Clarification about New(?) Restrictions on Posting about Proposed Changes to SL

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Hi all,

I've just run across this from @Dakota Linden . It may be harmless, but it does seem to imply a shift in permissible content in SL.

"The Forums are for the community to discuss Second Life and should not be used to Call out Lindens or request changes to the system.  There are appropriate processes, including but not limited to Jira and in world User Groups, that should be used where users may discuss their concerns and submit suggestions and bug reports."

Can we get some clarifications on this?

1) What is meant by "calling out Lindens"? Criticizing them explicitly or implicitly? Or merely naming them as the person responsible for this or that?

2) What is meant by what seems to be a new prohibition about requests for "changes to the system"? Does this really mean, as it seems to, that we are no longer permitted to suggest changes that we think are by beneficial to SL in the forum? Or, by implication, that we are no longer permitted to criticize the platform?

#2 here is really rather important: if this actually represents a policy change for the forums, it will be a serious constraint on a great deal of discussion here. It will certainly introduce a chilling effect if we find ourselves having to tiptoe around any implicit or explicit suggestions for or criticism of SL.

(I am, I suppose, "calling out" Dakota here, but only in hope that they can provide a clarification so we understand the rules in effect here.

Thank you.

 

Here's Dakota's post:

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I've just run across this from @Dakota Linden . It may be harmless, but it does seem to imply a shift in permissible content in SL.

"The Forums are for the community to discuss Second Life and should not be used to Call out Lindens or request changes to the system. 

* snip *

..but you just called out a Linden.

For Shame!! Rule-breaker!!!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

..but you just called out a Linden.

For Shame!! Rule-breaker!!!

I did. And noted that I'd done so.

What can I say? I'm just a rebel.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I did. And noted that I'd done so.

What can I say? I'm just a rebel.

At least it's in the appropriate Forum!

[Wulfie Reanimator]

If you read the OP and skim through the pages of discussion, I feel the tone if that entire thread is very obviously hostile and demanding while calling out specific Lindens by name.

That thread reads like a witch hunt, not criticism or "suggesting improvements."

Edited November 1, 2023 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Wulfie Reanimator said:

If you read the OP and skim through the pages of discussion, I feel the tone if that entire thread is very obviously hostile and demanding while calling out specific Lindens by name.

That thread reads like a witch hunt, not criticism or "suggesting improvements."

Quite possibly. But I'm neither defending nor asking for a justification for the closing of that thread.

I am asking if Dakota's remarks represent a policy statement about the kind of content we can post across the forum as a whole.

If the intent was to apply those remarks only to that thread, they weren't expressed very clearly. They seem to apply to everything.

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

If you read the OP and skim through the pages of discussion, I feel the tone if that entire thread is very obviously hostile and demanding while calling out specific Lindens by name.

That thread reads like a witch hunt, not criticism or "suggesting improvements."

Yes, somehow "calling out Lindens" + a Thesis / "wall of text" seem MUCH more appropriate for JIRA.

(Personally: Based on the "close message", I believe the "name and shame" was the reason the thread was closed, not the "calling out of Lindens".)

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

(Personally: Based on the "close message", I believe the "name and shame" was the reason the thread was closed, not the "calling out of Lindens".)

Yeah. Posting direct SLURLs to stores is definitely naming and shaming, with avatar names visible in screenshots, done by multiple people.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Yeah. Posting direct SLURLs to stores is definitely naming and shaming, with avatar names visible in screenshots, done by multiple people.

Sure.

To reiterate, though -- I actually couldn't care less about that particular thread. I skimmed it only briefly, rolled my eyes a few times, and decided it wasn't worth my time.

THIS thread is simply asking for a clarification upon what, on the face of it, seems to be a policy applied to the entire forum:

"The Forums [...] should not be used to Call out Lindens or request changes to the system."

Please, let us not get into a discussion here about that one particular thread. It's not relevant to the OP.

[Love Zhaoying]

31 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

what seems to be a new prohibition about requests for "changes to the system"

I can see how this may be a two-edged sword:

- On the one hand, the Forum is not a place to "request changes". It may be a place to "propose" changes, or "discuss" changes we'd like to see - with each other, presumably, but not to "blindly" call out Lindens to "demand changes".

- On the other hand, there are a lot of existing, "supposedly valid" threads that focus on "requesting changes", where Lindens are directly involved and engaged.  For example, the current thread about "SL Features for Combat Roleplay". (I could list 3 or 4 others, easily which are similar.)

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Dyna Mole]

There is no policy change. You are welcome to discuss items related to SL in the forums. As always, if you want to suggest feature changes, submit the requests through the JIRA. Linden Lab will not act on a request made in the forums. And please don't tag specific Lindens to try to get them to pay attention to your requests. 

If you believe that you have witnessed a violation of the TOS or the Forum Guidelines, report it by submitting an AR or making a report to the moderators.

Please refrain from posts that name and shame other residents or businesses.

 

[Katherine Heartsong]

May I ask if there will ever be a system besides JIRA for the common/average user to use to suggest feature changes?

There are quite a number of folks with a technical background on these forums who understand what JIRA is (30 years as a VP of Design has made me awfully familiar with JIRA and its kin), but for many that term goes right over their heads. They' wonder "What a JIRA?" It's not especially user friendly because it was created as a system made for developers and project managers to manage scrums and either an agile or waterfall methodology for dev and engineering sprints and backlog, and not normally what anyone outside the tech field actually knows about or know how to use, especially as in suggesting improvements, technical, UX, or otherwise.

Again, asking the multitudes who would love to help is one thing, making it easy and visible for them to do so is the UX pain point there.

Just curious.

[Rowan Amore]

37 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

May I ask if there will ever be a system besides JIRA for the common/average user to use to suggest feature changes?

There are quite a number of folks with a technical background on these forums who understand what JIRA is (30 years as a VP of Design has made me awfully familiar with JIRA and its kin), but for many that term goes right over their heads. They' wonder "What a JIRA?" It's not especially user friendly because it was created as a system made for developers and project managers to manage scrums and either an agile or waterfall methodology for dev and engineering sprints and backlog, and not normally what anyone outside the tech field actually knows about or know how to use, especially as in suggesting improvements, technical, UX, or otherwise.

Again, asking the multitudes who would love to help is one thing, making it easy and visible for them to do so is the UX pain point there.

Just curious.

It's not really that hard if I was able to navigate it to report an issue and I'm the least tech savvy person around.

[elleevelyn]

9 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

 request changes to the system.  There are appropriate processes, including but not limited to Jira and in world User Groups, that should be used where users may discuss their concerns and submit suggestions and bug reports."
 

a thing about the JIRA is that submissions are expected to use more formal (technical) language, whereas the forum has room for informal (conversational) language as well as formal

currently there are 2 forum topics about changes to the system in which Linden staff are participating. The conversation has led to formal JIRA submissions being made, while at the same time the contents of the submissions continue to be talked about both nformally and formally

is my view that had these conversations not taken place then the JIRA  submissions would not have been made in the detail they have been, nor would the further JIRA submissions have eventuated with the depth of understanding  as a consequence of the ongoing conversation. And the changes to the system that have/are coming from these conversations eventuated in the form that they need to be, rather than in the form that Linden thought they needed to be

a similar thing happened with Bellissaria, there are/have been a lot of conversations on this forum between Moles and residents about change things. Conversations that led to Moles on occasion having a aha! moment and subsequently incorporating the aha! into the next iteration. Some of which forum conversations also led to Moles themselves filing formal JIRA submissions for changes to the system which did eventuate

the recent-ish trend of Moles and Lindens staff participating conversationally on this forum about potential changes to the system is I think a good thing, And it accords with the views of Ebbe and now Oberwolf than where possible and/or practial Linden staff are encouraged to engage with residents conversationally in an effort to positively strengthen the bond between the Linden company and its customers 

i get that d-slamming on Linden and Mole staff should not be tolerated, but there is a forum governance process to deal with this kind of behavior, which to be fair is already applied quite rigourously and fairly by the forum moderators in the main

edit add. Just point out that the difference between inworld group meetings is that group meetings conversations largely conducted orally within a time limit, there is little room for further thought, reflection and consideration. Whereas the forum conversation is written, and the time for reflection is unlimited

Edited November 2, 2023 by elleevelyn

[Love Zhaoying]

6 hours ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

May I ask

Yes!!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

17 minutes ago, elleevelyn said:

a thing about the JIRA is that submissions are expected to use more formal (technical) language, whereas the forum has room for informal (conversational) language as well as formal

currently there are 2 forum topics about changes to the system in which Linden staff are participating. The conversation has led to formal JIRA submissions being made, while at the same time the contents of the submissions continue to be talked about both nformally and formally

is my view that had these conversations not taken place then the JIRA  submissions would not have been made in the detail they have been, nor would the further JIRA submissions have eventuated with the depth of understanding  as a consequence of the ongoing conversation. And the changes to the system that have/are coming from these conversations eventuated in the form that they need to be, rather than in the form that Linden thought they needed to be

a similar thing happened with Bellissaria, there are/have been a lot of conversations on this forum between Moles and residents about change things. Conversations that led to Moles on occasion having a aha! moment and subsequently incorporating the aha! into the next iteration. Some of which forum conversations also led to Moles themselves filing formal JIRA submissions for changes to the system which did eventuate

the recent-ish trend of Moles and Lindens staff participating conversationally on this forum about potential changes to the system is I think a good thing, And it accords with the views of Ebbe and now Oberwolf than where possible and/or practial Linden staff are encouraged to engage with residents conversationally in an effort to positively strengthen the bond between the Linden company and its customers 

i get that d-slamming on Linden and Mole staff should not be tolerated, but there is a forum governance process to deal with this kind of behavior, which to be fair is already applied quite rigourously and fairly by the forum moderators in the main

edit add. Just point out that the difference between inworld group meetings is that group meetings conversations largely conducted orally within a time limit, there is little room for further thought, reflection and consideration. Whereas the forum conversation is written, and the time for reflection is unlimited

Thank you!

This elaborates in much more rich detail the point that @Katherine Heartsong made above. I agree with everything you say, emphatically. My own relatively limited experiences of JIRA submissions is that they are difficult to navigate, and tend to focus heavily on technical details -- which makes sense in the context of a JIRA, but less so if input from a broader community is wanted.

Fortunately, it doesn't sound at all as though we are actually being constrained from discussions here about the platform. And I agree to that I'd be a little surprised if we were: the tendency of late (with a few salient exceptions) has been for Lindens and Moles to use the forums just as you describe.

[Love Zhaoying]

I disagree because, if JIRA is the ONLY mechanism LL gave users for feature requests, etc. then they won't have expectations of technical language for initial JIRA submissions. 

I'll give an example from my own experience in IT development: the "User Story" as used in the "Scrum" development methodology. The "Development requirements" (which lead to "Sprints", etc.) start with a "user story", often framed as, "as a user, I want to..", etc. These "user stories" are not expected to have ANY technical language whatsoever. 

 

[elleevelyn]

21 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

My own relatively limited experiences of JIRA submissions is that they are difficult to navigate, and tend to focus heavily on technical details -- which makes sense in the context of a JIRA

you and me both

in all my lives on SL I have only ever filed 1 JIRA. Back in the day when attached MOAP was introduced I thought wooo! thats a good idea. So I made a attached music player in the form of an iPod.  For about a week I was happily wandering all over playing my own music and sometimes people would enable my player on their own viewer and was really great!

then on the Friday I went to this inworld concert where two long-time famous-in-SL musicians were playing. When the musicians turned on their stream (like they do) within a couple of minutes  about 20 of the people present crashed out of SL and so did one of the musicians. When they tried to log back in then insta-crash again for them

after a couple of minutes of this mayhem, a parcel manager figured it out and IM me and say that sorry they gunna kick me home, which was fair enough

i file a JIRA because was a pretty big problem, but I didn't know how to formally explain it in my submission. What attached MOAP had to do with parcel radio streams I had no idea then or do I have now. So I contacted the parcel manager person, who then went on the JIRA and explained what happened in more technical language. And Linden fixed it.

that's my one and only story of me filing a JIRA

[Fionalein]

Honestly? I ignore the JIRA system. I ordered no product from a developer team - so why am I supposed to jump through those hoops? If they really wanted feedback and bug reports from end users they'd have something more oriented towards customers than clients. Their loss by choice.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Fionalein

[Sid Nagy]

2 hours ago, Fionalein said:

Honestly? I ignore the JIRA system. I ordered no product from a developer team - so why am I supposed to jump through those hoops? If they really wanted feedback and bug reports from end users they'd have something more oriented towards customers than clients. Their loss by choice.

. 

Ah well.... billing and the commission fee handling works perfect all the time. That is at least something.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Sid Nagy
Second thoughts about some remarks.

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Ah well.... billing and the commission fee handling works perfect all the time. That is at least something.

Wait..sarcasm. Did I guess right?

[Katherine Heartsong]

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I disagree because, if JIRA is the ONLY mechanism LL gave users for feature requests, etc. then they won't have expectations of technical language for initial JIRA submissions. 

I'll give an example from my own experience in IT development: the "User Story" as used in the "Scrum" development methodology. The "Development requirements" (which lead to "Sprints", etc.) start with a "user story", often framed as, "as a user, I want to..", etc. These "user stories" are not expected to have ANY technical language whatsoever. 

 

True, but even those user stories need to be very much more formal in their structure within an Story or Epic and not just generic" user" and what said user wants to do. The structure is more formally ... "As a [someone], I want to be able to to [something/action] that let's me [achieve this, the goal] which provides me [this benefit]."

These have to be written to a number of basic rules (that I doubt more than a handful of people on the forums could articulate without knowing the user story and development/design process), two of them sounding contradictory but still need to be met; broad enough to allow for innovative design/technical solutions, while at the same time being quantitatively narrow enough to define, measure the success of, and actually get done (not too blue sky).

The someone does not need to be you, but it does need to be a very specified group of people or else the use case is too wide to define. Example: As a mainland landowner; As a rental agent; As a Marketplace store owner selling clothing; As an in world live music venue hostess, etc.

The something also has to be specific, and the more specific the better. Example: As a mainland land owner, I want to be able to move everything on my existing square, flat 1024 parcel, to another square 1024 flat parcel anywhere on the grid ...

The goal is the explanation of what the action does, again, specified, however can often involve qualitative aspects based on the groups emotions because it's user-centric: As a mainland land owner, I want to be able to move everything on my existing square, flat 1024 parcel, to another square 1024 flat parcel anywhere on the grid, so that I can move to a new parcel that I want to rent instead of own and offers much prettier surroundings ...

And finally, the benefit is often a quantitative measure of what good this will accomplish for said group of users. Finishing my example ...

As a mainland land owner, I want to be able to move everything on my existing square, flat 1024 parcel, to another square 1024 flat parcel anywhere on the grid, so that I can move to a new parcel that I want to rent instead of own and offers much prettier surroundings, so that I can more efficiently/quickly move and not make any mistakes by missing objects or needing to move everything one by one into position exactly as they exist on my current parcel.

Once you have these four story aspects written (and agreed to across multiple teams), then PMs, developers, and engineers can groom and plan their backlog of stories to prioritize their dev tasks and roadmaps based on something like an impact vs effort analysis review.

They don't require technical language, my example above didn't use anything technical, but they do require a structure that very very few people will submit correctly, therefore making the ticket harder to understand and plan for the LL PMs.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Katherine Heartsong

[Love Zhaoying]

10 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

True, but even those user stories need to be very much more formal in their structure within an Story or Epic and not just generic" user" and what said user wants to do. The structure is more formally ... "As a [someone], I want to be able to to [something/action] that let's me [achieve this, the goal] which provides me [this benefit]."

These have to be written to a number of basic rules, two of them sounding contradictory but still need to be met; broad enough to allow for innovative design/technical solutions, while at the same time being quantitatively narrow enough to define, measure the success of, and actually get done (not too blue sky).

The someone does not need to be you, but it does need to be a very specified group of people or else the use case is too wide to define. Example: As a mainland landowner; As a rental agent; As a Marketplace store owner selling clothing; As an in world live music venue hostess, etc.

The something also has to be specific, and the more specific the better. Example: As a mainland land owner, I want to be able to move everything on my existing square, flat 1024 parcel, to another square 1024 flat parcel anywhere on the grid ...

The goal is the explanation of what the action does, again, specified, however can often involve qualitative aspects based on the groups emotions because it's user-centric: As a mainland land owner, I want to be able to move everything on my existing square, flat 1024 parcel, to another square 1024 flat parcel anywhere on the grid, so that I can move to a new parcel that I want to rent instead of own and offers much prettier surroundings ...

And finally, the benefit is often a quantitative measure of what good this will accomplish for said group of users. Finishing my example ...

As a mainland land owner, I want to be able to move everything on my existing square, flat 1024 parcel, to another square 1024 flat parcel anywhere on the grid, so that I can move to a new parcel that I want to rent instead of own and offers much prettier surroundings, so that I can more efficiently/quickly move and not make any mistakes by missing objects or needing to move everything one by one into position exactly as they exist on my current parcel.

Once you have these four story aspects written (and agreed to across multiple teams), then PMs, developers, and engineers can groom and plan their backlog of stories to prioritize their dev tasks and roadmaps based on something like an impact vs effort analysis review.

They don't require technical language, my example above didn't use anything technical, but they do require a structure that very very few people will submit correctly, therefore making the ticket harder to understand and plan for the LL PMs.

Yes, but again, the "formal user stories" always ultimate start with a user asking something..informally, in non-technical language.  I did not mean to imply that whatever the user enters is "good enough for a user story", but instead that "hey, user stories exist so there's a parallel concept."  Because "yes", the user stories are broken down into individual requirements from the start for SCRUM/Agile.

The fact the Second Life users have to submit their informal, non-technical requests on the JIRA platform is kind of irrelevent.  

How can I say this "kindly"? The benefit to LL for (us) end-users submitting our requests on JIRA is - no matter what happens to the JIRA (denied, ignored, accepted, converted to a "work request", etc.) - the original request cannot get "lost" since it also started life on JIRA.  This enables LL to be "lazy" and not create a separate system for entering the original user requests (which someone at LL must filter and re-enter, or heaven forbid - which are automatically converted into JIRA tickets by some almost-definitely-available JIRA interfaces).

So, I'm not saying it's "good practice" to make users enter original requests on JIRA, just that there are "benefits". To Linden Lab.

The only point I really disagree on from earlier is, whether it is "appropriate" for users to enter "user language" requests onto JIRA.

Because, JIRA is whatever you want it to be. A ticketing system.

My own company has used many user-ticket systems over the 25 years I've been there.  The latest system has a nice, shiny user interface. It does not interface directly to JIRA.

ETA: Ironically, "user stories" are traditionally written, by hand, on 3x5 index cards.  If it doesn't fit on a 3x5 index card, it's too big for an individual requirement.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[PheebyKatz]

I guess openly stating anything about my secret crush on Dakota Linden would be out of place, then.

That's fine I guess, nobody needs to know about that, anyway. Least of all Dakota Linden.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 hours ago, PheebyKatz said:

I guess openly stating anything about my secret crush on Dakota Linden would be out of place, then.

That's fine I guess, nobody needs to know about that, anyway. Least of all Dakota Linden.

We could start a "secret crush" and/or "secret crush on Moles and Lindens" thread..