When, and how, should LL communicate important news about bugs etc?

[Innula Zenovka]

Case in point.   

The last sim rolling restarts including an emergency fix for a new permissions exploit.  

Unfortunately, this fix introduced a bug that makes attempts to update worn attachments fail, at least, and, at worst and more likely, in some circumstances render them completely useless by deleting scripts they contain.

The bug is acknowledged and a fix will apparently be available soon; further details in the jira at https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7283  

Something -- one of the many things -- that's rather annoyed me about this is that here's this bug that affects, apparently, a lot of content creators and their customers and can -- has done -- breaks a lot of existing content.  

But LL seems to be relying on in-world groups and on people posting in external blogs, forums and on twitter to get the word out.   I found out about it because  Amethyst Rosencrans, who discovered the bug after complaints from her customers, opened the jira on it and posted a warning to her product update group, to which I belong.     Other content creators have found out about it by receiving complaints from customers and asking in in-world scripting groups WTF is going on, and those of us who're aware of the jira are able to help.

But, as yet, there's been no general warning about this, not even on the grid status page (which not that many people read, I think).   Yes, Maestro and Oskar have been very open about it in the jira, but people are only going to look there if they've already encountered the problem, whether as a result of customer complaints or as a result of trying to update their collar or hud or whatever and finding it's been trashed.

So, I guess my question is, whether people think LL should publicise this sort of major issue -- because of this bug, stuff's not only not working as expected but actually getting ruined -- rather than leave it to residents to spread the bad news and, if so, what sort of warning would be appropriate?

I can see the problem that most issues -- certainly this one -- are very important for a not-insubstantial number of residents but don't really affect most people, so it might be a tricky decision about when something's important enough to publicise, but I'm not sure that just relying on residents to get the news out to affected parties is the best solution.

[Void Singer]

This is the end of the problem that I DO agree is truly broken....

there is literally no realtime system for announcements of general issues that affect a large quantity of users.... especially critical and time sensitive ones.

there needs to be  gridwide announcements both inworld and at login of issues that will break content or affect cash flow if those issues can be caused by taking normal actions. it doesn't need to be anything more than a brief description and a link to a web source, but it need to be in place...

 

and sadly this has been said repeatedly over the years by many people.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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Innula Zenovka wrote in part:

But LL seems to be relying on in-world groups and on people posting in external blogs, forums and on twitter to get the word out.

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Well, they need to make sure that they only communicate with enlightened viewer 3 users. As Charlar Linden points out in this thread, he can't talk to people who still use viewer 1.

[RockAndRoll Michigan]

There used to be grid-wide announcements, both in-world and at login, of issues that will seriously impact your time in-world. Grid status page says not to rez no-copy items, or make financial transactions? That would be communicated in-world as well though a wonderful blue pop-up message, as well as posted very clearly on the initial login screen.

Those messages were eliminated years ago. Why?

It doesn't speak well of a company's confidence in their product if they expect their users to rely on web browsers and Twitter feeds in order to have access to the information that they need to see in-world. Sure somebody could check the grid status page before they log in, but that doesn't help anybody who's already logged in.

Should we spend all our time logged in to SL refreshing the grid status page to make sure something bad hasn't happened? I think not. Linden Lab needs to start telling their users when the grid is unstable and it's not safe to buy that product you want. This is a very basic thing they've lost over the years.

[Void Singer]

while I remember WAY back when we had some spotty coverage inworld, I don't remember ever having login warnings...

but sadly this issue (and it is pretty damn big) hasn't even made it onto grid status.... and that's crap.

[Perrie Juran]

It was one of the things I had in mind when I titled this thread:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/New-Adult-Content-Rules-Did-I-Miss-The-Memo/m-p/1103027/message-uid/1103027#U1103027

We've been asking for In World communication for years.  If it really is a major programming complication to do this, at least explain that to us.  We know it's not a perfect world.  It's simply when we feel so ignored about issues like lack of communication that come up over and over again that we start to get rankled.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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RockAndRoll Michigan wrote:

There used to be grid-wide announcements, both in-world and at login, of issues that will seriously impact your time in-world. Grid status page says not to rez no-copy items, or make financial transactions? That would be communicated in-world as well though a wonderful blue pop-up message, as well as posted very clearly on the initial login screen.

Those messages were eliminated years ago. Why?

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Probably because the Lindens had to log in in order to send them. 

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't think that's particularly accurate any more, Ishtara; Oskar is certainly very active in the Second Life Beta Group, for example, and certainly at least one of the Lindens who has friended me (because of user group stuff I'm involved in) seems to log in and out quite frequently.

[Rhys Goode]

Server updates are announced every week.  For example: 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Second-Life-Server/Deploys-for-the-week-of-2011-09-12/m-p/1097979#M2204

 

Sadly, they do not include predictions about whether or not one of the updates contains a buggy bug fix, or a successful bug fix.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Rhys Goode wrote:

Server updates are announced every week.  For example: 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Second-Life-Server/Deploys-for-the-week-of-2011-09-12/m-p/1097979#M2204

 

Sadly, they do not include predictions about whether or not one of the updates contains a buggy bug fix, or a successful bug fix.

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Yes, I realise that.   But my point was nothing to do with announcements about server updates.

What I was trying to suggest, but obviously not sufficently clearly, is that once it's discovered that a server update has introduced a major bug that actually damages content when that content is used normally, it might be a good idea to for LL to warn people of the bug has been discovered, so as to try to minimise the disruption and damage caused by the bug.

[PeterCanessa Oh]

Lack of in-world communications from LL are my biggest bug-bear.  It was nice to see Rodvik posting here last week though, even if this doesn't have the reach and immediacy of in-world and log-in announcements.

[Couldbe Yue]

LL don't do communication, remember?

and I assume you've seen this.. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/New-Adult-Content-Rules-Did-I-Miss-The-Memo/m-p/1102797/message-uid/1102797#U1102797  Isn't a good thing we're prized for our community spirit and all that jazz..  pity it only extends to them using us to do their thinking for them rather than them passing on information.

hey ho

[Deej Kasshiki]

It's the infamous Linden corporate culture at work, again. Doing something as mundane (read: boring and potentially uncomfortable) as customer communication? Hell, that's no fun. There are too many pet projects to be worked on.

Firing off a quick forum barb or a condescending quip, now that's entertainment!

[Void Singer]

:: looks around hiding from Ciaran ::

I'd like to point out that expecting a major announcement for an updated FAQ is kinda silly... no polices changed.

 

that is entirely incomparable to situations where policies change (we get updated user agreements for those), or normal actions result in monetary or content loss (we only get spotty grid status reports on those).

 

issues of immediate improtance NEED to be announced inworld upon discovery, and added to all login messages until they are resolved.

I can only think of two situations where those would absolutely need to happen... both when normal actions are taken, and result in either content damage or monetary loss. general temporary failures are ok to report on the grid status page alone... TP or login failures (for instance) are annoying, but they don't take money out of my pocket... the other two do.

[Dogboat Taurog]

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Void Singer wrote:

:: looks around hiding from Ciaran ::

I'd like to point out that expecting a major announcement for an updated FAQ is kinda silly... no polices changed.

 

that is entirely incomparable to situations where policies change (we get updated user agreements for those), or normal actions result in monetary or content loss (we only get spotty grid status reports on those).

 

issues of immediate

improtance

NEED to be announced inworld upon discovery, and added to all login messages until they are resolved.

I can only think of two situations where those would absolutely need to happen... both when normal actions are taken, and result in either content damage or monetary loss. general temporary failures are ok to report on the grid status page alone... TP or login failures (for instance) are annoying, but they don't take money out of my pocket... the other two do.

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importance? :matte-motes-evil-invert:

lol.

[Void Singer]

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Attacking-a-person-s-spelling-and-grammar/m-p/1105491/message-uid/1105491/highlight/true#U1105491

[Dogboat Taurog]

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Void Singer wrote:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Attacking-a-person-s-spelling-and-grammar/m-p/1105491/message-uid/1105491/highlight/true#U1105491



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i beat you to it, remember irony?

 

[Void Singer]

it's not irony if you contradict yourself on purpose, they call that hypocrisy

[Dogboat Taurog]

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Void Singer wrote:

it's not irony if you contradict yourself on purpose, they call that hypocrisy

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i thought you were joking, in that case, hypocrisy suits you better.

[Void Singer]

:: looks around :: no contradictions here, you seem to be confused again.

[Dogboat Taurog]

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Void Singer wrote:

:: looks around :: no contradictions here, you seem to be confused again.

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you are the one who made a spelling mistake and spewed your thoughts in the grammar thread dear.

i was merely pointing out the irony of it.

[Qie Niangao]

Although sim updates are the most common triggers for such horror-show bugs, they could arise at any time, perhaps resulting from changes in central services, or even network configuration.  Therefore, it would not suffice to communicate solely on a thread about the latest updates.

The medium isn't that critical, though, really.  We can figure out a way to get the information out to where it's needed (everybody doesn't need to know everything), but there has to be one reliably updated source.

I can understand how fixing scary things gets higher priority than communicating about scary broken things. That's why it should never be the same person responsible for doing both.

[Void Singer]

aww how sweet, you think of me as "dear". don't worry, I won't tell your girlfriend.

 

you might want to get reading glasses though; I do exactly as I wrote. You, apparently, do not.

[Couldbe Yue]

You misunderstood the point, which is reasonable since you aren't aware of the background to the comment.

That comment related to the last couple of adult user group meetings and only makes sense within that context.  So it's not a relevant point in the overall discussion about communication to the wider SL audience.

[Void Singer]

well then, care to fill the rest of us in?