[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

It also helps if they discuss the actual issue in a civil and constructive way rather than competing to see who can come up with the most insidious interpretation of our motives,

Could I just point out that a motive having an insidious interpretation does not necessarily prove that it's an incorrect interpretation...

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

WolfBaginski/Master/Han/Setekh/Arkady/Mike  and others that had questions about bans - As the Community  Participation Guidelines say, we moderate at our discretion. This policy  only applies to the community platform (not inworld) and other  communication channels outlined specifically in the policy. However, you  will receive warnings before a ban from the Community Platform is in  place. A community platform ban may be for a day, week, month, or  longer--depending on how many offenses have been committed. I will share  more details regarding our moderation procedure when the new platform  is launched next month. Hope this answers your question.

Arkady--Sure--you can point the discussions that are not appropriate to host on an SL forum to SLU. I’m cool with that.

 

And  for those that are worried about expressing opinions on the  Blogs/Forums, please do! We want to host a lively dialogue filled with  meaty, thoughtful discussions. We welcome dissenting opinions! The  guidelines are in place so that we can all maintain a constructive  dialogue on the issues that we all most care about. You might notice  that I have left in place nearly every comment on this blog--both  positive and negative--and only removed one that devolved into name  calling--clearly in violation of our Community Participation Guidelines.   Regardless of how you feel about a particular issue, product feature,  or policy, it’s important that we communicate with respect and courtesy.  .

Thank you for that Amanda, I feel a little more optimistic now - but I'll reserve judgement until I see what actually happens in practise, if you don't mind...

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

While reading the different comments to this post I found many opinions that I share. To name the two most important ones:

1. New guidlines for posting means LL threatens residents who don't follow the "party line" to get banned in SL.

The failure to respond to the many times this point has been raised in this blog speaks volumes about the real intention of these changes ...

I don't mean to sound flip, but what exactly is it that has changed between the old guidelines and the new guidelines to make you think there is now a codified policy to threaten residents who don't follow the party line? Because I'm not seeing anything different to allow you to make that case.

That's leaving aside the possibility of an uncodified policy, of course.

I'll go for uncodified, as suggested by observation :-

The emphasis placed on the new Community Guidelines in the OP, with it's insistence that LL can ban anyone 'without warning or explanation'.

The fact that 'airing grievances' is now a bannable offence, what exactly is a 'grievance' ?

The fact that you can be banned for complaining about someone being banned.

The fact that it would appear to be happening already - see thread http://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/59372?start=0&tstart=0 - needless to say this thread has already been censored out of existence - but it referred to an in-world suspension that a resident received as a result of an unspecified Forums post back in September.  That topic itself may violate Forums guidelines.  The post that lead to the suspension was apparently criticizing the previous Support outsourcing company.

The last straw for me was seeing a linden threaten to remove someone's Jira privileges the other day, simply for disagreeing with him about what constitutes a viewer problem.

It's a sad day, but I'm afraid I trust neither their motives or their actions any more - and this "we'll improve communications by removing feedback mechanisms and restricting what you are allowed to say even more than before" does nothing to rekindle that trust.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

While reading the different comments to this post I found many opinions that I share. To name the two most important ones:

1. New guidlines for posting means LL threatens residents who don't follow the "party line" to get banned in SL.

The failure to respond to the many times this point has been raised in this blog speaks volumes about the real intention of these changes ...

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

I want to know if forum and blog posts that are critical of Linden Lab and Linden Lab policies are now going to begin to earn in-world bans.

Can we have an answer to this please Amanda ?  Just how freely can we speak without putting our personal investments in SL at risk ?

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

I have a doubt about the new Community Participation Guidelines

Spamming, Solicitation and Advertising: ...Do not reference other websites offering any product  or service.

What is the exact sense of "Do not reference other websites offering any product  or service"? Can I reference websites (forums, blogs, web pages...) with some commercial goals but also with tutorials, help threads, forums...?

Can I reference SLU as an alternative when your forum moderators are once again censoring valid discussions for no good reason ?