[New Premium Membership Features]

Nice perks but I hope you're including all concierge level customers in this too being as you don't need to be premium to be an estate owner it would be a tad churlish to exclude them.

[The Second Life Economy in Q2 2011]

There are a couple of problems with the calls for anyone to own a homestead, the first one being that it was LL lowering the price and requirements (you used to have to buy four at a time) of homesteads that was at the heart of the great Open space fiasco. They sold like hot cakes and the system couldn't handle the overheads.

Then there is the issue of Land Barons, whom, love them or loathe them, do pay a hell of a lot of tier to Linden Lab, they also save Linden Lab support and billing calls because they handle them as their customers need to speak directly with them, rather than going to Linden Lab.

Tier has always been the barrier to people being direct customers of Linden Lab, Land Barons offer more options in terms of land size and price.

[Join the Valentine’s Day Smooch-fest Event!]

When I left there was a queue to hug Courtney!

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

When something doesn't fit your agenda, even from the CEO, it's BS. This really sums up your trolling.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

So why do business have no problem having a website when there's loads of adult content on the web? Why do they advertise in x, r or 18 rated movies and publications? Why do they not mind that there are pubs and clubs next to their stores? Business cares about what sells and if they thought they could sell their wares here, they'd be here.

There are businesses here who use the platform for communication, IBM, SUN and Adobe spring immediately to mind, these are big business.

Then we have the educators, who are still here and still using the platform. Those who aren't here aren't put off by the content, they're put off by the lack of an angle.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Gavin, I know for sure it would make some people very angry if I pointed out that some of what is being created and sold in Second Life probably drives away other types of potential business.  If that is the case, it might make sense to ease out business that has limited or maxed out value to make way for other business that is believed to have greater value.

I'm willing to wait and see how it goes.

This is a tired argument, business doesn't really give two hoots as long as they can sell their wares, they wouldn't have a web presence otherwise. Business gets driven away because they can't find a way of selling their wares.

[Viewer 2.5 with Web Profiles Has Arrived]

Lol, just disabled my profile should be visible on the web, but hey, who did that German translation for that checkbox? Google? Try again! It's wrong!

Tell them what the right translation is, they don't bite ...often!

I can recall a few years ago trying to talk a resident through deeding land, I forget her nationality now but she was really reluctant to click deed as it suggested she'd be giving the land away.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

There's something sinister about all these Facebook promos from Linden Lab, one wonders what the next Facebook link will be, Facebook comments on the new forums perhaps? The new forum software is under NDA so we'll have to wait and see.

[Viewer 2.5 with Web Profiles Has Arrived]

By the way, just because I leave a comment here does not mean that I want to receive emails of comments afterwards. Apparently that is the default setting because I did not choose it.

Another example of LL making defaults that fit their needs as opposed to the users. I am starting to be convinced that LL has no respect for their current users.

Yes it's the default, click on your name, go to edit preferences, click on Email Notification preferences and you'll see the defaults there, you probably want everything set to no.

Then click on your name again, click manage email notifications and that will show any notifications you're currently subscribed to.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

There was no sensible argument against the proposal, it dealt with PG next to mature, it dealt with predictable experience, it dealt with allowing the teens in, it ticked every single box, who the hell would have opposed it?

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

LL's refusal to listen to their users at the time of the adult continent fiasco is a classic example of why people feel they don't listen, the community put forth suggestions that would have made the teen merger far more suitable and LL ignored it.

[Getting Immersed in Second Life]

Up The Villa!

[Viewer 2.5 with Web Profiles Has Arrived]

A new chat system is on the way, and really, all this effort just to display our profiles on the web would be silly, other features have to be part of it, so I'd imagine you're on the right lines.

[Viewer 2.5 with Web Profiles Has Arrived]

I don't see the point of the web profile. It seems completely useless

 

The point is, you can be searched on the web, not just inside SL. For networking, it's a huge plus.

I would like to think there's more to it than that, such as having functionality via the profile to contact people inworld. Networking can be achieved fine within SL.

[Viewer 2.5 with Web Profiles Has Arrived]

Ok just a question. Are the people who are saying here they link to facebook, flickr and twitter, linking to human accounts or accounts for your avatar? I'm really curious. I just can't imagine presenting Second Life information to the world, particularly that people I work with might see. I have all these social sites except Facebook, but I wouldn't dream of mentioning Second Life on them. Of course, I don't play Facebook games either, so I guess I'm out of the playing loop.

I have a flickr and Twitter account in my Second Life name, so that's not an issue really. Facebook of course don't believe in the concept of avatar names, so that's a different kettle of fish.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

 

We didn't say that we removed them because they were not democratic - we said that we removed them because having them was not useful.

They are useful to me, I can setup a filter on the Jira to see which issues I've voted on, which have been updated and which have been closed with a couple of easy to accomplish queries, watching them entails emails, which means I either read redundant information as I can easily follow these issues on the Jira, or I dump them straight to trash, which isn't a great idea.

Most people who use the Jira, get it that votes don't equal fixes or implementation, however all that's going to happen is that votes become watches, what next, remove watch?

Just leave it as it is, votes aren't hurting anyone and they do get people involved in the Jira.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

 

Watch to show interest in an issue. We get emails when we watch. Deal with emails effectively.

To me, that means filter them to a folder. To others that might mean filtering to trash.

But I'm interested in moving forward in a positive and effective manner. Standing around complaining for hours about something I can control with 30 seconds of typing on my email program.. that's not an effective use of my time or energy.

So am I interested in moving forward, I can make more effective, more streamlined and more easy to follow filters on the Jira than I can via email, but to "vote" I have to watch and receive unnecessary emails, already people are telling people to "watch" an issue instead of voting because voting is going away, this is fast becoming a pointless exercise. They should leave alone and get on with better things and leave it at explaining that votes don't represent importance.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

Or you can build a query on the Jira itself and avoid email crap of people correcting typos, but then you're not interested in the issue apparently.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

The count of Watchers is useful to us in terms of guaging the number of  people so affected by the issue that they're staying in the conversation  around it; this helps us judge which issues are "hottest", but doesn't  allow the system to be gamed towards a specific resolution. It also shows us that we have more people willing to help us design a solution.

I'm sorry, but this is sounding more and more like you simply don't want issues to have a high number of votes, watches are no more representative than votes, they are just more likely to lead to people not watching due to emails in.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

At least for scenarios like this, watches are are a more sane gauge as people lose interest in one hot topic and move to another. If you're really interested in the long term, you'll set a watch and be interested in what others have to say enough to watch the emails and are probably willing to actively participate in those issues rather than "vote and go".

Why? Once the initial emails peter out, people will just forget they're watching them as they're getting no more updates on the issues, if they're heavily commented on, people will stop watching to avoid the emails, watches are not really any better than votes in indicating the importance of an issue, they may as well leave it alone.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

My own feeling is that the fact that watching means signing up for the emails will cause people (as someone noted earlier) to make a concious choice to only watch the ones that they think really matter one way or the other.  That means that we Lindens can treat the number of watchers as a better guage of how much people care than we ever could with votes.

I don't need to watch an issue to be interested in it, votes register a sign of interest, watching represents a sign of wanting my mailbox filling up with messages, which I don't need to do, or waste the resources of your system, my system and my ISP by receiving emails i don't need to receive to follow an issue.

I can find a filter of issues I've voted on, on the Jira, the better solution is to just leave it as is but make it abundantly clear that votes are a register of interest.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

On the Jira issue, just change the word vote to "Interested" and keep it the way it is, watching an issue just leads to emails being sent to your box, then again as a typo is spotted, then again as another typo is spotted.

When you rolled out this software one of the first complaints was about the emails via subscribed posts, if people want emails they watch, if they don't, they register interest, although why you're so hung up about votes is a mystery, they do no harm.

[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

"Facebook is the best place to find out about cool things going on in Second Life"

It really isn't, the best place to find out about cool things going on in Second Life, is in Second Life. Why on earth would you want to send people to Facebook? There is no way that Facebook is the best place to find out about cool things in Second Life, that's a rather insulting statement Amanda.

Twitter and Plurk both have very active Second Life communities, who can post without fear of having their account deleted for having the audacity to use their Second Life name and are chock full of conversations with fellow residents.

Hmm you're chaning the forums again, are you changing the software or doing a redesign via Jivespace?

[Marketplace User Group: 2/3 9am PST]

Toysoldier.Thor wrote:

Exactly my point Rachel regarding the Clutter Tax.  You were very much for it - I was very much against it.  So using the example I posted, you are in Focus Group #1 and when asked by LL you promote it, I get invited to Focus Group #2 and I express to LL how stupid an idea it was.  LL has 2 Merchant Focus Groups, two opposite messages.  So... how much guidance do they get from these two groups?  Reaction - "Merchants are not commited to either dirction so we will make up out own minds.

Agreed, this is my fear, I am compltely opposed to PIOF for sales because of how SL works, I refuse to put PIOF on all of my accounts, that's five points of failure but if these closed user groups find favour with that with no open platform, where is the chance of the opposing view?

[Marketplace User Group: 2/3 9am PST]

Rachel Darling wrote:

 

Loving Clarity wrote:

ah!  I misunderstood.  I thought that was to be in addition to they standard style open invitation meetings.  I didn't realize it was a replacement.

I also thought it was meant to be "in addition to." That's a shame, if it's the case...after a couple weeks the trolls would have found better things to do and the OH meetings would have begun to be productive. As annoyed as I was with the "problem children," I would like to think that LL realized the first few meetings would be overrun with pent-up frustration, and given it a few weeks to settle itself down.

I'm of the understanding this is a general initiative by LL to replace OH's with user group, a blog post is rumoured to be in the pipeline.