOT an idiot and I can cope with erratic services providing there is some explanation.

This information vacuum is typical but this time it is unreasonable.  Are we to believe that Linden Research's new owners have so hamstrung LL that they DARE not tell us what (or how little) is actually being done?

Currently SL is seeing the highest concurrency numbers for years.  That will not last long unless we see some sort of route- map for the significant work that is still needed to get SL working properly again.

Why not just go to the Developer meeting with Simon Oz and Rider - then you can ask your questions.

 

As regards to information sharing, personally I think it's the best it's ever been.  We have in-world user groups where you can attend in person and ask questions, some Lindens such as Patch and Oz often post on here to answer queries.

 

If there's a big outage we often get a blog post from them so people know.  *Maybe* whatever they're doing is just something boring, or something to improve security.

[Aishagain]

@Adamburp Adamczyk The in-world groups and meetings are (in my experience) of extremely limited value and it has seemed to me that some Lindens exhibit selective deafness when it comes to some topics.

For me they are of little informational value due to my SL and RL lifestyle ( OK my loss).

My point is that communication with the SL user-base is just inadequate. To say that security concerns define what should be divulged begs the question.

I agree that when it does happen, communication is of a very high order...unfortunately it is very rare and really needs to improve.

I value my SL very highly, so I will persevere, but I will also probably be condemned as a "malcontent". Such is life.

Ok, it's a rant but it's my view for good or ill.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Aishagain
Grammar correction

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

3 minutes ago, Aishagain said:

@Adamburp Adamczyk The in-world groups and meetings are ( in my experience) of extremely limited value and it has seemed to me that some Lindens exhibit selective deafness when it comes to some topics.

For me they are of limited value due to my SL and RL lifestyle ( OK my loss).

My point is that communication with the SL user-base is just inadequate. To say that security concerns define what should be divulged begs the question.

I agree that when it does happen, communication is of a very high order...unfortunately it is very rare and really needs to improve.

I value my SL very highly, so I will persevere, but I will also probably be condemned as a "malcontent". Such is life.

Just seems a bit pointless to post a thread complaining over stuff that already has a solution is all 😏

[Aishagain]

😁At least it has folk talking and I can handle the brickbats. 

[Miller Thor]

@Aishagain

Last week, if you can remember, about half a dozen different maintenances took place, which were probably above a server deploy. As for this week ......... , away from today's holiday, this case is not a back end maintenance, but a bake deploy, and that's something completely different because it's about the representation of textures. Quote: Second Life will be undergoing a bake deploy on Thursday, February 18th at 6AM PST. Residents may experience textures failing to rez or rezzing improperly. 

Of course, and I have been criticising this for years, Linden's willingness to communicate could be far higher than it is at present. When I think back in about 13 years, there was information because of every fart in the forest and it was usually written in such a way that it is indeed informative. However, we must be glad that we are now being given Sever Deploy messages, albeit rare, that really meet an informative standard that benefits at least tech-savvy customers. Also the fact that one now again, at least in the message text, calls a holiday as a holiday, is probably the result of lengthy muzzle here in the forum. But what we would all want would be to reintroduce it would be 24/7 support. Customers from the US abroad often only have a few hours to contact the support from the total opening period, up to and including not at all. The new owners or majority owners would have to break new ground or re-prepare old paths. In any case, it would be desirable. To put it in a while, if we in Austria restart the regions at 6 a.m. and a region does not come back, it will take forever for a submitted ticket to be processed and the region restored. This would be done with 24/7 support within a few minutes and would not last until 3 p.m. and thus 9 hours without assistance.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Miller Thor

[Ardy Lay]

Renter of Estate parcel: "I cannot get to my house.  Is there some problem?  Is SL wholly or partially unavailable??"

Owner of Estate: "I do not know.  Linden Lab isn't sharing information with me and there is nothing on either the grid status page or the server blog."

Linden Lab: _working hard in the background performing scheduled or unscheduled maintenance _

---

Renter of Estate parcel: "May we use the church at community center for a full hour, for a wedding tomorrow beginning <some time>?"

Owner of Estate: "Yes you may.  I have added you to the schedule.  Be advised:  Linden Lab has NOT yet published their intentions for scheduled maintenance of the simulators so be prepared to be flexible."

Renter of Estate parcel: "Uhm, how does that translate into smoothly scheduling 30 guests and a wedding party?"

Owner of Estate: "I am sorry, I am aware that it does not translate into smooth scheduling for 30 guests and a wedding party.  Would you like another date and time?"

Renter of Estate parcel: "Ahh...  no.  We had a difficult enough time getting everyone to agree to the date and time I requested.  Can we also have the following hour JUST IN CASE the maintenance interrupts our wedding?"

Owner of Estate: " . . . . That hour is already claimed and they have also already been cautioned about potential maintenance on this day.  Their group is small, maybe you can share?"

---

I know it's hard to plan ahead when you are "publishing" software that is still hot off the compiler and may be clawed back by Quality Assurance testers at any moment.

It's also hard to know when we can and cannot depend on the simulators and support services to be available to us.  Some sort of compromise between the two must be possible.

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

This is why support should run 24/7 (and Governance too which is one of the reason I keep bugging Tommy)

[Ardy Lay]

18 minutes ago, Adamburp Adamczyk said:

This is why support should run 24/7 (and Governance too which is one of the reason I keep bugging Tommy)

Bet'cha Governance is buried with "He won't stop touching me!" and encroachment reports.

Things I have needed Support for:

• Governance forgot to enable physics on a mainland simulator after dealing with replicating garbage
• Autonomous vehicles were crashing a mainland simulator because of some newly introduced simulator bug
• Script time for idle scripts has crept up over time and is causing a mainland simulator to be unusable
• A required service or capability is unavailable after maintenance resulting in non-enterable regions or other debilitating issues

And yes, these do result in abandoned events and lost revenue when renters bail, on mainland regions.  Mainland owners are even more stuck than estate owners because we have fewer tools to use and much less authority over the land.

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

2 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

Bet'cha Governance is buried with "He won't stop touching me!" and encroachment reports.

Things I have needed Support for:

• Governance forgot to enable physics on a mainland simulator after dealing with replicating garbage
• Autonomous vehicles were crashing a mainland simulator because of some newly introduced simulator bug
• Script time for idle scripts has crept up over time and is causing a mainland simulator to be unusable
• A required service or capability is unavailable after maintenance resulting in non-enterable regions or other debilitating issues

And yes, these do result in abandoned events and lost revenue when renters bail, on mainland regions.  Mainland owners are even more stuck than estate owners because we have fewer tools to use and much less authority over the land.

Ardy,

 

Let me make a heart filled statement -

thank you for speaking your common sense.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Adamburp Adamczyk

[Qie Niangao]

23 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

I miss the World Map tile updates.  I'll be glad to see them return.  Would be sweet if they also render sculpted prims and meshes but I won't complain if they do not.

If the maps do render sculpts and mesh when they finally return, I'll suspect they were delayed for that new functionality, and I just might complain. At this point I'd rejoice to see maps that are terrain-only while awaiting the return of real maps.

[Miller Thor]

Quote: 

Rolling Restarts for Second Life RC ChannelsFeb 17, 07:00-13:00 PST

We will be performing rolling restarts for regions on the Second Life RC Server channels on Wednesday, February 17th, beginning at approximately 7:00 AM PDT. Please refrain from rezzing no copy objects and remember to save all builds. Please check this blog for updates.
Posted on Feb 16, 06:50 PST

Edited February 16, 2021 by Miller Thor