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Madelaine McMasters

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Posts posted by Madelaine McMasters

    SL new user retention, expectation and usability

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    11 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

    The majority of people I know spend a ton of money on their phone and don't have devices that would run SL.  

    This is a demographic shift that works against SL. Laptop/desktop sales are in a decline that's projected to continue for years, while most humans have smartphones capable of running at least some form of SL competition.

    • Like 3

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    19 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:
    20 hours ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

    When I lived in the USA I had maples on my land. Depending on how good the previous summer had been, each spring it was 60-80 gallons of sap to boil down for each gallon of maple syrup.  Maples are also kind enough to drop plenty of hot-and-clean burning firewood each year too so they took care of cooking it down as well :)

    I think it is @Madelaine McMasterswho talks about the sap occasionally. And no, I don't mean "the ladies" (you know which ones).

    For many years, I'd go maple sugaring with friends. Their sugar shack could process up to a thousand gallons of syrup in a season, from 40,000 gallons of sap. After collecting sap into a tank-sleigh pulled through the snowy forest stand by mules, we'd get all toasty around the wood fired evaporator while eating potluck.

    It's a fun way to spend a crisp late winter day, even if you are prone to sugarfooting*.

     

     

    *Accidentally spilling sap into the top of your boot, because you're too proud to admit you're not strong enough to carry two full buckets to the sleigh, like the boys.

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 2

    Discrimination rules to be added to TOS?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    25 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

    Right, not a true force but a virtual one wherein an avatar is "forced" to change their location relative to the virtual position they held before.

    The legal definitions of force and space are physical. There is no physicality in SL, so there is no force, no space, no location, no position.

    Every place you think you have visited in SL is actually a service of delivering data to your computer from a database in LL's rented AWS servers. The LL Terms of SERVICE explain our rights to access this service and to control access to those portions of the service we rent with intent to display our private intellectual property (and that property we license from others). On the flip side of your argument, I can imagine that preventing users from controlling access to their private intellectual property might constitute compelled speech.

    • Like 6
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    Discrimination rules to be added to TOS?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    Just now, Arielle Popstar said:

    That could be a point other then that all the rest of the ones invited to take part in a public endeavour would also be "shirts". And the reasoning behind the no shirt, no shoes, no service is health laws so there is some justification to public safety.

    Restaurants and clubs can legally enforce dress codes, which have nothing to do with public safety.

    • Like 4

    Open Questions Survey for my academic thesis

    in Second Life Education and Nonprofits

    Posted

    Hi Helen,

    1) My avatars (I have several) are representations of my thinking more than my RL appearance. When I started here 14 years ago, I picked, from the small selection of starter avatars, the one that most closely resembled me. It did not resemble me much. After years of fine tuning, it still doesn't. It's difficult to create and dress a female avatar with my RL proportions. I think I'm able to fairly fully represent myself across all my avatars, but not with any single one. To be fair, my RL body doesn't fully represent me, either. I am large, I contain multitudes.

    2) Yes, I think my human SL avatar is more attractive than my RL self. I imagine that's true for many SL residents who have human avatars. Beauty is easy to achieve here. In RL it takes effort I'd rather spend doing other things. I clean up in RL when it's appropriate, but in SL there's no need, as getting dirty takes time and money.

    3) I am an introvert in both SL and RL, though nobody would know from my behavior. SL allows me to live the absurdities I can only imagine in RL, though I do share my imaginings in both worlds. Anyone meeting me in either world would recognize my behavior in the other.

    4) I like to make people laugh, so disapproval isn't an issue in either world. SL embraces substantial variety in physical representation and behavior, so I'd actually have to expend some effort to earn disapproval. I spend most of my time as a little devil, which more accurately represents my nature than my human avi.

    5) "Maddy" is my RL nickname, so I chose compatible first name. My last name is a hint at my intimate side. "McMistress" wasn't available.

    Good luck on your thesis!

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 2

    SL new user retention, expectation and usability

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Madelaine McMasters
    *Inspected and corrected by Lindal Kidd

    5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

    As a programmer / scripter, I'm expected to "QA" my own stuff before giving it to someone else.  Unless there's a dedicated, highly technical QA person who is VERY good and experienced at bug-hunting.

    FMEA* (failure modes and effects analysis) was part of my hardware design responsibility. My FMEA* analyses were typically larger than all the other documentation (specs, design reviews, theories of operation, etc) combined. One reached 600 pages and consumed a month of my time at the end of a project.

    There was a parallel system for software/system QA, involving running through expected operation of the system. That was, however, insufficient. One of our engineering managers, George, had a truly remarkable ability to break out software by doing stuff no conscientious person would try, like sitting on a machine's keyboard or plugging/unplugging a machine as fast as possible, for one minute straight. We eventually tried to codify George into our test procedures. There is a limit to how far you can go in testing.

    Still, these QA measures do not include failure to understand the user. The president of the wonderful little company I worked for told me that, to understand the people who would use the things I designed, I needed to get out into the field and observe them. Asking questions was necessary, but not sufficient. Asking questions presumes you know which questions to ask. You don't. You can't.

    This was demonstrated vividly during a visit to a customer. I was designing roll around medical instrument cart at the time, with a large information display. The company's existing product mounted the display on a two axis gimbal, so users could best position it. The gimbal was more expensive than the display, so I wondered if I could eliminate it. I went to our largest user of the existing system and asked how important the gimbal was... "We couldn't live without it. We adjust it several times a day."

    For the next three days, I lived with that customer, observing dozens of procedures. When in the patient's room, the display was always positioned front and center, projecting at operator eye height. When in the procedure room, the display was similarly situated. The path between the patient and procedure rooms contained at least three raised door thresholds, over which the cart had to roll. At each threshold, the jostling would cause the display to shift position. Once at the destination, the operator would re-align the display, returning it to within a few degrees of "default".

    I removed the gimbal from my design, locating the display at approximately female eye height (staff were predominantly female). The new system was enthusiastically received, with users claiming it felt more solid. We received no complaints about the fixed position display.

    In previous products, I'd instrumented the UI with simple tracking code that reported menu traversals and such, to give my team an idea what features were most used. This allowed us to tune future versions and products to minimize "travel' though the UI. We were often surprised by the metrics we received. Getting into the field and observing people using our systems usually explained away our surprise.

    I have wondered if LL has such instrumentation in SL, to attempt to measure friction in the experience. SL is far more complicated than anything I've ever designed, and I imagine this would be a daunting task with questionable value. Still, there is value in observing your dog food being eaten by actual dogs, who might someday replace you.

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 2

    SL new user retention, expectation and usability

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

    Residents can't have it both ways, but we also can't toss away either goal without alienating a lot of our fellow residents. That would lead to an even quicker race to the end of SL.  It's easy to understand why many people look back wistfully at the old days. Life was simpler and the learning curve wasn't as steep before we had mesh objects and avatars (created by semi-professionals and imported to SL), multiple competing viewers, Experiences, BOM, Bento, and all the other enhancements of the past decade and more. But we asked for those things. Or, rather, some of us asked for some of them and others asked for modified versions of them. We built this world. It's our world, our imagination, and it's our fault.  (Kind of like RL, now that I think about it .... )

    Another irreversible process, leading to "You can't get there from here."

    • Like 2

    SL new user retention, expectation and usability

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Mr Amore said:

    I would delete my avatar before resorting to a BoM shirt!

    I routinely wear BoM shirts I purchased 14 years ago. Creators of SL women's fashion seem to think that I want to show cleavage, even when wearing my mechanic's jumpsuit. I don't. Since many mesh outfits clip the body, it's not possible to wear anything but BoM underneath. So, I do.

    • Like 4

    SL new user retention, expectation and usability

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

    I think that there is a tendency for some, and most especially coders of various sorts, to rather assume that what seems "duh, obvious" to them is not so for most of the rest of us.

    I don't think you meant "not", as indicated by the rest of your post. I'll also add some nuance to your contention.

    Helpful experts (like Rolig, who's helpfulness is beyond reproach) are aware that "the rest of us" don't have a fraction of their knowledge, and they do a good job of leading people through the thickets. Even the least empathetic of experts know that their expertise is not universal. That's why they think they're experts.

    Even so, it's actually pretty difficult for an expert to fully grasp what a noob doesn't know. I think Rolig would agree that she came to SL with a background that helped her climb SL's learning curve faster than the average noob. This is a workable problem for experts who directly engage noobs having difficulties. It's a serious problem for those who don't, like LL staff developers.

    There's an old phrase, "eating your own dog food" that's supposed to suggest that the best way to ensure the quality of your product is to consume it. When I first heard that phrase, I scratched my head. I still do. How do I, as a human, learn anything about the quality of dog food by eating it? For a complex thing like SL, the gap between an expert and a noob is like the gap between a human and a dog, with one exception...

    A noob can become an expert. But, that's an irreversible process (entropy+irony). An expert, try as she might (and I did throughout my career), can't regain noobity. Telling a LL staffer to create a new avatar and walk through Welcome Island won't reveal all the problems. She knows so much more than she knows she knows that it's unreasonable to expect recreating the noob experience to solve the noob problem. Worse yet, a real noob doesn't know what she doesn't know. She might ask a question that makes no sense to the expert because she doesn't have the vocabulary to express it. The gap between the noob and the expert might have nothing to do with SL.

    Rolig has the advantage of dealing directly with the people who're having problems. She will recognize when her help isn't helping and adjust accordingly. I've seen her do it. A developer, who writes to a specification and gets checked by other experts, doesn't get that immediate feedback.

    This, I think, has bearing on the new user retention problem.

    • Like 6

    PSYCHONAUTS FOR SL CREATIVITY

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

    Wasn't there a giant bird that disemboweled him repeatedly, as encouragement to continue (or regardless)? I may be mixing my horrific myths.

    You might be thinking of Prometheus, who was chained to a rock. An eagle would feast on his liver every day, which would heal overnight. If you'd rather push rocks than eat liver (ick!), your eagle would be Sisyphus.

    • Thanks 1

    PSYCHONAUTS FOR SL CREATIVITY

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    15 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

    I have long forgotten most of his novel The Myth of Sisyphus, in which it appears, but it builds on the legend of Sisyphus, who was doomed to push the same rock uphill for eternity.  Why did he keep doing it?  Did he have a choice? Is there hope, even in a life of futility?

    I never push the rock the same way twice.

    • Like 2

    Discrimination rules to be added to TOS?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    22 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

    The question is not what they can be SUED for but what they can be held criminally accountable for, IMO.  All the sex, violence, etc. is RP and graphic representations of RP such as that is not, AFAIK, illegal.  They took steps to stop the AP because graphic representations of that IS illegal.

    The rest of what you're not allowed to do, which they rarely take steps to prevent or stop,  isn't something they would probably be held accountable for in a criminal way.  

    So, while I agree with most of what @Paul Hexemsaid, the reason is not 'being sued' but being prosecuted/investigated for a crime.  That whole FBI joke about kid avatars in SL?  Was it or is it really a joke?

    I wonder if the court of public opinion worries LL more than actual courts. Taking much of the forums out of the public eye while simultaneously opening an adult wing suggests that to me.

    • Like 2

    Discrimination rules to be added to TOS?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Madelaine McMasters

    27 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

    I didn't mean men exhibit a higher degree of violence.  I had been pondering two of my past relationships, perhaps the ones that meant the most to me, and I feel I lost those relationships due to a man's desire to prey and to conquer,  such as a need to make a sexual conquest to which he then doesn't even desire it anymore once it's been conquered, and that this desire comes from an ancient, animalistic part in us but I was struggling to put it into words.  For example, at one time I may have asked a friend where her brother is and she might say "oh, he's out prowling for some new prey to conquer".  

    I was thinking it was something more base; man the hunter, man the highest on the food chain.  

    I was simply wondering if it's something deep in the psyche and it's animal in it's nature.

    If I lost those two relationships due to a man's need to conquer, if there is that need, it was a shame for that to happen to what was essentially really love.

    When I was a kid, and watching old cartoons of cave men dragging women around by their hair (and the women generally getting the last laugh), I was taught that these stories were modern, and being painted on ancient people we knew almost nothing about. Well, we know more now...

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/11/16/dont-blame-gender-inequity-on-our-ancestors-ancient-women-were-big-game-hunters-too/?sh=710f4f956b4e

    Raised in a gender indifferent household, I've been fairly unable to discern much difference between men and women that can't be chalked up to their particular environment/situation. Given equal landscapes to conquer, I can see only physical size as a potential discriminator, and that's not much of a factor in mechanized societies. That men are seen as the conquerors is essential to patriarchy. Patriarchy is not essential to conquest.

    • Like 6
    • Thanks 1

    PSYCHONAUTS FOR SL CREATIVITY

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    Just now, Luna Bliss said:

    cool...do you actually own one?  I was looking at them on various shopping sites and fully prepared for a price shock but they actually aren't so expensive.  Did you find it difficult to operate?

    Yep, it's around here somewhere. I got mine used, for less than some of the pizzas it carried.

    Difficult to operate? Not at all.
    Difficult to master? Yeah.
    Difficult to play well enough to be welcomed into a gig? Depends on the pizza.

    • Like 1
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